The Impending Decline Of Quality Music And The Perilous Destruction The Digital Age Brings aka #ItsAaalllShit

With news that the Official Charts Company has announced songs played on streaming services like Spotify and Deezer will count towards the UK’s singles chart from July, it raises some issues as to how the independent artist will stand a chance in a money orientated, commercially driven pop music industry. Maybe the new rules won’t change anything for the top artists in the scene, but they will surely strengthen their chart positions and further gain advancement on indies. Below are a list of some questionably viable impacts the new changes could bring about to the charts as we know them. Just as the video killed the radio store, the cd killed the cassette, and the download killed the cd, the stream may kill the unsigned, unestablished music act.

1
Record labels will no longer look to try and sell records, they will try to gain more streams through relentless advertising and links that pop up leading you directly to streaming locations. Not giving you a choice to decide whether to stream it should it play automatically.

2
Maybe the record companies wont go after airplay on radio as why would you want to hear it on radio all day when you can stream it to help your artists “sales”. The importance of radio airplay and the subsequent integral role the dj plays in promotion and breaking an act will lessen.

3
Because of the pursuit of streams as opposed to hard record sales, record label advances will be less as their targets will not gain them as high an initial income from an artist.

4
You wont get a choice to decide whether or not you want your stream to count towards a chart positioning. Sometimes it takes me 30 seconds or longer to realise something is crud. If I chose to purchase it then I am making an informed choice to help an artist climb the charts.

5
If 30 seconds is all they want you to stream, why would musicians and writers make as long tracks.
Less time on a track to get into those emotions equals shallow music.

6
Record companies will concentrate on trying to make an artist popular rather than making quality music. This will subsequently result in fake fashion followers manufactured to look good and do cool things to entice easily manipulated audiences into streaming their music. The music will suffer a quality dive as precedent for styling and image control take priority.

7
With shows like xfactor dominating prime time television for over a quarter of the year, getting mass media coverage and unfair advantages over the rest of the industry, the easier concept of streaming will allow such competition’s acts to prevail in the race for top chart positions. Maybe even allowing unofficial releases and live cover versions to take up more chart spots, shutting out other music acts from succeeding and gaining more exposure.

8
Already massively popular artists will take up singles chart positions when their albums are released (as already demonstrated with Ed Sheeran, whose streams counted for nearly 20% of his overall sales in the 1^st week of the new chart rules). Other popular artists (like Ariana Grande) from globally popular companies/brands like Disney or American Idol will rule the charts with their astronomically larger fan base.

There are probably more things that will adversely affect the music industry as we know it, making it harder for independent artists to prosper, Our fears/concerns raised in this article may be idle conjecture and panic stricken hollow theories, but there is truth in there somewhere and all predicaments aside it is most certainly time for the indies to rise against the machine and lament all that is commercially giant. Lets take the music scene back and claim it in the name of good music, without a budget, just raw talent.

Thank you for reading, I shall leave you all with the most aptly spirited song (one which beat an xfactor contestant to the UK number 1, proving that supporting the cause can push anybody forward) from one of the most appropriately named bands, Rage Against The Machine.

Peace out. DKS