Scaling Up Broken Systems? Considerations from the Area of Music Streaming

We discuss the effects and characteristics of disruptive business models driven by technology, exemplified by the developments in music distribution and consumption over the last 20 years. Starting from a historical perspective, we offer insights into the current situation in music streaming, where technology has not only changed the way we access music but also has important implications on the broader ecosystem, which includes the consumers, the authors, the record industry, and the platforms themselves. The discussion points to potential benefits, as well as to the risks involved in the currently deployed systems. We conclude that the increased profitability of the disruptive business models in the music domain and beyond is largely generated at the expense of the providers of the goods or services being brokered. Using the platforms as a consumer further subsidizes their value and might lead to mono- and oligopolies. While technology allows companies to effectively scale up business, the resulting systems more often amplify existing injustices than mitigate them.

The evolution and consequences of digital rights management in relation to online music streaming

Streaming services now provide the dominant way in which music is distributed and consumed online. Digital rights management (DRM) lies at the heart of this trend and has evolved alongside a movement from copy-based to streaming-based consumption. This shift poses a number of new and unique issues. Music streaming services have changed the nature of the product offered, with musical content becoming de-bundled and reduced to a series of permissions covered by DRM and associated licences, leaving users trapped in a permission-based system. This may create tension with copyright law principles regarding personal ownership and exhaustion of rights in relation to secondary markets, but through analysing relevant US and European case law it can be demonstrated that there is little, if any, legal opportunity for digital secondary markets to emerge. There are also further specific consequences which may affect artists relating to musical diversity and the composition of popular music and, also, consequences regarding the changing nature of the Internet itself. In this context copyright remains centrally important, but only in establishing the initial proprietary rights that enable subsequent DRM and licence-based online exploitation, indicative of a re-establishment of record industry power that is now allied to streaming platforms.

‘Brand Placement’ en los videoclips del Billboard Hot 100: ¿integración o imposición de marcas?

Este artículo analiza el brand place­ment del top 30 de la lista de éxitos Billboard Hot 100 de 2016. Para ello se proponen los siguientes objetivos espe­cíficos: conocer qué artistas, marcas y productos aparecen en los hits interna­cionales; observar el tiempo que ocupan las marcas en los videoclips y analizar si las marcas se integran o se imponen forzando la narrativa del videoclip. La metodología —que combina técnicas cualitativas y técnicas cuantitativas— se inicia con un análisis de contenido que pretende medir la frecuencia y el modo en que las marcas son integradas en los videoclips. En segundo lugar, se aplica un análisis cualitativo con pers­pectiva semiótica para observar la in­tegración de las marcas en el discurso audiovisual. La muestra se centra en la lista de éxitos Billboard, la más im­portante de la industria de la música a escala internacional en 2016, un año que destaca por la recuperación del sector discográfico. Los resultados apuntan que el videoclip se convierte en un so­porte promocional de especial interés para las marcas y permiten confirmar que la presencia de las marcas varía desde un emplazamiento impuesto a una integración sutil, pero perfecta­mente reconocibles por la audiencia. Brand Placement in Billboard Hot 100 Music Videos: Brand Integration or Imposition? This paper analyses brand placement in the top 30 music videos on the Bill­board Hot 100 chart in 2016. To that end, three specific objectives are propo­sed. First, the paper will identify the ar­tists, brands and products that appear in these international hits. Second, the paper will focus on the duration of time occupied by the brands in the music videos. Finally, the article will examine whether the brands have been integra­ted into or, on the contrary, imposed on and forced into the narrative of the mu­sic video. The methodology, which com­bines qualitative and quantitative tech­niques, begins with a content analysis intended to measure the frequency and way in which the brands are integrated into the music videos. Then a qualita­tive analysis will be carried out from a semiotic perspective in order to discern the degree of integration or imposition of brands in the audiovisual discourse of the music video. The sample is drawn from the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which was the most important list in the inter­national music industry in 2016, a year that stands out because of the recovery of the record industry. The results indi­cate that music videos have become an advertising format of special interest to brands and confirm that the presence of brands ranges from imposed placement to subtle integration, but that they are perfectly recognisable to the audience in either case.

