STREAMING WEB 2.0 MARKETING MYTHS the Billie Eilish story

Intriguing source - a weekly-updated blog on streaming and the music industry. And very provocative analysis - NB: uses strong language.

There's a familiar ring to this tale of a plucky young upstart using new media (SoundCloud) to create fan buzz leading to media buzz. A decade or so ago it was Lily Allen and MySpace. The blogger presents a compelling, detailed case that Eilish's downhome brand is just as fake, corporate generated as was Allen's - in both cases their appealing narratives of the little guy ... gal made good masking corporate marketing teams in control from the off.

In the case of Eilish it's specifically Apple, and the blogger argues they're using this smartly created hype and buzz to promote the dying CONCEPT of the album, so much better for monetising purposes than randomly dripfed singles.

Check it out:

https://www.getrevue.co/profile/pennyfractions/issues/penny-fractions-billie-eilish-the-exception-that-proves-the-rule-205262

UGC 2.0 fans remaking tracks from studio leaks

The professionalism of UGC is exploding to the degree that fan-made tracks are exploding online with the fan-base unable to denote such tracks as such, but rather as official tracks.

Contrarily, of course, artists are also taking on amateurish aesthetics for part of their online AV output, with visualisers, lyric videos, unwrapping videos and more (including common social forms, a big driver of this).

Convergence works two ways....

Chopped and screwed? How studio leaks are creating a new DIY rap music

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/03/chopped-and-screwed-how-studio-leaks-are-creating-a-new-diy-rap-music

UK INDUSTRY rises back to 2006 levels but CD falls

UK music purchases hit highest level since 2006

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/01/uk-music-purchases-hit-highest-level-since-2006?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail