Distribution Is King

"This Summer's Sleeper TV Hit: 'Your Honor' - Once again, a show with little following has become hugely popular once it starts streaming on Netflix."

Free link: https://shorturl.at/KW6W0

It's the same show, the only difference is it's on Netflix, not Showtime.

That's the power of the Netflix homepage, that's the power of the Netflix algorithm.

And it's not like it's a new show.

How many records fit the same bill? How many records have surfaced as hits long after their initial release date?

Happens on a regular basis, but via streaming television and TikTok, not via conventional music streaming sites like Spotify, et al.

That's right, it's been in excess of a decade and the music business still hasn't figured out how to expose the best music to the most people.

It used to be easy. Just get it on terrestrial radio. And if it worked on one station, you could leverage that to more, and ultimately might have a hit, known by all. Today even our hits aren't known by all, but that's another issue.

The streaming services must break records. That is their role, whether they are aware of it or not, because this will contribute to the health of the business, there will be more subscribers, more streams, more gigs...hits help the industry at large.

But all the streaming platforms are doing is putting out a plethora of playlists. Replicating the internet model, one in which there is plenty, but you can't separate the good from the bad. If you're listening to a playlist and not skipping incessantly you're either brain dead or not really listening. Furthermore, Spotify statistics tell us the most active listeners don't even listen to playlists, they pick and choose what they want to listen to. The goal is to reach these active listeners and have them spread the word. Instead, streaming platforms are focusing on the least active listeners with playlists.

And the problem with the Spotify Top 50 is never have the hits meant less, had less penetration. All the excitement is in the separate genres, where the creators are not constricted by the hit paradigm. How do we boost these tracks, of which there are many?

Well, you can wait for a sync or a spontaneous TikTok usage, but that leaves you with almost no control, it's not an efficient method of getting the best music to the most people.

Of course, taste is subjective, but we need a focus on many fewer cuts.

Spotify needs a track of the week. Featured on its homepage, blasted to every subscriber. Or a track in five different genres every week. Or one track of the week and one sleeper, a surprise, not in the Top 50 mold.

In other words, we've got to build excitement in music.

The film business had success building excitement last summer with Barbenheimer, when was the last time we saw the equivalent thing in music? And don't say Taylor Swift, because as large as her success is, and it is large, it's pretty narrow. How do we get the populace at large excited about a track? And I don't think it's one of Swift's, but there are plenty out there.

This is how people consume music these days, streaming. Vinyl gets all the press, but it's a de minimis part of the business. The tail that isn't even wagging the dog, it's a feel good story easy for the media to latch on to. And as far as the weekly charts... They only mean something to the people on them and their associates. They're not representative of what the public at large is listening to, if they're listening at all.

We need to go back to the seventies, on steroids. When Warner Brothers signed a ton of acts, stayed with them and promoted them via their two-disc "Loss Leaders." If it was on Warner, it was worth checking out.

We don't have that ethos in the business today. Instead we've got remakes, no different from "Twisters." There's a business there, but the real excitement is in the brand new, and all we're promoting to the public is me-too.

Can't the industry focus on a track a week, to its benefit?

I'll make it simple, easy. There are four slots in a month, and they rotate amongst the three major label groups and the indies, each one gets a pick.

No... The majors would promote dreck, the obvious stuff.

The above formula would work, but we need a tastemaker, a connoisseur, to choose the tracks that are exposed.

And then everybody can talk and write about these tracks.

And maybe have an online rating like in the old days of radio, picking the track of the month and then the track of the year, building excitement!

In England they've got the Christmas #1, in America we've got nothing.

There is innovation in music, but it's too far off the radar screen, it's not getting exposure, this could be fixed but no one wants to, everyone's resting on their laurels.

All we hear is the majors can't break a new act, no one has come up with a solution.

But it's easy.

The streaming track of the week. Have you heard it? I did, I thought it was great or it sucks or...conversation will be engendered.

But it all depends on exposure, distribution. That's where hits are made.


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