As 2011 is drawing to a close, we thought we’d find out a little more about what kind of music listening preferences our members have used over the last 12 months.

There are now more ways to consume music than ever before, making the murky waters of the music industry even more treacherous for musicians, songwriters and performers, not to mention agents, managers and the like. Please consider taking our short poll and sharing some of your recent habits of consuming music in 2011. After you click submit you can see the results. Simply hit the back button on your browser to vote in another topic and see more results.

by Lee Jarvis.

This playlist was partly inspired by my recent watching of ‘Still Bill’, a documentary following one of my favorite soul musicians of all time, Bill Withers. The film portrays an honest, well-grounded, talented man, and instantly after watching I went to stream ‘Use Me’ on Spotify.

Although I’m kind of disappointed that Withers didn’t make more albums, that early period of the 70s also gave us many other soul and funk greats, some new, and some veterans who were moving away from the polished pop sound of the 60s, and evoking more bluesy, gritty, melancholic soulful feelings in many of the records. I hope you enjoy the legendary voices such as the recently passed Gil Scott-Heron and James Brown, and also some perhaps lesser known album tracks.

Click the image below or check out http://open.spotify.com/user/leejarvis/playlist/1lYPWzWxuq4fBHLyG67hxU

Tracklist
Bill Withers – Use Me
Gil Scott-Heron – The Bottle
Bobby Byrd – I Know You Got Soul
Marvin Gaye – Inner City Blues
Curtis Mayfield – If There Is A Hell Below, We’re All Gonna Go
Isaac Hayes – Walk On By
Bobby Womack – Across 110th Street
Roy Ayers – Aint No Sunshine
The Temptations – Papa Was A Rolling Stone
The Undisputed Truth – Smiling Faces

Enjoy!

by The Music Jobs Team.

This week I came across a presentation from New York marketing communications brand, JWT. Their October 2011 Things to Watch list is a special Music Edition, and covers a variety of trends in “accessing, discovering and sharing music”.

After a variety of research and specialist analysis, there seems to be a bit more clarity in this presentation than there has been in recent years. The digital age certainly flipped everything on it’s head, but the fact that the big digital guns have stepped into the arena means that they see a viable future. Independent artists are more common and more powerful, and the platforms available for them to communicate and reach out to consumers are much more of a regular way of life than previous years. The frustration of not knowing where to find the music you like, and then not knowing what the ‘legal’ options were seems to be vanishing, and whilst there is no one ‘savior’ of the industry, the combination of many new techniques and technologies has created the beginnings of a new enjoyable sharing experience for all music lovers and appreciators.

Says JWT director of trendspotting Ann Mack, “It’s all about the ability to listen to your own archives, and just about anything else, wherever you are. It’s a major change, and one that comes just as listening gets a lot more social, from Turntable’s DJ rooms to Facebook’s peeks into what friends are listening to.”

Some of the my favorite points include;

Access Over Ownership – in today’s music world, consumers are shifting to the convenience of simply having access to music (i.e. music for hire), as opposed to wanting to own a copy themselves.
The Celestial Jukebox – a dream come true! The advent of Spotify, Rdio and the like means that we seem to have near infinite music available at our fingertips.
Taking it to the Cloud – 2011 saw some major players offer cloud storage (Apple’s iCloud / Amazon’s Cloud Player and Google Music Beta), and with that remove the limitations of hardware storage and which devices have music on them.
The Death of the MP3 Player – we are moving away from both devices that store music, and also devices that have only one function. Being able to stream more music from a mobile device that has multiple uses is a big shift in trend.
The Facebook Effect – the world’s runaway leader in sharing and networking has recently unveiled real-time sharing of music listening habits, via third party apps such as Spotify, Vevo, Mixcloud, Rhapsody, Soundcloud and more.
Youtube IS MTV – albeit an on-demand version, with new licensed content, music documentaries, vintage live shows and much more, this offers something for every music fan to tune into.
Artists are Doing it for Themselves – services and platforms helping musicians manage, market and sell have come on leaps and bounds. It really is possible to be a self made superstar in the internet age.

by Lee Jarvis.

