Throughout tradition, there may be an eerie sense of issues coming full circle. After spending the previous decade constructing an trade round ad-free streaming TV, Netflix has adverts and feels more and more like cable. Now that Spindrift and Merely have launched spiked seltzer, White Claw is making — you guessed it — common seltzer. Huge, high-waisted pants are on their means out, low-rise denims are on their means in. In each trade, the cultural pendulum has swung from one excessive to a different and again once more. No marvel we really feel so dizzy.

However this yo-yo-ing is definitely a well-studied — and anticipated — phenomenon. From media to political science, a pendulum analogy is usually used to explain the tendency for cultural shifts to swing to extremes earlier than ultimately falling again in the direction of a extra logical center floor. Put this manner, streaming video’s present state — a hybrid of streaming and cable — makes a variety of sense. So does the state of the web itself, which has advanced from decentralisation (Net 1.0) to centralisation (Net 2.0) and is now starting to fragment once more. 

In music, the acute pendulum swings from the pre-streaming to streaming period are well-documented: 

• Shortage to on-demand every thing: Vinyl information, CDs, and even mp3 downloads had various levels of shortage. Data and CDs had been produced in finite quantities. Positive, everybody with an web connection might obtain an mp3, however not everybody might afford to construct a library. Now, the on-demand streaming period has obliterated the idea of shortage, possession has been changed by (very low-cost) entry, and it’s getting tougher for releases to stay out amid the estimated 120,000 tracks launched every single day. 

• IRL to digital: Music was once one thing we skilled collectively, whether or not that meant going to a live performance or huddling round a pal’s boombox to take heed to a brand new CD. Not solely that, however music possession itself was bodily. Gen Z is the primary era to develop up with none semblance of what it means to personal bodily music (or personal it in any respect). In the meantime, the music trade has latched onto one digital hype cycle after one other, from NFTs to the metaverse.

• Fan-focused to audience-focused: Whereas the pre-streaming period divided consumption between radio (for informal listeners) and retail (for followers), the streaming period buckets each listener into the identical expertise on the identical worth. Not solely has this left fandom under-monetised, however streaming economics have all however destroyed the flexibility for artists to earn significant revenue with no mass viewers, forcing everybody to focus relentlessly on scale.

• Artists to songs: The music trade has at all times trusted hit songs. Prior to now, nevertheless, the hits nonetheless centred round artist “eras” and albums, which got here with album artwork, lyric booklets, and different touchpoints that helped construct an artist’s fandom. By decoupling tracks from albums and orienting the listening expertise round playlists, music streaming inherently focuses on songs over artists, and the social video period has solely deepened this shift.

• Human curation to algorithmic curation: As not too long ago because the late 2010s, human-curated playlists nonetheless served a tastemaking function. However within the 2020s, all platforms — and in flip, consumption — are on the mercy of the almighty algorithms. 

A decade into these swings, nevertheless, we’re seeing the pendulum start its journey again in the direction of a extra logical center floor. Having grown up with out bodily music possession, it’s no marvel that Gen Z at the moment are searching for out what they’re lacking — spurring an sudden vinyl increase. Stay, the one scarce music expertise left, is larger than ever. NFTs might have fizzled, however their core lesson of bringing shortage to the digital area has led to a rising curiosity in new platforms and options that gate early or unique entry to music. Labels and artists alike are shifting their priorities in the direction of cultivating and monetising fandom. 

The takeaway is to not hedge your bets on vinyl, IRL experiences, or — as a lot as labels wish to — superfans. When the pendulum swings to extremes, there may be at all times one thing misplaced. In actual fact, the music trade is at the moment at risk of over-emphasizing superfans, a gaggle that — whereas long-neglected — is only one a part of the a lot bigger image. The vast majority of listeners will at all times be informal, and they’re necessary to the trade, as are a wider spectrum of forms of followers than the phrase “superfan” can encapsulate. 

Spotify has allowed many extra bands  who by no means would have gotten previous the native bar circuit pre-streaming to search out their audiences, however that doesn’t imply it can not coexist with new methods to scarce-ify music, as UK band SAULT’s experiments attest. We will break the cycle of yo-yo-ing between extremes by recognising that once we discover ourselves lacking one thing about “the best way it was once”, no matter meaning, it isn’t a purpose to dash to the wrong way. It does imply that we now have gone too far a method, however not that we must always go all the best way again. Maybe probably the most groundbreaking, disruptive factor a music firm can do is to discover a path proper down the center.