Selling Out or Buying In? CCM Magazine and Anxieties over Commercial Priorities in Christian Music, 1980s–1990s

In 1992, emi acquired Sparrow Records. At that time, emi was one of the “Big Six” (secular) major record labels; Sparrow was the largest and most successful label in the Christian record industry. As in other sectors of the music and entertainment industries, reactions to corporate consolidations are mixed. This issue is particularly fraught in the Christian industry, in which the relationship between financial and theological priorities was tense long before its incorporation into the secular industry. How did these discourses manifest in public? What significance did they have for fans, artists, and cultural intermediaries? ccm magazine and its sister publications, for decades the primary sources of information about and for the Christian market, provide a unique opportunity to observe and analyze these tensions leading up to these mergers and acquisitions. In this article I consider the role of ccm’s reporting and editorial content as a barometer of broader anxieties over commercial priorities and corporate consolidation.

The Eight-Track Era of Rock and Roll

After forming as a beach band called Stax of Gold, Nantucket emerged as North Carolina’s top mainstream rock act of the 1970s. At a time when few acts in the state could attract the record industry, Nantucket signed to the major label Epic Records and had a good run through the 1970s and into the ’80s as a hard-working touring act. They also never completely left beach music behind, with horns and R&B a part of their sound, creating a template for North Carolina bands playing overtly mainstream music even when it was out of fashion.

Famous on Television

During its run, the singing-contest show “American Idol” produced the statistical oddity that three of its 15 winners came from North Carolina -- 20 percent, far more than any other state. The show’s rise coincided with the decline of the record industry, which was grappling with plummeting record sales. In 2006’s fifth season, the year three of the show’s top-eight finalists were from North Carolina, “American Idol” was at its peak as one of the last, best ways to sell records. Scotty McCreery, Fantasia Barrino, Chris Daughtry, and Clay Aiken are among North Carolina’s native sons and daughters to ride it to fame.

On the Dance Floor, on the Screen, on the Stage

This chapter examines the Polish Jewish cultural frontier as the cradle of Poland's first mass culture. It identifies Polish Jewish intellectuals and artists that was connected to the entertainment industry, such as in music, film, theatre, and cabaret. It also describes the developments in America during the main centre of popular culture and the entertainment industry, which was mostly shaped by immigrants and several Jews from eastern Europe. The chapter reviews the beginnings of the Polish record industry that dated back to the early twentieth century and mentions the Jewish entrepreneurs that saw both its potential. It discusses Syrena Record as the first record label in Poland that was founded in 1904 in Warsaw by Juliusz Feigenbaum, who drew upon his family's generation-spanning tradition in the music business.

‘Total trash’. Recorded music and the logic of waste

This article introduces three situated moments – or plateaux – in order to partially uncover the particular affinities between popular music and the ‘logic of waste’ in the Anthropocene Era, from early phonography to the present digital realm (with a focus on the UK, United States, and British India). The article starts with a ‘partial inventory’ of the Anthropocene, outlining the heuristic values of waste studies for research in popular music. The first plateau retraces the more historical links between popular music and waste, showing how waste (and the positive discourses surrounding it) became a defining element of the discourse and practices of early phonography. It aims to show how recorded sound participated in (and helped define, in an emblematic manner) a rapidly expanding ‘throwaway culture’ at the turn of the 20th century. The second plateau presents a more global panorama of the recording industry through a focus on shellac (a core, reversible substance of the early recording industry). Finally, the third plateau presents some insights into the ways in which popular music may ‘play’ and incorporate residual materialities in the contemporary ‘digital age’. I argue that the logic of waste defined both the space and pace of the early record industry, and continued to inform musical consumption across the 20th century – notably when toxic, non-recyclable synthetic materials (especially polyvinyl) were introduced.