The Platform Problem - a potentially unpopular opinion

Subvert.

Vocana.

Coda.

Even.

Sawtooth.

Crates.

Resonate.

Ampwall.

TheFlow.

Campfire.

These are all alternative music streaming / discovery / sale platforms. I have tabs open for all of them in my browser but I just can't get the energy to sign up and add my catalogue.

All of them promise better artist returns than the big streamers* and / or more ethical operating principles. They often have additional hooks, such as being artist-owned or non-profit.

And the chances are you've probably not heard of most of them and, unless you're a real muso, never looked at any of them.

Tidal.

Qobuz.

Soundcloud.

Deezer.

Apple Music.

These are all established competitors in the streaming space. All giving a better payout to artists than the market leader (by number of listeners) and having the same extensive catalogue. They often provide a better value service for lossless audio as well. 

But none of them have managed to really trouble the big, green giant either.

So what gives? Do people not know that Spotify pays out a lower rate to the artists that they follow? Do they not know that they've made some sketchy investments and accepted advertising from ICE in the US? Do they not know that Spotify have been very, very late to the game in flagging and de-monetising AI generated music (and even now are really doing the bare minimum that they can get away with).

Do users know this and not care?

Or is it that they know all this, they do care, but not enough to go through the hassle of switching to a new service? One where their friends aren't users? One where the artist disambiguation isn't good enough to give you a reliable feed of people you want to listen to, not just those with the same name? One with a decent app and player? One that integrates to other platforms for live music?

For me, the problem with all of the alternative platforms I've listed above is that they are solving for the wrong problem. Trying to get artists a better payout rate is lovely. But nobody cares. Trying to run a company more ethically is laudable and we should all be supporting that kind of thing. But we don't.

The end user's life is already stressed and complicated enough. They just want to see the link from their friend with a great new song on it and click play. Anything that gets in the way of that is not going to result in them signing up to yet-another-service, it's going to result in them just clicking close and looking at something else instead.

Because most people don't actually care about music that much. For a lot of people it's just a pleasant background noise that helps provide a vibe. Swap out one track or artist for another and they won't notice. For another big group it's not actually the music that's important, it's the cultural moment that comes with it. A song's meaning isn't intrinsic, it's because it links these people to a certain time and place, with all the emotions that come with it. You can't swap that song out for another, but there's no wider connection to the artist or the rest of their catalogue. 

For the people who do care about the music itself, who are fans of the album not just the song, the scene not just the single, then the chances are they're already on an alternative streamer or using Bandcamp already.

For everyone else Spotify (or Youtube with its even lower payout rate) is the best option.

If the general listening public really cared about artist payouts or ethical company management, they'd have already switched. 

So we need to stop trying to solve for these problems. If you want people to switch away from Spotify then you have to provide a better user experience. And, unfortunately, 'slightly better' doesn't cut the mustard. In order to break the habit, you'll probably need a triple play of incentives. If you can come up with three ways in which the service is better then you have a chance of shifting users. And it has to be three ways that make a difference to the user. Better artist payouts and ethical management aren't on that list.

Until a company tries to actually address the end user experience, and design a better platform for the casual music fan, then all of these companies will be scraping around for a share of the same niche audience of real music fans. And that's not big enough for any of them to scale into an actual challenger.

*I'm not counting Bandcamp as a streaming platform, because a) it's mostly a sales platform, and b) it's streaming player is crap.

Mother - new single with Novelley

 Continuing my track-record of being terrible at promotion, I write today that last Thursday (see!) my friend Novelley released a new single called 'Mother'.

It's available on all platforms and you can find some useful links here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/novelley/mother-2

Novelley is a German singer-songwriter whom I met on Threads, and the reason I'm writing about it here is that she asked me if I'd like to get involved with this song. We'd talked previously about her joining me on a track for the next album but stuff got in the way. So when she suggested this track I leapt at the opportunity.

As soon as the first draft came over I felt a low vocal part would sit nicely, and as she worked up the structure of the song we agreed that I could find space for a cello part in there as well. I was allowed to take over the rest of the mix duties, which was fun, and Novelley was back in the driving seat for the mastering.

Needless to say, I'm very happy with how it turned out; I hope you will be too.

P.S. Work is cracking on with the next album, just waiting to hear back from a couple of contributors for a couple of tracks, the rest are in the finishing straight.

New single - The Cables

 Hi folks,

I've got a new single coming out on the 23rd of April. 

Here's the smart link for pre-saving and all that bollox: https://ditto.fm/the-cables

It'll be on all the usual streaming and download platforms as you'd expect. Plus a few that none knew existed.

But if you're one of those wonderful people who populates the Bandcamp world, then you get a sneak preview because it's out today on that platform.

https://drewstephenson.bandcamp.com/track/the-cables

It's a song about deep sea data cables, possibly quite topical given certain Russian sub activity at the moment. This track started as a sketch for Jamuary but I felt it had legs so it's been worked up into something worthwhile. Hopefully.

It's a stand-alone track and won't be on the coming album.

The Last Damn Time - new single out today

New single out today. If you like early Billy Bragg or Max Garcia Conover's solo stuff, this might be up your street.

