Nielsen's Music 360 Study

Ask anyone how they listen to music the answer will likely be through any means of easy access at an affordable cost. A study conducted by news outlet Nielsen 's Music 360 claimed, “Americans streamed 164 billion on-demand tracks across audio and video platforms in 2014”. The rapid increase in popularity music streaming platforms are experiencing leaves people wondering what that means for the music industry. When more consumers utilize the on-demand method of entertainment access, how does that translate to the artist being accessed? Astra Taylor contributes to this discussion in her book, “The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age”. She lays criticism upon the idea of a more digitized

In the magazine article, “How The Web Changed Music Forever”, Veronica Majerol describes how over the years, music and the way it is dispersed has changed alongside the evolution of technology. Long before the internet existed, “If a band was lucky enough to get a record deal, it gained access to a label's vast resources and connections.” which then allowed their music to be broadcasted on radios around the world, played in jukeboxes, and made into records. The mid-1990’s changed all of this when people began discovering the internet; new opportunities surfaced with this development. Disaster occurred for the record industry once the vast majority began using the internet to illegally download copyrighted music; listeners no longer needed to

Music is at our fingertips. We can turn on a radio or select a song on a menu and it

As Billie Joe Armstrong puts it “ music to me is the air that I breathe, it's the blood that pumps through my veins that keeps me alive”. In this paper I will be discussing how technology has affected the music industry as a whole and the musicians themselves. Music has slowly become an essential part of our lives. We listen to it on our way to work, while working out at the gym, even to put us to sleep sometimes and wake us up. When asked why is music so essential, most people would say that it is relatable and a way for people to express their feelings. Music has evolved in more ways than one, from the different types of genres to a whole different sound. The most impactful change however is the way that music is now streamed. We are in

Music is everywhere. Ever since the history of early human, music has been a powerful companion even till today. From an economic perspective, music can be conducted and sold in different forms such as tapes, CDs, orchestras, concerts, street performances, and so on. Starting in recent decades, along with the dramatic growth of Internet usage and with the diffusion of fast Internet connections in home computing (Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2005), the United States digital music industry is experiencing a rapid increase. Contrary to traditional formats, digital music files that can be found on file sharing networks can be separated from their physical support. They can be compressed and exchanged on the Internet in a relatively small amount of time (Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2005). In such advantages, people have more freedom and access to variety of music from all the locations around the world.

Music has always acted as an effective vehicle to enhance people’s lives and connect people together. Ever since the advent of the Internet, news and pop culture has been able to easily reach millions of people not only in the United States, but across the world. Music has become an even more effective medium over the past decade through the use of websites and programs that allow people to listen to music and view media online. To this day, music represents one of the major avenues of pop culture and media that people consume on the Internet daily. Social media websites like Facebook and YouTube have over a billion users (Protalinski; “Statistics”). Media that gets posted to websites like these have the potential to be viewed by some of the largest and varied audiences in the world. Artists have the ability to release music videos and promotional material online, which contributes significantly to the amount of units they sell. In 2015, many artists were able to sell millions of units and

Music has played a vital role in human culture and evidence based on archaeological sites can date it back to prehistoric times. It can be traced through almost all civilizations in one form or another. As time has progressed so has the music and the influences it has on people. Music is an important part of popular culture throughout the world, but it is especially popular in the United States. The music industry here is, and has been, a multi-million dollar business that continues to play an important role in American popular culture. This is also a art form and business that is forever changing as the times and more importantly, technology changes. Technology has changed the way music is made as well as how it is produced,

The days of CD are well beyond us, as Eliot Van Buskirk points out that things have changed with the introduction of “pop music as a physical format.” Foremost, it is important to understand and define incentives, which is simply the basis for any economy; one party must be willing to sell while the other should be willing to buy. In this case, record labels are incentivized “to look for one-hit-wonders capable of moving product quickly.” Unfortunately, this means consumers are the ones on the wrong end of the stick while record labels reap all the rewards. This is because consumers are played into paying for music that are mostly “subpar ‘filler’ tracks” instead of gaining the full worth of what they paid for.

