In December, we mused on what may occur if artists collectively stepped off the content material treadmill. With Common Music Group (UMG) eradicating its catalogue from TikTok, that thought experiment got here startlingly near fruition. Abruptly, for higher and for worse, a whole bunch of artists on the UMG roster are getting a break from the relentless calls for of the platform. Customers are discovering that a few of their favorite artists’ music is unavailable, reducing again the all-you-can-eat buffet of content material with slightly little bit of (dare we are saying, wanted) shortage. It’s a helpful second to contemplate one other probably idealistic thought experiment: what a music-first social platform may appear to be.

One foot out the door

Social media is barely going to turn into extra entwined with artist success. Time spent creating content material is rising quick and an growing variety of artists now see social platforms, slightly than streaming, as their first cease for releasing new music. With AI-enabled fan remixing instruments on the horizon, the “worth hole” between the music exercise occurring on social platforms, and the income that social platforms contribute to the music trade, is rising. Whereas tradition and fandom proliferate on social, lean-back streaming platforms present merely the consumption pipes, leading to a long-term forking of the trade between “hear” and “play”.

However realistically, there’ll all the time be a ceiling to how a lot social platforms will lean into music. No matter how a lot they aspire to be companions to the music trade, social platforms need music to be a profitable technique of person acquisition — however by no means so essential to the platform that leverage suggestions too far to report labels and publishers in licensing negotiations. Furthermore, whereas platforms like TikTok get listeners extra engaged with music, and have been essential for discovery, the main target is on songs and never artists. Within the present panorama, music will all the time be an enabler for social media — not the opposite approach round. Social platforms won’t go to bat for music and, as social turns into ever extra essential to the music trade, that is changing into an issue. 

Placing artists first

Ideally, the music trade wants a social platform that’s prepared to confess music is core to its performance, pay rightsholders accordingly, and lean totally into serving artists and followers. There have been many experiments on this realm, previous and current, from Apple’s Ping to newer start-ups like Vocana. Making it work is about timing (Ping, for instance, was too early), but additionally understanding person wants. This platform couldn’t be strictly music — in as we speak’s overlapping world of leisure, shoppers would want to have the ability to categorical different pursuits as nicely. Nonetheless, as a substitute of being background materials, music can be positioned as the important thing driver on this platform and followers would have methods to take part. Most significantly, it could drive artist engagement, not simply track engagement. Assume direct artist subscriptions, fan music remixing instruments, and Reddit-esque boards for discussing music information.

Enter YouTube 

Report labels and publishers may construct their very own social platforms, Weverse-style. Nonetheless, they must wade into content material moderation and face mounting strain from regulators over person privateness, to not point out leaving licensing income on the desk. A serious label-owned social platform would additionally minimize out impartial artists. It might make extra sense for a user-generated content material platform like SoundCloud, or maybe extra doubtless, YouTube, to turn into the artist-first social platform we want. 

YouTube is the world’s largest world music platform and is neck-and-neck with TikTok as the primary place the place Gen Z discovers new music. The corporate is coming for ByteDance’s lunch, with an interconnected community of YouTube, Shorts, and YouTube Music, which can be the number-one music streaming service in a number of rising markets. It has additionally been experimenting with AI-enabled fan remixing instruments, from DreamTrack to its new music video remixing function. As soon as fierce opponents, YouTube and the music trade have cosied up, and Lyor Cohen has been shouting from the rooftops for years about his intent to make YouTube the music trade’s largest income. The music trade wants to determine a technique to innovate and lead the social panorama round artists. Proper now (and particularly with TikTok in scorching water), YouTube is trying just like the clearest path.