Jailbreak! Revenge! Angry guitar!

Bandcamp: https://drewstephenson.bandcamp.com/track/the-last-damn-time

Streaming: https://ditto.fm/the-last-damn-time

Also rude word warning.

This is a standalone release and won't be part of the next album.

Celebrating indie* music

 Regular visitors to this site, both of you, might have noticed a couple of tweaks to site layout.

Firstly, at the top of the right-hand column you'll see a little widget called We Bring The Music.

This is an old-fashioned Web Ring. Click on the forward or back arrow and you'll be taken to another musician's website. Somewhere on that page you'll find another instance of this widget when you can step on to the next site in the ring. Or hit random and jump to some cool new music at the touch of a button.

Which brings me onto the next feature, directly below the Web Ring: The Indienet.

This is simply a list of websites or linktrees for a whole bunch of great musicians, mostly folks I've met on threads but there's some IRL friends in there too.

So next time someone bemoans the lack of new music, or that they just can't find it, point them to this page and let that do the heavy listening.

And in the meantime, just click a link and see where you end up.

If you're reading this page on a mobile, it helpfully doesn't show the right-hand panel at all. Scroll down to the bottom and select View Web Version. Then jump into some new music.

* And by 'Indie' I mean really independent, not some post-brit-pop guitar-based sad boy pop.

Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.

Return of the Superhero

 Well, I appear to be out of Spotify-bot-jail and my stuff is being shared again so it's time for Superhero to be re-released on all the streamers.

Smart link thingy: https://ditto.fm/superhero_b25dc403

Get yourself some politically-relevant orchestral funk in your life.

You know you want to.

Further thoughts on AI and being a DIY songwriter

This started as a post on Threads but as usual I rambled on a bit so I've consolidated it all here:



A couple of things happened over the last couple of days that got me thinking about AI and music in a slightly different way. 

Firstly, I dropped into my free Spotify account to check a couple of things and left it running for a bit. Track after track of AI music. Utterly predictable, utterly forgettable, mindless background noise. All relevant to my genre and preferences but as interesting as a plate of boiled white rice.

Then yesterday I opened Tidal while I was at work and put on a new release playlist. Again, mostly in my genre or area of interest, no AI content that I could immediately recognise but, with a couple of honourable exceptions, equally uninspiring.

The voices all sound similar. The guitar sounds are all generic. The rhythm never varies from its grid-aligned 4/4 tempo. The subject matter is always the same.

Polished to a perfectly smooth grain of boiled white rice.

And sure, on some of these tracks the chord progressions might have a bit more variety, and on an individual level the there might be a bit more variety in the song structure. But as a collective it was as bland as the AI stuff. 

Music by numbers.

Written by a committee.

Aimed at a playlist.

Finished in a factory.

Sold as a commodity.

Before I go any further, I'm not one of these folks who thinks that good music stopped in the 70s or that there are no great artists and performers out there nowadays.

There absolutely are across the whole range and scale of music spectrum. But we know them because of their humanity, their personality, their genuine attitude...

And this is, for all of us, good news I think.

It's good news because all of us have these things. We are all unique individuals with personality, attitude and humanity. We have our own experiences, tragedies and triumphs. We have our own stories to tell.

Which means the solution to a diet of anodyne, factory fresh, noise-masquerading-as-music is simple, and available to everyone. 

You don't have to change platform or pay extra.

Just find an indie / DIY act and put their music on. It might not be as polished, maybe not be as perfectly performed, it might not make you part of a social movement, but it will provide that honest human connection.

Music, as Tom McRae has said, is an emotion transfer machine. But that can only work if it starts with emotion in the first place. Otherwise we're filling our bellies with the all nutritional content of a bowl of boiled white rice.

Stuffed full and starving to death.

The good music is out there. Honest, human, flawed, and overflowing with real emotion and experience. It's on your favourite platforms, just waiting to be found, just waiting for the story to be told. (You could start by looking at any of the musicians in the Indienet list on the right of this page).

This turned into an essay, sorry about that but the TL:DR is that AI isn't a threat, not really. No more than the major labels have been for the last 20 years. 

The only threat is getting sucked in. 

Don't. 

Go be you.

P.S.1 Someone commented on Threads that a lot of people think that a 'professional' production is one that is polished or perfect. But if you try this approach you'll often end up with something sterile and plasticised. A real pro takes all those rough edges and highlights just enough of them to let the magic come through.

P.S.2 The corollary to this is about who your real audience is. It can be easy to think that if, like me, you make very middle-of-the-road music then AI might be stealing away your listeners / royalties.

I posit that it isn't.

Because much as we songwriters, musicians and composers would love that it wasn't so, most people just don't care that much about music. They really don't.

Which means the folks who are happy with AI music chugging along in the background were never going to be your fans.

They were never going to sign up to the mailing list of an unknown artist. They were never going to head out to a toilet-circuit venue on a rainy night to see you play. They were never the people you should be focusing on. Sure if you have some success they'll come along for the ride. Until the ride stops, and then they'll find the next thing. 

So don't worry about them. 

Not one bit.