Yeah Bwoy! We’re on a retro kick today, and revisiting the kind of tracks that were the soundtrack to many a high school adventure. There’s nothing quite like the early days of hip-hop. From the emergence of sample-based early mash-ups, to the storytelling greats of NYC, ‘old skool’ hip-hop shaped a generation and influenced many a modern musician.

So, dig out your Adidas track suits and clock-on-a-chain and kick it with some of the legends of the scene. Some of these guys are still producing and touring, some were a (prominent) flash in the pan of musical history. All of them left a mark on many a cool youth.

Click the image below or check out http://open.spotify.com/user/leejarvis/playlist/5Tl4lJ5cVX212cgTpbDybv

Tracklist
A Tribe Called Quest – Bonita Applebum
Public Enemy – Bring The Noise
KRS One – Sound of Da Police
Beastie Boys – No Sleep Til Brooklyn
Run DMC – It’s Tricky
Digital Underground – Doowutchyalike
De La Soul – Eye Know
Eric B & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – The Message
The Sugarhill Gang – Rappers Delight

Enjoy!

by The Music Jobs Team.

Who?

Spotify is a team of developers led by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon (pictured above). They now have a headquarters in London, as well as an R&D team in Sweden.

What?

As a music playing desktop application, Spotify offers a ‘Free‘ account, with a limited amount of streaming of music, an ‘Unlimited‘ account, in other words, all-you-can-eat streaming, and also a ‘Premium‘ account where you can listen to music on any of your mobile devices, completely unrestricted. Music is easily searchable, and users can also browse by artist name, genre and other factors. Playlists can also be created and shared easily with other users and across the web.

When?

Whilst development started in 2006, Spotify first launched in 2008. After years of deliberating, negotiating, and rump-shaking (probably?), several territories can now dive into one of the most infamous and hyped instruments of the new music industry. As of July 2011, Spotify has officially hit the US shores.

Where?

Having originated in Sweden, Spotify went on to take Europe by storm, making deals and giving access to music lovers in the UK, France, Finland, Norway, Spain and the Netherlands, before landing in the USA.

Why?

Well, for a start, they host literally millions of tracks. Over 15 million, in fact. The interface is simple and user-friendly, making it a joy to locate the sounds you currently crave, as well as explore new and interesting music.

How?

Firstly, head here to select which account you would enjoy (Free, Unlimited, or Premium, as explained above).

Once setup, you have various features to experiment with. Looking for a place to start? Perhaps check out my Spotify profile…

…then perhaps subscribe to some of the Music Jobs playlists that I have compiled…

…from there it is easy to click on artist names, and discover new albums and related artists…

…making playlists yourself is simply a matter of dragging and dropping tracks…

…and sharing with friends is also as easy as a drag and drop…

Hopefully this post will enlighten you and give you a brief insight to their service. I’m not paid by or affiliated with them, it’s just, you know, kinda groovy

Enjoy!


by Lee Jarvis.

Things move fast in the digital age: only last week we told you about the launch of Amazon and Google’s music ventures, and now we have news on how two other powerhouses – Facebook and Apple – plan to shake up the way that consumers listen to, pay for, and share music on the internet.

Firstly, Facebook has announced that it is partnering with Spotify to launch a new way to listen to music with friends. Users will see a Spotify tab on the left hand side of their Facebook home page, and clicking in this will launch the Spotify player much in the same way that the desktop app currently launches. This integration is still being tested and will not likely launch for another two to four weeks. While this is not the creation of a new service from Facebook, their social reach is undeniably a hugely powerful thing, and so it will still have major impact in music industry circles.

However, this new service is unlikely to be available in the US right away. Spotify has been dealing with licensing issues with the major labels for some time now; we reported that there was almost a breakthrough back in summer 2009, but nearly two years later they are still unable to come to an agreement. Having Facebook involved may assist this issue, but it is still a huge hurdle to overcome.

