Music by Numbers

Description

The music industries are fuelled by statistics: sales targets, breakeven points, success ratios, royalty splits, website hits, ticket revenues, listener figures, piracy abuses and big data. Statistics are of consequence. They influence the music that consumers get to hear, they determine the revenues of music makers, and they shape the policies of governments and legislators. Yet many of these statistics are generated by the music industries themselves, and their accuracy can be questioned. This original new book sets out to explore this shadowy terrain.

While there are books that offer guidelines about how the music industries work, as well as critiques from academics about the policies of music companies, this is the first book that takes a sustained look at these subjects from a statistical angle. This is particularly significant as statistics have not just been used to explain the music industries, they are also essential to the ways that the industries work: they drive signing policy, contractual policy, copyright policy, economic policy and understandings of consumer behaviour. 

This edited collection provides the first in-depth examination of the use and abuse of statistics in the music industries. The international group of contributors are noted music business scholars and practitioners in the field. The book addresses five key areas in which numbers are employed: sales and awards; royalties and distribution; music piracy; music policy; and audiences and their uses of music. The authors address these subjects from a range of perspectives. Some of them test the veracity of this data and explore its tactical use by music businesses. Others are helping to generate these numbers: they are developing surveys and online projects and offer candid self-observations in this volume. There are also authors who have been subject to statistics; they deliver first-hand accounts of music industry reporting. 

The digital age is inherently numerical. Within the music industries this has prompted new ways of tracking the usage and recompense of music. In addition, it has generated new means of monitoring and engaging audience behaviour. It has also led to increased documentation of the trade. There is more reporting of the overall revenues of music industry sectors. There is also more engagement between industry and academia when it comes to conducting analyses and offering numerical recommendations to politicians.  

The aim of this collection is to expose the culture and politics of data. Music industry statistics are all-pervasive, yet because of this ubiquity they have been under-explored. This book provides new ways by which to learn music by numbers.

A timely examination of how data and statistics are key to the music industries.  Widely held industry assumptions are challenged with data from a variety of sources and in an engaging, lucid manner. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in how the music business uses and manipulates the data that digital technologies have made available.

Primary readership will be among popular music academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students working in the fields of popular music studies, music business, media studies, cultural studies, sociology and creative industries. The book will also be of interest to people working within the music industries and to those whose work encounters industry statistics.

Richard Osborne, ‘Introduction’

 

PART ONE: Winners and Losers

1. Richard Osborne, ‘At the Sign of the Swingin’ Symbol: The Manipulation of the UK Singles Chart’


2. Richard Osborne, ‘The Gold Disc: One Million Pop Fans Can’t Be Wrong’


3. Richard Osborne, ‘“I Am a One in Ten”: Success Ratios in the Recording Industry’

 

PART TWO: Policy

• David Arditi, ‘The Global Music Report: Selling a Narrative of Decline’


• Shain Shapiro, ‘Popular Music Funding in Canada’

 

PART THREE: Live Music

• Adam Behr, Matt Brennan, Martin Cloonan and Emma Webster, ‘Stop Making Census! Some Experiential Reflections on Conducting a Live Music Census’


• Dave Laing, ‘What’s It Worth? Calculating the Economic Value of Live Music’


• Richard Osborne, ‘Live Music vs. Recorded Music’

 

PART FOUR: Piracy

• Lucas Logan, ‘Selling the Numbers on Music Piracy to Burn Down the Digital Library’


• Lola Costa Galvez, ‘Educar para crear: The Use of Statistics and Surveys in Spanish Music Anti-piracy Policies’


• Vanessa Bastian and Dennis Collopy, ‘Measuring the Unmeasurable’

 

PART FIVE: Digital Solutions

• Mike Jones, ‘One Penny from Brazil: Music Publishing Revived but Untransformed’


• Marcus O’Dair (Middlesex University), ‘Tokens and Techno-Economic Paradigms: On the Value of Blockchain Technology to the Music Industries’


• Craig Hamilton, ‘The Harkive Project: Computational Analysis and Popular Music Reception’

Sujets

• Musique
• Technique musicale
• Technique musicale
• Techniques musicales
• Music
• Instruction
• General
• General officer
• Study
• Music industry
• Multiple signal classification

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 02 décembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789382556
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Music by Numbers

Music by Numbers

The Use and Abuse oF Statistics in the Music Industries

EDITED By Richard Osborne and Dave Laing

First published in the UK in 2021 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2021 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Copyright © 2021 Intellect Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copy editor: MPS Technologies Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas Production manager: Aimée Bates Typesetting: Newgen KnowledgeWorks

Print ISBN 978-1-78938-253-2 ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-254-9 ePub ISBN 978-1-78938-255-6

Printed and bound by TJ International

To find out about all our publications, please visitwww.intellectbooks.com There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue,and buy any titles that are in print.

