Digital music’s new drop culture

Today almost all creative work is digitized and essentially rented — lowering payouts, devaluing work, and redirecting the lion’s share of rewards to the platforms hosting the work rather than the creators themselves.

What’s coming into focus more gradually is how bad things are getting for those of us in the audience, too . Something that’s long bothered me and Erin about the hegemony of streaming is that if you do away altogether with physical media, you put yourself at the mercy of corporate accountants (who might decide there’s insufficient R.O.I. when it co... See more

Sound, which lets musicians sell their songs as NFTs to their biggest fans, has been on fire in its first month. Its 5pm daily drops have become appointment internet, and it sold out its first 21 consecutive drops in under a minute each and paid out over $200k to artists (plus a 10% cut of secondary transactions, which have been very active). It wo... See more

On its surface, the shift to digital audio should have led to further increases in song length. After all, there was no longer any limitation to run-time. However, the reverse occurred. Technology might have relaxed its grip on music’s length, but it had strengthened its hold on business models.