Next up, it seems like Apple may have even been putting some of the talent they acquired from purchasing Lala to good use; it has been revealed that they have reached “tentative agreements with all four major record labels” that would enable music fans to listen from it’s own cloud-based service, and this could launch as soon as June 6th, according to one report from the LA Times. As I mentioned in last week’s blog post, this was one factor that both Google and Amazon’s service were lacking, and may lead to issues somewhere down the line. Apple, having developed relationships with the labels over the last eight years with iTunes, could have the edge when it comes to mainstream content in this respect; the fact that iTunes shifts somewhere between 75% and 85% of the entire download market has surely put them in good stead.

But…

Clearly, there are still issues that could come up with any new ventures in the music industry; that these ‘big four’ e-giants still struggle to get content online in 2011 or have to bow to some of the key copyright holders. Myspace Music made a huge mistake when it chose to drop the indie musician and cater to the majors, and now they are suffering. Hopefully one (or more) of these guys will come through with some news of how their service aids the discovery of new and exciting music from around the globe, rather than simply pushing the same pop stars with the biggest budgets.


by Lee Jarvis.

Hypebot recently reported that Spotify paid Lady Gaga just $167 For 1M Plays:
Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” was one of the most popular tracks for 5 months on Spotify; being played more than 1 million times. But according to reports this weekend, the Swedish Performing Rights Society only paid her $167. If true, it confirms other complaints from other artists like those of Swedish musican Magnus Uggla who pulled his music off Spotify declaring, “I’d prefer to be raped by Pirate Bay than played on Spotify”.

When an artist starts out with earning no income from their music, they are quite happy to give it away for the exposure it may create. Obviously it is easier for a small band to offer a free mp3 and say “we may have lost a potential $1000 in order to gain some new fans”, than it would be for Universal to do it with a Lady Gaga single and consider losing (potentially) a lot more.

However, the idea of exposure still remains. Streaming can be a way for people to try out new artists without committing to a $15 album (of which, Universal made many, many terrible ones). There are already reports saying that streaming is drawing consumers away from P2P sites, and with the Pirate Bay trial and Joel Tenebaum ruling gaining so much press this year, some users will be scared off using such sites in the future. The Pandoras, Spotifys and LastFMs of the new music industry are an essential part of artist promotion in my opinion, and so I would consider pulling your music away from them is a foolish move.

As there is no way to measure the direct income derived from a person who streams two tracks, then goes to buy them from iTunes, and then pays $40 to see the artist in concert, it can be hard to judge.

I would stick my neck out and say that it helps though.

We’d love to hear your response on this – comments around the Music Jobs office range from outrage at the royalty rates for artists to “that’s about $166 too much”! Feel free to comment below.

Lee Jarvis

The music streaming app that is currently taking the UK and Europe by storm is looking to set-up in the US in the very near future. (This may well help create music industry jobs in the USA, so keep checking the Jobs Board!)

Founded by two Swedish entrepreneurs, Spotify has over six million tracks available to stream, and gives users the ability to create, save and share playlists, offering greater interaction and discovery. They are working with US music publishers and labels to evolve a deal to enable them to offer the same service here. Having dealt with many of the key companies regarding European licenses, it’s a very real possibility that they will be operating here soon.

The relatively new start-up (October ’08) is hoping to launch it’s desktop application in the US by the end of this year. However, even greater potential could be reached if they are approved as an iPhone app. The issue there? It could be so good as to make Apple’s iTunes virtually redundant to millions of music consumers.

Spotify derives revenue from a number of audio commercials during playback (current EU advertisers include Nike, Ikea, H&M and more), or a monthly fee for a premium service with no commercials, greater audio quality and extra premium-only content. The monthly fee is currently £9.99 in the UK (approx $15), and word is that the mobile app would only be available to those who subscribe to this.

People are becoming excited about the possibility of a real contender to iTunes, and as a fan of aiding music discovery, I really hope that Spotify will push forward with the licensing deals. They provide a great service, and user word-of-mouth will ensure a global success.

Lee Jarvis.