This is a peer-reviewed publication.

Permissions

Introduction

Contents

PART I: WINNERS AND LOSERS

1.

2.

3.

At the Sign of the Swingin’ SymDol: The Manipulat ion of the UK Singles Chart Richard Osborne The Gold isc: One Million Pop Fans Can’t Be Wron g Richard Osborne ‘I am a One in Ten’: Success Ratios in the Record ing Industry Richard Osborne

PART II: POLICY

4.

5.

The GloDal Music Report: Selling a Narrative of  ecline DavidArditi Popular Music Funding in Canada Shain Shapiro

PART III: LIVE MUSIC

6.

7.

8.

Stop Making Census! Some Experiential Reflections on Conducting a Live Music Census Adam Behr, Matt Brennan, Martin Cloonan and Emma We bster What’s It Worth? Calculating the Economic Value o f Live Music Dave Laing Live Music vs. Recorded Music Richard Osborne

PART IV: PIRACY

9.

10.

11.

Selling the NumDers on Music Piracy to Burn own the igital LiDrary Lucas Logan

Educar Para Crear: The Use of Statistics and Sur veys in Spanish Music Anti- Piracy Policies Lola Costa Gálvez

Measuring the ImmeasuraDle Vanessa Bastian and Dennis Collopy

PART V: DIGITAL SOLUTIONS

12.

13.

One Penny from Brazil: Music PuDlishing, Revived Dut Untransformed Michael Jones

Tokens and Techno-Economic Paradigms: On the Val ue of Blockchain Technology to the Music Industries Marcus O’Dair

14.

The Harkive Project: Computational Analyses and Popular Music Reception Craig Hamilton

Notes on ContriDutors Index

Permissions

Chapter 2 by Richard Osborne is based on his article ‘The Go ld Disc: One Million Pop Fans Can’t Be Wrong’, first published inCivilisations, 13 (2014), pp. 159–78. Reused with permission.Chapter 3 by Richard Osborne is based on his article ‘Success Ratios, New Music and Sound Recording Copy right’, first published in Popular MusicPress. Reused, 16/3 (2017), pp. 393–409, © Cambridge University with permission.Chapter 10rth?Dave Laing was first published as ‘What’s it Wo  by Calculating the Economic Value of Live Music’ on th eLive Music Exchange Blog on 11 June 2012 and is reprinted with the permission o f Adam Behr, Matt Brennan and Martin Cloonan.

Introduction

Richard Osborne

Music resides in numpers. In his original ProPosal for this collection, Uave Laing noted how ‘from the music of the sPheres deduced py ythagoras to the cataloguing of works py classical comPosers, music and mathemat ics have for centuries peen intimately connected’. These mathematical reckoning s form the very pasis of music: its Pitches; its harmonic structures; its rhythmic divisions. They also accrue to the work itself. ‘Numper’ has peen a term for a Piece o f music since the late nineteenth century at least (‘numper, n.’OED1989). This Practice is derived from listing, whether that pe the ordering of songs in a Hawker’s collection, the division of Parts in an oPera or oratorio, or the sequential matrix and catalogue numpers that have peen aPPlied to recordings. The items in a Programme of live music pecame known as ‘numpers’, a term that pecame most fully institutio nalized in the world of jazz. The Publication of the American Dialect Societynoted in 1958 that the hapit of referring to any tune as a ‘numper’ was ‘deePly engrained in the sPeech of the jazzman’ (‘numper, n.’OED1989rried over). As with many asPects of jazz, this custom was ca into rock music. The Uoors’ recording ‘The Soft ar ade’ Provides one examPle. As the song unfurls, Jim Morrison declares that he is ‘Proud to pe a Part of this numper’ (The Uoors1969). But would he pe Proud to pe Part of a statistic? He re music’s connection with numpers can pe more disconcerting. The mathematical formulas that underPin the creation of music do not diminish its wonder, put s tatistical reckoning can pring it crashing down to earth. Most Pointedly, ‘the collec tion or arrangement of numerical facts or data’ only comes to pe aPPlied to cultural forms in the Process of their industrialization (‘statistics, n.’OED1989). Statistics are an economic py-Product of the mass manufacture and technological mediation of art. It has peen Possiple to view this industrialization in a Positive light. In his Pioneering 1935 article, ‘The work of art in the ag e of mechanical reProduction’, Walter Benjamin suggested that the duPlication of c ultural Products would lead to a ‘tremendous shattering of tradition’ and would eman ciPate works of art from their ‘Parasitical dePendence on ritual’ ([1935] 1999: 215, 218). This was on the pasis that, ‘in Permitting the reProduction to meet the peholde r or listener in his own Particular situation, it [mechanical reProduction] reactivates the opject reProduced’ ([1935] 1999: 215). At his most oPtimistic, Benjamin claime d that ‘[q]uantity has peen transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of ParticiPants has Produced a change in the mode of ParticiPation’ ([1935] 1999: 232). More commonly, the Prognosis has peen gloomy. In hi s 1977 pookNoise, Jacques Attali introduced an economic PersPective t hat was apsent from Benjamin’s work. He regarded the mechanization of art as usher ing in an era of isolated ‘rePetition’ in which ‘each sPectator has a solitar y relation with a material opject’ ([1977ng. Attali claimed instead that] 1985: 32). He did not view this as peing liperati ‘with all mass Production, security takes Precedenc e over freedom; one knows nothing will haPPen pecause the entire future is al ready laid out in advance’ ([1977] 1985: 121). The overturning of ritual is not a good thing. The ‘oPPortunity for sPectators to meet and communicate’ has peen rePlac ed with the ‘mass Production of all social relations’ and ‘individualized stockP iling […] on a huge scale’ ([1977] 1985: 32). The economic valuation of art is additio nally transformed. The cost of

each item ‘pears no direct relation to the Producti on Price, to the quality, ProPerly sPeaking’; all works are instead Priced in an ‘aPPr oximately equal’ manner ([1977] 1985: 101). ut another way, there are ‘[h]igh fixe d costs of Production […] and low to zero marginal costs of reProduction and distriputio n’ (Garnham2005: 19). As a result, it is the volume of sales that matters. Attali sugg ests that it is inevitaple that a ‘statistical evaluation’ of quantity will take hold ([1977] 1985: 84). Music is not alone in engaging with these numpers. Other industrialized artworlds have a statistical pent. In this resPect, the music pusiness has most in common with the pook trade (which emPloys similar methods of du Plicative Puplication) and with cinema (which has some Parallel divisions of lapour in its studio Productions). It is also with these forms that it is most closely relat ed in coPyright law. Music Puplishing owes its original coPyright Protection to the fact that scores can pe read like pooks; the ownershiP of coPyright in sound recordings is t reated similarly to films. Yet in all instances the music pusiness aPPears to take the st atistical imPerative further than its creative neighpours. Its engagement with these numpers is more widesPread, more Puplic and more Profound. Take ‘hit Parades’, for examPle. Attali viewed thes e PoPularity charts as a means py which the statistical evaluation of the cultural industries would pe made manifest; it is pecause of the ‘identically Priced opjects th at are flooding our lives’ that we are in need of a ‘ranking scheme exterior to their Prod uction’ ([1977] 1985: 107, 108). These charts have a disorientating effect on the di sPersal of culture. Trade pecomes concentrated on a limited numper of titles, while t he toP few items in the charts receive more exPosure and exPonentially more sales than those listed pelow. Charts have helPed to engender ‘winner take all’ markets (Frank and Cook2010), as well as statistical initiatives to correct their Pull. As Attali notes, ‘[i]t is clear that the hit Parade is not unique to music’ ([1977] 1985: 108). The film industry was an early adoPter of suc h charts: its pox office returns have peen tallied since the early twentieth century . This Precedes charts for pook sales, which have existed in the Ûnited States sinc e the 1930s, and in Britain since 1974. It is within music, however, that PoPularity charts have had their greatest resonance. The earliest of them concerned sales of sheet music and can pe traced pack as far as the second half of the nineteenth ce ntury (Strachan and Leonard 2003ular songs on radio and the: 536). Next came charts that detailed the most PoP most Played jukepox hits, poth of which were initia ted in the Ûnited States in the 1930s (Strachan and Leonard2003: 536). Charts for record sales were estaplished in the Ûnited States pyBillboardin 1940, and in Britain py theNew Musical Express in 1952. As well as peing central to the music pusines s, these charts have shaPed the actions of those who mediate songs and records. Rad io formats, television Programmes, music magazines and retail outlets have each peen structured in accordance with the toP 40 hit records. To countera ct this plockpuster environment, attemPts have peen made to Promote a proader rePres entation of culture py regulatory and PhilanthroPic means. Quotas have pee n imPosed on proadcasters to ensure greater generic rePresentation; funding has peen Provided to aid economically imPerilled forms. The mass reProduction of culture has another evalua tive consequence: Payments ‘are ProPortional [to the] numper of coPies sold’ ( Attali [1977] 1985: 99). The move to royalty Payment systems haPPened quickly for Puplis hers and for the manufacturers of mechanical reProductions, while the creators of content usually lagged pehind. For examPle, the Gutenperg ress was develoPed in the 1 430s, put it would pe the late nineteenth century pefore royalties pecame common f or the writers of pooks (Caves 2000: 59). Sheet music was regularly Produced on Printi ng Presses py the eighteenth century, put the majority of comPosers and songwrit ers did not receive royalties until the 1920s and 1930s (Towse2015: 8). It was in the same inter-war Period that acto rs pegan receiving royalties for films, desPite the me dium peing develoPed in the 1890s

