How streaming influences pop music today "kleinzeitung.at

The digital music offering already has a market share of over 50% in Austria. This trend could affect the way pop music is written and heard.

16:57, November 28, 2018

There are streaming providers such as Spotify or Apple Music, which offer more and more playlists for different moods and genres. Meanwhile, streaming in Germany and Austria is the most popular way to listen to music – and providers react. But that does not only have economic effects. Streaming can also change the way music is written and heard.

Since mid-2018, audio streaming is the most important business turnover segment of the music market in Germany. In Austria too, the share of digital offers has recently increased to 54%. In addition to streaming providers, this also has advantages for labels. Through the badysis of their streaming music data, they can see when a listener is going and react to it.

"Music is written differently because streaming is so important," says musicologist Martin Lücke. On the one hand, the beginning of a song has become even more important. Because labels only earn on a stream when listeners listen to a song for more than 30 seconds. "So, as a label, I try to do everything so that the listener does not click far," says Lücke, a music professor at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Macromedia Musikwirtschaft.

Gap recounts studies meant to show that the voice in pop songs starts earlier and earlier in order to attract listeners' attention as quickly as possible. There were hits that really only worked after long intros, like "I would do anything for the sake of" Meat Loaf. Besides the beginning of a pop success, the mood of a song becomes more important. "I'm going home and telling Siri or another intelligent speaker:" Play relaxing music now, "said Peter Tschmuck, a professor at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. Most consumers are not interested in the identity of a song. The music you hear depends on the mood.

In Germany alone, there are 400 clean playlists in Spotify, which are reissued daily or weekly by six publishers in total. In addition, there are up to ten personal playlists that offer algorithms to listeners for music that suits them. Overall, including user-created playlists, there are more than two billion lists!