Fusion End-Of-Year Lists: Christopher Abalos

We call him “Codemaster Chris”.  He’s smarter than you.  He loves the Red Wings, but probably isn’t watching them tonight because he doesn’t have cable and he’s working on our new website.  And he plays bass in Monument Monument (please join us December 29 at the Pike Room for a rare MonMon show).  His end-of-year list is a little different than the rest of ours, but hey, that’s what makes him the “Codemaster”!

I’m the technology guy here at Fusion Shows. I help run our website along with various other applications that you may or may not have used. I’m a behind the scenes kind of guy. I figured a top tech news list would make the most sense for me this year.

Top Tech News Relating To Music In 2011 And What It Means For 2012

5. Grooveshark Lawsuit

In November 2011, a lawsuit was filed against Grooveshark by Universal. Grooveshark’s business model is very similar to YouTube. Users are allowed to upload content and if a copyright holder files a complaint, the content is removed. Much of the music on Grooveshark is unauthorized. Universal is claiming Grooveshark is turning a blind eye to the illegal activity and isn’t doing enough to keep unauthorized content off their platform. The implications of this suit could very well effect other sites like Soundcloud, which is built on a similar model. Unfortunately, with the success of platforms like Spotify and Rdio comes empowerment by the music industry to funnel users away from user-submitted content sites like Grooveshark and Soundcloud to services they can monetize.

4. Turntable.fm

Turntable.fm was founded this year and gives friends the ability to listen to songs together across the internet. This is a new and interesting concept. It encourages friends to hang out together and listen to music. Sounds great! Only problem is, my friends don’t listen to the same music I do. I want to love Turntable.fm but a majority of the time I end up in a room listening to songs I don’t like. Music is social by nature but I’m not sure that translates across the internet. At a concert you are surrounded by people signing the same lyrics as you and having a great time. On the internet, you’re just sitting in a chat room. I think there is a place on the internet for Turntable.fm but I believe it’s growth will flatline for 2012.

3. iTunes Match and Google Music Launches

This year both iTunes Match and Google Music launched. Both services let users upload their music library to the internet for access via any device at any time. The days of having to delete songs off your hard drive or iPod to free up space are gone. There is no longer an incentive to delete any music from your library.  Imagine still having all the music from your childhood. All your cassettes and a lot of your cds are probably long gone at this point. Our children won’t have this problem.

2. Facebook Music Integration

Facebook launched an extension to their Open Graph platform this fall that enables applications like Spotiy and Rdio to update your friends with your listening habits. Every song you listen to will be sent to Facebook where it can then be viewed on your profile. This is very similar to Last.fm’s scrobbling feature. I believe this feature will be a failure in 2012 if left as is. At first, I was excited for the possibilities of what can be created with this new platform. After about two weeks of having this service enabled I realized it pushes too much information to users. The vast amount of song plays that I’m updated with daily works against discovery of new music. I’ve already been trained to ignore “So and So listened to Sweet Band on Spotify”. Most of my friends on Facebook have much different music tastes than I and I could careless what they’re listening to. Ideally, this feature should only tell me when people listen to songs that are of interest to me. Well see how this plays out in 2012.

1. Spotify US Launch

Spotify is a music streaming service from Europe. It made a successful transition to the United States this fall. The service has seen exponential growth since the Facebook Open Graph platform was extended to include music updates. Users can listen to a large library of songs for free on demand and the service is funded by advertisements and Premium subscriptions. Rdio is another service with a similar business model that launched prior to Spotify in the US but has failed to match the growth of its competitor. To the music industry, Spotify is a grand experiment. Let people have the content for free and hope to make it up in volume with advertising. The coming year will be crucial in Spotify’s long term success. If enough labels and artists do not see the size of revenue they were looking for, more content will be pulled from the service. A few big names have already pulled their content from the service. Spotify’s success will rely heavily on its catalog. 

If this experiment succeeds, music will may no longer be a commodity sold to fans. It will be viewed as a way to sell advertising. The big names in music will still be able to cash in but I’m afraid for what this would mean for smaller artists. Once consumers are trained that music is free in exchange for advertisements, will they want to purchase music at all? This may force more smaller artists to place their music on services like Spotify where they will not drive enough advertisements to make any meaningful profit. A lot of independent artists fund their next release with money they made from the previous release. This stream of revenue is very important to them, regardless if its only a few hundred or thousand dollars.

I am afraid the wave of long time established bands like Thrice and Thursday calling it quits this year is just the beginning of what could possibly be even more high profile breakups in our music scene. Musicians can only be starving artists for so long before they give up. Any loss of income, regardless how small, to a band like Thrice is felt by them and their families.

Predictions

I don’t want to end this list on a depressing note so here is my prediction for the next year for music. I believe we’ll see the gap between underground and popular artists grow even wider. I believe it will eventually get to a point where the business models between the two are so vastly different that it will be hard to even classify them as the same industry. We’ll leave services like Spotify and iTunes for the big guys who are trying to retain a lavish 80’s-90’s lifestyle and we’ll see more sites like Bandcamp that are in support of the small artists trying to get by on an average wage. I’m a believer that music should hold some kind of value. Hopefully we can undo the years of damage done by the large record labels and show people the value of music again. They need to see the money going towards helping an artist, not lining someone else pocket.