Opinion: The Great Follower Disconnect & Fixing the Plumbing of the Music Delivery Pipeline
It’s been a busy week.
But as I write this, I’m more energized about the tides of positive change than I ever have been. An extremely important conversation has begun within the artist and industry community (largely thanks to Chelsea Cutler, who so eloquently shined a light on what might possibly be the greatest issue facing every artist hoping to have a successful and sustainable music career in 2022). Artists are doing everything they can to remain relevant in the age of social media and are EXHAUSTED, in every respect, from trying to keep up.
We currently live in an era of overstimulation — spending so much of our daily lives on social media and so little of that time being present, to the point where the threads between these two worlds have begun to blur. Social media imitates life, yet life as we know it takes its cues from social media—more so than ever before.
This has undoubtedly had an effect on the music industry. And it has taken a toll.
Over the years, music streaming platforms like Spotify & Apple Music have evolved in an effort to adapt to the ever-growing digital ecosystem and provide listeners with music from artists relevant to global and regional trends, in addition to editorial curation of emerging music (which has proven to be a major challenge of its own with over 60,000 new songs uploaded daily). But in doing so, perhaps the most fundamentally important part of the artist-to-fan delivery pipeline has been disrupted, inadvertently de-prioritizing the delivery of subscribed content to that of editorial and the algorithmic.
In other words: the “Follow” button doesn’t mean much anymore. And that is a big deal.
Now, just for a moment, let’s imagine a true fan-first world where an artist has 1,000 followers on a streaming or social media platform. They may have built that following by progressively sharing content on socials—but perhaps they amassed fans without the help of social media at all, and have chosen to promote themselves by busking on crowded city streets—ultimately a decision that should be fully left up to the artist and their team based on what promotional/content platform extensions feel most natural to them.
Let’s get a bit more hypothetical. Now this artist wants to release a new song,—but in this world, the delivery of subscribed content from artists to followers is considerably prioritized. Platforms make a best possible effort ahead of any editorial or algorithmic content priority,—examples of which could include this release at the top of a personalized New Music Friday or similarly, weaving it into genre-specific playlists that a user frequents — all with the goal of not dramatically changing how people listen to music, but instead curating music more thoughtfully to improve fan connectivity to their favorite artists.
In this hypothetically bright and beautiful world, artists are less pressured to run to TikTok and Instagram (the likes of which are already deeply saturated with other content) in an attempt to capture the attention of their current (and already distracted) followers in the hopes that they might start streaming their new song—Sounds nice, right?
In this world, artists no longer flock to platforms that don’t creatively serve their artistic visions. They thrive on the outlets that do, and those platforms in-turn thrive with them, becoming more inspired than ever.
There are of course many perspectives on the multitude of problems and solutions needed in today’s music industry. But I believe this particular issue to be of the utmost urgency and importance when it comes to re-establishing an equitable and mentally healthy balance for artists, who are the backbone of this industry and keep these platforms running today.
I also want to make it abundantly clear that I, especially as a music executive with ties and relationships with each of the aforementioned platforms, am in no way condemning them, or operating under the assumption that they care more for their own businesses than that of artists. Rather, I see an incredible opportunity for the next step forward in our business towards a more artist and mental health-friendly future.
We have the tools to grow and support each other—let’s do it together.
Sincerely,
Jake Posner
For anyone looking to become more involved, I have started a petition to form an Independent Steering Committee, in the hopes that we may establish a long-term system of checks and balances within our ecosystem.