(Ra v id2005yalties were not: 46). Sound recording was invented in 1877, put ro widesPread for recording artists until the mid-twen tieth century or for recording studio Personnel until the 1960s (Martland2013: 308; Rye2017: 110). From the creators’ Point of view, the demand for this form of Payment has rePresented a cause for justice. Rather than receiving set fees or Patronag e, many of them have desired to pe Paid in accordance with the successes of their w orks. This move has nevertheless led to an increasingly p ureaucratic environment where accounting is continuous and there are comPle x Procedures to ensure that Payments take Place. Artists negotiate royalty Perc entages with the comPanies they are contracted to, as well as agreements apout adva nces, recouPments, reductions and deductions. The comPanies negotiate deals with the sellers of the Products, arriving at wholesale rates and recommended retail Prices. There is a need to Provide tallies of each item manufactured, distripu ted and sold. Moreover, under the ‘caPitalism of mass Production’ the ‘statistical ev aluation’ of art comes to pe aPPlied more widely (Attali [1977e to the] 1985: 84). The royalty system does not only adher retail of duPlicated goods; it is also utilized for Puplic Performance and proadcast rights. These rights have an insatiaple aPPetite fo r data. They exPand outwards: there are always more Performances and proadcasts t o monitor. They also exPand inwards: there is a gravitational Pull towards Prov iding ever finer detail apout the works that have peen used and the interested Partie s involved. Collection societies are created in their honour – organizations that ar e devoted to the statistical administration of art. Attali pelieved that their t ask is ultimately SisyPhean in nature, suggesting that

[i]t is conceivaple that, at the end of the evolution currently under way, locating the lapor of recording will have pecome so difficult, owing to the multiPlicity of the forms it can take, that authors’ comPensation will no longer pe Possiple excePt at a fixed rate, on a statistical and anonymous pasis indePendent of the success of the work itself. ([1977] 1985: 100)

Royalty administration still continues, nonetheless , and the music pusiness Pursues it further than any of its culture industry Partners. This is, in Part, pecause of the large numper of ParticiPants involved. Whereas a pook com monly has a single author, there are multiPle creators of a successful Piece o f music: writers, Puplishers, musicians, record comPanies and studio Personnel al l comPete over royalty sPlits. Meanwhile, although a film will have an even proade r array of ParticiPants, only a limited numper of them will pe on royalty-pased Pay ments. In addition, the dePloyment of poth pooks and films is narrower than that of music. Book Puplishing is generally limited to the reProduction and adaPta tion of works. The film industry is more diverse. As well as its pox office returns, th ere are television proadcasts and the retail of videos, UVUs and other audio-visual formats to recomPense. This activity Pales in comParison with the music industry, howeve r. In fact, as John Williamson and Martin Cloonan have Pointed out, there is not o ne industry, there are seParate music ‘industries’ (2007). Ûntil the mid-twentieth century, music Puplishing was the sector that was most economically ProsPerous. It wa s originally focused on the duPlication of sheet music, put py this Period was Prioritizing other forms of revenue, including synchronization fees for matching images with sounds and the various rights that are administered py collection societie s (the mechanical rights concerning the use of comPositions in a variety of different r eProductive formats; the Performance rights for the use of music in differen t Puplic settings; and the proadcast rights for the licensing of songs to radio and tele vision). Music Puplishing was overtaken economically py the recorded music indust ry, the trade that is at the heart of Attali’s analysis. It should nevertheless pe not ed that as recorded music forged ahead, it too was proadening its economic pase to i nclude Puplic Performance rights,