The music industry has changed in very quickly in so many ways it almost seems impossible. Thomas Edison recorded the first voice in 1877 and now we listen to hundreds of different types of music on devices that hold more information than the computers that sent the first astronaut to the moon. People have been getting music in tons of ways for the past hundred plus years and when the internet came into the picture, the music industry sky rocketed. People could get their own music out and be heard just by clicking a few measly buttons and using the internet to stream millions of songs with high speed. But even though the internet has helped the music industry by making it easier to distribute, advertise, and produce music, it still has its disadvantages.

Music is universally known as an expression of emotion, rebellion against the man, a way of life, a random collection of sounds, an annoying thing kids listen to, or even a vacation from everything, but in reality music is free of all definition. The industry involved in buying, selling and recording of music has grown so old, treacherous, and ignorant that it can not figure out the steps it needs to evolve with the rapidly expanding music industry. Musicians and fans alike are screaming about the dire need of some modern day innovation in the market. Sadly the monstrous corporations that dominate the market have put a lid on the competitive edge, stopped the innovative changes any smaller companies can make.

Music is an art form and cultural activity that has been enjoyed for centuries by many generations of humans. As time goes on, music preferences change and along with that, the way individuals consume music also changes. Firstly, looking at my age group; we were born in the 2000’s and this is also when the Internet had just come out. The internet and the development of other technologies, facilitated the shift to digital music consumption for this generation. For example, Spotify is a music streaming service that was released in 2008 and has become very popular among this generation. Many other music streaming services have followed Spotify such as Apple Music, as many consumers like to have access to a wide array of songs through the web, which helps them avoid the inconvenience of having to download all the music. Also, portable music players such as the iPod Nano are really enjoyed by people in my age group, as it allows them to have access to their music from practically anywhere. Finally, another advancement that has really been enjoyed by consumers in my age group are wireless headphones. Although stereo headphones have been around since the 1950’s, products like the Apple’s AirPods are popular with individuals in my age group, as many are looking for wireless electronics.

In the sixth grade, my friends and I were infatuated with video games, particularly Call of Duty. At the age of 11 and 12, my rank in a video game was more important than the band I was in. I loved music since the third grade, and the band had started when I was in the fourth grade, but looking back, it wasn’t a passion at the time, more like a phase. Not putting my full attention in music at that age is my biggest regret in life. However, if I hadn’t been on PlayStation I would have never had the music conversation with a gaming friend that changed my life.

Global consumers, particularly in the millennial age group, listen to music on a daily basis and have several predetermined reasons for why they chose one service over another. In fact, a 2014 research report found that 37 million people around the world are currently paying for streaming music, while 210 million additional people listen for free on advertising-supported services (Mulligan, Mark, and Alun Simpson. The Streaming Effect: Assessing the Impact of Streaming Music Behavior. 2014.)

Perhaps one of the greatest innovations in the early nineties for music was the mp3 player. This may be due to the fact that the mp3 has had a huge impact upon both the music industry and societies listeners. Weinstock stated that, “the world of the mp3 is a fast-growing music technology available to anyone with Internet access. Fan are promoting the mp3 as the most personalized music form ever created that will propel music into the next millennium” (9). The invention of the mp3 is notable for producing and changing the music industry’s role through the changed in the copyright and ownership issues. In what follows, I will argue how the face of online music is changing mp3 players. Firstly, through examining the numerous ways people can download and transfer music onto their mp3 handheld player. Through drawing upon the concepts of YouTube; a website for posting video clips, iTunes; a digital media player application, Spotfiy; a music streaming service and ‘mp3.com’; a company to emerge around the idea of free music. Secondly, I will discuss the mp3 player not as software, but as an object that is constantly connected between our body and new media. I will formulate the notions of remediation and analogue to digital media as key terms that have allowed the mp3 to become such a prominent form that was crucial to the experience of music.

One of the newest, most exciting and innovative ways to get music these days is not in the mall and not at a huge mega-sized electronic store, it's not even by a mail order CD club. It’s the computer. It sits conveniently on a desk and now allows access to every imaginable genre of music, twenty-four hours a day, rain or shine, snow or sleet, in the comfort of your own home. Technology is changing the way we listen to music. Now downloading a Mp3 from the Internet is a lot easier than going to the store and buying an overpriced CD. A near CD quality digital