See if you can guess which band this is- They started as a local indie band, going from club to club and occasionally getting a spot in a regional music festival. Once their name and their music started to pick up traction online, through shared videos and word of mouth, they became a national and then an international sensation. They never signed with a major music label, but thousands of people download their music every day over services like iTunes and Google Play Music.

Who is it? The truth is, this could refer to any number of bands operating today. Fugazi did it by starting their own record label. O.A.R. passed their tapes around in their shows and encouraged their fans to bootleg their music. OK Go heavily promoted themselves in the Chicago area through inventive advertising tactics. Even individual artists like Chance the Rapper broke out into the big time without the need for a major music label to back him up.

These are the kind of success stories that are more and more common these days, thanks to the ease of viral marketing due to the online music services provided by the internet. Now, if someone sees a great band performing and wants to show that band to the world, they can post their performances to YouTube, write a blog about them on a music-oriented site like this one, or create social media posts that bring attention to the band that otherwise might not get much traction.

Some bands just don’t know how to market themselves. Their talent is in performance and writing rather than self-promotion. They have to rely on their fanbase to do the marketing work for them, and that happens more and more often these days.

In the past, it would be very difficult to make any kind of breakout success beyond a single city or a small region without a major music label behind you. It was expensive to market yourself and get your music out to the public, because it had to be physically handed out or mailed. Now, music can be passed around electronically, sometimes for free. That makes it so easy to share what a band is doing and allow more people to discover them in a short period of time.

Even though a lot of bands and musicians will flare up and then flare out, not lasting in the public consciousness for very long, plenty of bands manage to retain their foothold on the music market and stay relevant for years after a breakout success. They usually do this by releasing a steady stream of music, relying on singles rather than the conventional album release. For these smaller bands, the typical album format may not be viable, and operating outside of the standard label methods often means doing a few things differently. Simply releasing music regularly is often one of their best means of marketing in a modern world where each song has a chance to be a viral hit.

Who knows how long pandemic lockdown will last around the world? Some analysts are predicting that we won’t be rid of the virus and see a return to normal for another year or two. Some say that things will never go back to normal. Whether the lockdown last another six months or a few more years, the music industry needs to adapt and change before they lose their audience and their sales.

Obviously, some changes are already taking place. Taylor Swift released an album recently that she nicknamed her quarantine album- Folklore. She’s not the only one. Beyoncé has been working with a format for years now that is perfect for quarantine time, releasing albums digitally, without a lot of marketing or fanfare. She is doing nearly the same thing once more with her new visual album Everything is Love.

This may be the way forward for now. The good news is that the music industry has become mostly digital at this point, with online releases occurring more often than physical album releases. The limited studios space and the limitations of working with a smaller crew due to the virus concerns makes it better for bands and musicians to focus on releasing a song or two at a time rather than a whole album at once. Many musicians have found that this works well for them over the past decade anyway, since a lot of modern musicians are very independent and are working with limited funds and resources.

One of the biggest changes to the industry Is how concerts are managed. Some recent examples have shown the world that it is possible to have a digital concert or an online performance rather than a filled stadium or a sold-out concert hall. Limiting how many people are attending a live event is important right now, and the music industry has already been moving in that direction for years.

Fortnite recently hosted a rap concert live, and it brought in 30 million viewers. This innovative marriage of video games and music performance is just one way that the industry is adapting to find new monetization streams and reaching people in a different way than before.

Stay-at-home orders are affecting numerous industries. Jane from Maid Service Calgary says “House cleaning companies are adapting by offering more disinfectant services”. Food delivery companies are offering contact-less service. The music industry is having to adapt by offering more digital services than before.

Because more people are staying home than ever before, a lot of music consumption is happening through the smart devices and televisions that people have at home. Physical sales of albums and singles are not nearly as prevalent as they were before, and musicians and labels have to adapt to the change and make sure that their product is available digitally as much as possible. Those artists who have stuck to a single platform and relied on physical sales to make up the difference may be expanding to other digital marketplaces soon. That may be the only way they can keep their sales up in an industry that is increasingly splintered.

Read our previous article about the spice girls here: http://goldfieldsmusic.com/2020/04/13/are-the-spice-girls-more-valuable-than-the-beatles/

When someone thinks about the most valuable names in music, the ones that come to mind are probably the top artists at the moment and then the classic artist that everyone knows and loves. That’s why it may be surprising to many people to learn that the Beatles are actually considered less valuable to music streaming services than artists from after 2000 who don’t hold nearly as much significance.

One glaring example of this is a comparison between the Spice Girls and the Beatles. If you ask just about anyone who they like more, they will say the Beatles, but music streaming services charge more for Spice Girls songs. You can create this example with any number of artists, comparing the Rolling Stones to Destiny’s Child, for example, and many others.

Most major streaming services will price songs from this century’s artists higher than they would an artist from the previous century, not because they think one is more valuable than the other but because of what people are willing to pay for their songs. It could be said that most people who want the Beatles’ music already have it, but there is also an argument to be made that those who are buying music these days on streaming platforms are likely to want to buy the songs that they grew up hearing. That would more likely be artists from 2000s on up.

The prices are based on demand, so as an artist gains or loses cultural cache, the market will respond and price their music accordingly. There is also a drive by music labels to popularize older artists and increase their cultural significance and the demand for their music, but these tend to be minimal efforts, since advertising for artists that no longer perform rarely creates enough demand to justify the cost of the advertising. The exception to that is when there is a prestige release happening, such as a premium edition of the Beatles music that was released back in 2018. This was a major event, and fans were willing to shell out the extra money for the remastered and rereleased versions of the songs, many of which they probably already owned in some fashion. At the same time, you would have younger fans or those who knew of the Beatles who took that release as an opportunity to add that music to their library, since they otherwise wouldn’t think too much of buying that band’s music.

But generally speaking, the cultural cache of a more recent artist, even if far less regarded, would be higher than for an older artist. That’s just the way the trends are at the moment, since those spending the most money on music tend to be in their 20s. They are looking for artist that they have personal experience and memories of, and that’s why they are willing to pay more for a lower tier band like the Spice Girls than a prestige mainstay like the Beatles.