Artist subscriptions are again within the music business discourse and the takes are piping scorching. James Blake lit up X along with his announcement of subscription platform Vault, Warner Music Group is constructing its personal superfan platform, and Spotify confirmed that “superfan golf equipment” are quickly to come back. However others are sceptical of demand for these merchandise and fast to level out that we now have seen this film earlier than. Vault appears rather a lot like Patreon, and related options exist on Bandcamp, Discord, and Medallion. We’ve got but to see game-changing, scalable success (and as Water & Music identified, not even fan whisperer Taylor Swift might make a superfan platform work). Consider it this fashion: What number of artists do you at the moment subscribe to? Do you subscribe to any in any respect?

Our take, nonetheless, is that artist subscriptions can work. With regards to execution, most of the platforms on the market make 4 widespread errors, all carrying classes to be realized.

Mistake one: Focusing an excessive amount of on the platform and never the underlying behaviour

What we don’t want is one other platform. Direct artist subscriptions in all probability take advantage of sense built-in inside streaming platforms. Artists must commerce management and a few income, however asking followers emigrate to a completely separate platform is unlikely to succeed. What we do want is a greater solution to map music listener behaviour to a recurring subscription format, no matter the place that subscription lives. 

In some ways, artist subscriptions appear incompatible with music. Most artists don’t launch music on a daily sufficient foundation and, for many listeners, fandom doesn’t observe a month-to-month schedule — it ebbs and flows. Talking of which, being a superfan — researching an artist, understanding the lore, staying up to date on their life — takes time and vitality. So with out even mentioning monetary subscription fatigue, the common fan can probably solely be anticipated to subscribe to 1 or two artists. Maybe an add-on tier for a streaming service might give followers credit to subscribe to 3 artists per thirty days, with the choice to change it up every billing cycle.

It’s also value getting ready for the present superfan hype cycle to inevitably enter the trough of disillusionment. Whereas we strongly imagine in monetising fandom, the business is anticipating an excessive amount of from listeners who’ve been conditioned to give attention to songs over artists for the previous decade. In certainly one of his tweets, Blake famous that listeners have been “brainwashed” into “pondering music is free.” If listeners are actually brainwashed, we can’t count on so lots of them to out of the blue have an urge for food for subscriptions. That sort of fandom will must be cultivated over time.

Mistake two: Assuming one sort of fan

The subsequent problem is designing a subscription that works for various kinds of followers. Some superfans are extra targeted on the artist behind the music, whereas others are extra within the music itself — the creation course of, decoding the lyrics, and so on. Some will likely be new followers who’re simply discovering the artist’s again catalogue, whereas others have heard all of it and are solely enthusiastic about getting one thing new.

This problem shouldn’t be particular to music, and neither are potential options. In his newest rumination on the “subscription loss of life cycle,” Ryan Broderick of Rubbish Day argued that subscription newsletters like his personal aren’t one single enterprise mannequin. He finds that there are three: “Parasocial,” the place subscriptions rely on the connection between author and viewers; “binge,” which opens up a trove of previous content material; and “entry,” the place subscribers join primarily for what’s new. Artists might take a web page from this e book, permitting various kinds of followers to dial up or down on numerous perks relying on their preferences.

Mistake three: Specializing in artist entry

Regardless of the wide selection of fan behaviours, there may be one widespread fact: Artist entry is shedding its worth. Music streaming ought to have taught us that when you make one thing ubiquitous, it loses worth to customers. However the business has fallen into the identical entice with social media. Now that behind-the-scenes content material and artist Q&As are throughout social platforms, customers are much less prepared to pay for these options, in response to MIDiA’s Q1 2023 shopper survey. But, these options are sometimes provided as subscription perks. Alternatively, customers expressed the best willingness to pay for early and unique entry to music, stay tickets, and merchandise (one thing Vault will get proper). Why? As a result of this stuff are scarce and subsequently priceless. That is additionally excellent news for artists as merely gating entry to new music (or releasing demos which are already of their onerous drive) requires rather a lot much less work than producing additional content material.

Mistake 4: Pondering of superfans as a silver bullet

Monetising fandom is a important a part of the way forward for this business, full cease. However it isn’t the one a part of that future. Informal listeners have, and all the time will likely be, important to the business as effectively. Think about that as a result of artist-focused superfans have a tendency to attach deeply with the artist behind the music (not simply the music itself), lots of them stream music much less. Superfans of music as a complete, who care extra about breadth than depth, stream music extra, as would possibly many passive listeners who play music within the background of their lives.

For the previous decade, the pendulum of change has swung a bit too removed from one excessive to a different: Bodily-only to every little thing within the metaverse, scarce items to everything-everywhere-all-at-once, and now, a laser give attention to audiences to a laser give attention to followers. There will likely be no silver bullet resolution for the music business’s advanced set of points. Subscriptions are an vital piece of a a lot greater puzzle.