For the past year and a half I have been investigating the
subject of creators’ earnings, working alongside my excellent colleagues Hyojung
Sun, David Hesmondhalgh and Kenny Barr.
We have produced two reports, one investigating streaming
revenues, while the other looks at the turn to ‘buy-out’ payments in the audio
visual market. The reports were commissioned by the IPO, who have published
them today (available from this link).
The IPO are trailing the first report as
‘ground-breaking research into how creators earn money through streaming’, and a
separate report issued by the government yesterday has described it as ‘the most comprehensive study of music
creators’ earnings ever completed in the UK’. Music Ally have meanwhile
described it as ‘an important study that deserves to be read widely’. Please
read!
The Conversation has
published an article that I’ve written about last night’s Mercury Prize. Their
edited version can be accessed this link. The original can be found below.
Sometimes the result feels obvious. Arlo Parks, the bookies’
favourite, was always likely to win the Mercury Prize for the best British and
Irish album of the year. This is not because Collapsed in Sunbeams is the most worthy album musically. Each of
the shortlisted records could have made a claim in this respect. Instead, it is
because the prize tends to be awarded to artists who capture the zeitgeist. Parks typifies 2021 in a way
that escapes the other nominees. Outlining their decision at the award ceremony
last night, the judges commended ‘just how much she represents a generation of
people and talks about themes that are so timely to now’. Collapsed in Sunbeams provides succour for our pandemic lives, ‘we
need Arlo Parks’ music: it’s healing, it’s comforting, it’s uplifting.’
It would be
going too far to suggest that artists create albums with the Mercury Prize in mind, but the award does form part
of promotional strategies. Above all else, it is regarded as providing a sales
boost. Unlike the Booker Prize for fiction, with which it is often compared,
this boost forms part of the media coverage (and part of the prize’s Wikipedia
page). The shortlisting of Collapsed in
Sunbeams resulted in a sales increase of 16.7%. Another of the nominees, Laura
Mvula’s Pink Noise, witnessed a 50%
rise.
Yet there is a tension in this prize.
It attempts to capture the pulse of the nation, but in many ways the
long-playing record is a thing of the past. Some commenters believe that albums
reached their peak as an artform half a century ago. In the current century,
this format can be viewed as being an irrelevance. Rather than listening to
albums in toto, consumers are now more likely to stream individual tracks. In
2019, the British research company, MIDiA found that just 10% of consumers
listened to physical albums, and only 10% listened to albums in full on
streaming services.
The preference, instead, is the algorithms of playlists.
Artists have responded in kind.
Some, such as Calvin Harris, no longer make albums. There is divergence between
singles and albums acts. Statistically, singles can be viewed as being more
representative of the public. This week’s number one, ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed
Sheeran, has been streamed over 400 million times on Spotify alone. In
contrast, prior to last night’s award, Collapsed
in Sunbeams had just 43,311 UK sales.
The record
business still clings to the idea of the album, nonetheless. The Mercury Prize
is organized by the UK’s trade body, the BPI. Rather than accept the dominance
of the access mode of listening, the recording industry converts streaming
activity into ‘album equivalent sales’. Figures are reported on the basis that
1000 streams across all tracks of an album is equal to the sale of one physical
album. Music business analyst Tim Ingham has described this formula as
‘self-evident madness’. It is based on the notion that the two tallies will
generate similar royalties. This is economically false: the calculation has
been in place for ten years, a period in which the average per-stream rate has
halved, while the average price of a physical album has increased. In addition,
it provides a false equivalence across different methods of consumption. In
reaching the 1000 streams total, there is no need for listeners to experience
the music as an album. The figures are instead compiled from their atomized activities.
The Mercury
Prize has been in existence since 1992. Ostensibly, its thirty winners have
fulfilled the same function: they have captured the spirit of the times to
create the best album of the year. Since the turn to online services, however,
the award has undertaken an additional role. It is upholding the idea of the
album in the face of technological change. The televised event is even
structured like a record. There are twelve shortlisted nominees, matching the average
number of tracks on album. They perform their hit tracks in turn, mirroring the
pattern of a compilation LP.
This might
feel anachronistic, but it is a worthwhile task. Many artists do still think in
terms of collections songs. The album continues to provide a great resource
with which to outline a musical vision. The prize also does an effective of job
of introducing audiences to these albums and increasing their ‘sales’. Put
another way, would any of us prefer a Mercury Prize for the playlist of the
year?
