From creator to data: the post-record music industry and the digital conglomerates

Abstract

2 From creator to data: the post-record music industry and the digital conglomerates Keith Negus abstract This article contributes to research on the changing music industries by identifying three dynamics that underpin the shift towards a post-record music industry. First, it examines how musicians have found themselves redefined as content providers rather than creative producers; a historical change from recorded music as product to content. Second, it focuses on tensions between YouTube and recording artists as symptomatic of disputes about the changing artistic and economic value of recorded music. Third, it extends this debate about the market and moral worth of music by exploring how digital recordings have acquired value as data, rather than as a commercial form of artistic expression. The article explores how digital conglomerates have become significant in shaping the circulation of recordings and profiting from the work of musicians, and highlights dynamics, structures and patterns of conflict shaping the recording sector specifically, and music industries more generally.

East Asian pop music idol production and the emergence of data fandom in China

“…In China, the digital economy facilitated platformization rather than the growth of talent acquisition, and conventional cultural production (Shen et al, 2019). This was part of a more general historical change in the music, media and entertainment industries: A shift from investment in production and manufacture (the selling of individual recordings as artefacts) towards a subscription model of access to digital content, underpinned by datafication as a means of risk management and revenue generation (Negus, 2019).…”

“…This term was initially associated with followers of K-pop idols after the Korean wave reached its peak in China during 2016, and subsequently entered the lexicon of fans engaged with many types of entertainment. A data fan understands how their online activities are monitored and tracked to produce metrics that quantify variables measuring the popularity of performers; semantic information cataloguing the meanings associated with performers; and sonic data that register the most frequently accessed musical characteristics of tracks (Negus, 2019; Prey, 2016). Data fans adopt individual and collective strategies to deliberately intervene and to influence the statistical, sonic and semantic data collected by and reported on digital platforms and social media.…”

Is music streaming bad for musicians? Problems of evidence and argument

“…1 Important strands of research focus on ways in which MSS recommend, playlist and 'curate' music (Barna, 2017;Bonini and Gandini, 2019;Drott, 2018;Prey et al, 2020), and on changing ways in which musicians, intermediaries and musical communities negotiate new ways of relating to audiences and achieving their aesthetic and political goals, including, of course, the important role of social media (Powers, 2015;Baym, 2018). Some of this research places the new system in historical and industrial context, often emphasising change and continuity in political-economic control and power (Hesmondhalgh and Meier, 2018;Meier and Manzerolle, 2019;Negus, 2019). A number of studies focus on new dynamics of music consumption (Johansson et al, 2017), especially emerging forms of exploration and discovery (Hagen and Lüders, 2017;Hanrahan, 2019;McCourt and Zuberi, 2016).…”

Music in Sociology: The Frankfurt School, Adorno and Culture Industry

“…Bugünün müzik dünyasından söz edildiğinde teknoloji ile iç içe geçmiş ve dijital dünyanın girişimcilerinin aktif olarak rol aldığı şirket ve şahısları görürüz. Özellikle Z kuşağının müziğin yeni paydaşları olarak, dinleyici olma kriterleri, sosyal medyayı kullanma biçimleri, tüketici alışkanlıkları, müzik endüstrisi literatürünün en fazla öne çıkan konularıdır (Walzer, 2017;Golden, 2019;Negus, 2018) Türkiye müzik endüstrisi tarihine kısaca baktığımızda, özellikle teknolojik gelişmelerin dünya ile eş zamanlı olmadığı görülür. Fonograf dünyadan yaklaşık 20 yıl sonra 1895'de Türkiye'ye gelir (Ünlü, 2004 (Jay, 2001, s. 167).…”