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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Independent artists in the modern music landscape
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Independent artists in the modern music landscape
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Content
INDEPENDENT ARTISTS IN THE MODERN MUSIC LANDSCAPE
by
Haley Griffin
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION & JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
December 2022
ii
Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………..…………………………...………………..iii
Chapter One: Introducing the recorded music industry…………………………………………...1
Chapter Two: How independent artists previously fit in the narrative……….….………………..6
Chapter Three: The curveballs of mixtapes and MTV…………………………………………..10
Chapter Four: The advent of the internet to present day music formats…………………………12
Chapter Five: Streaming criticisms and benefits………………..…………...…………………..17
Chapter Six: The social media part of the equation……………….……..………………………26
Chapter Seven: The future of music and the final verdict………….…………...……………….37
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..39
iii
Abstract
This thesis presents a conversation about the digital music landscape, and how it offers
independent artists more tools to find their audience. Transitioning from a tangible
product to digital recordings changed the way artists interact with their fans through the
use of algorithmic discovery, data, and virality, while also widening outreach through
online access. Throughout this thesis, I will weigh the benefits of popular social media
apps and streaming companies, as well as the pitfalls of these industry changes.
Additionally, I will explore how these mediums impact my case studies: three rising
artists. The conclusion will address industry conversations about the future of music
based on the precedent set by the evolution of music formats. Interviews included are
Katherine Dacey, musicologist; Mark Goldstein, former music lawyer/record label
executive; Jordon Isbell, digital strategy executive; Noah Nethery, data scientist and
music academic; Hannah Resnick, contributing entertainment journalist; and Patrice
Rushen, award-winning R&B artist from the eighties; as well as my three case studies,
Emma Charles, folk-pop singer-songwriter; Diego “Bloom Line” Reyes, EDM producer;
and Aimee Vant, indie-pop singer-songwriter.
1
Chapter One: Introducing the recorded music industry
Music is my lifelong passion. It’s what led me to study at Berklee College of Music, where I met
talented artists from around the world who deserved far more recognition. While I lacked the
self-belief to pursue artistry myself, during my studies I became intrigued with how independent
artists could grow their audiences, since I’d witnessed so much amazing music go unnoticed.
Helping unknown artists became my new calling.
With this new career focus, I enrolled in music business courses and was fascinated by one of my
required texts: How to Make It in the New Music Business by Ari Herstand. This 2016 guide for
independent artists detailed how musicians could grow their audience and build a sustainable
career, detailing what artists should consider prior to releasing music, as well as how they should
market themselves. But music is one of the fastest evolving industries, and by the time I finished
reading this book cover-to-cover, it was already out of date (as Herstand predicted in his
Author’s Note). Herstand then released a new edition at the beginning of 2020, but this was
before coronavirus spread across the globe.
Quarantine crippled the live music scene, but boosted social media and live stream engagement,
radically changing the industry, as well as how artists found their audience. After witnessing past
classmates’ careers blow up on TikTok, I wanted to explore further how that platform and
catered algorithms were helping artists find their audience in unprecedented ways, even without
the support of a record label.
2
TikTok became significantly more popular during the Covid 19 quarantine as evidenced by its
sharp jump in revenue between Q1 2020 and Q2, and other social media platforms responded
with similar services: Facebook and Instagram soon had “Reels,” while YouTube made “Shorts,”
and Pinterest got “Highlights.” For all of these services, music is central to this short-form
entertainment: creators often use segments of songs for musical backdrops, for lip syncing lyrics,
for creating dances and trends to specific songs, or even for artists themselves to perform and
promote their own work. While this may seem similar to predecessors such as YouTube, the
difference is how concentrated these catered algorithms are in curating a recommendation engine
specifically for its user. Forbes found that TikTok collected more data on an individual user’s
behavior than any other service.
1
For the music industry specifically, this extensive amount of personal data allows TikTok to
learn the interests and tastes of users quickly with each swipe, like, or prolonged attention,
enabling artists and consumers to find each other with more ease, and helping artists reach their
potential audience out of a pool of 1.4 billion worldwide users. According to research listed in
The Brown Daily Herald, 75% of TikTok users say they use the app to discover new artists,
leading sources such as Business Insider to declare TikTok as the “go-to platform for discovering
new music.”
1
This level of collection comes with its own perils in terms of polarization (especially in relation to political
radicalization), surveillance capitalism, as well as excessive collection in participating minors. But that’s a whole
other thesis; if you wish to explore this topic further on how your data could be used while participating on social
media, I recommend referencing the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. Or, if you want a deep dive in
national conversations about TikTok data specifically, I recommend this Billboard interview with Republican FCC
Commissioner Brendan Carr, nominated by former President Donald Trump.
3
According to Mark Goldstein, former Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Warner
Bros Records, finding your audience has always been the main battle for musicians. “Artists
have done [this] for 300 years: Who is my audience? And how do I reach them, and how do I
grow that audience? And we have better tools to do that, and we have too many of them,”
Goldstein said, sharing insight from his 18 years in the record business, as well as his additional
years as an artist, manager, professor, and music lawyer.
Goldstein isn’t just referring to the recommendation algorithms that come with social media.
Beyond short-form entertainment, we see recommendation engines and algorithmic discovery in
streaming and radio subscriptions, as well. According to an article from Wired, “every tap, song
start, playlist listen, search, shuffle, and pause is logged” on Spotify, which can learn an audience
member’s taste, mood, and context of their listening patterns. From there, these catered
algorithms become refined by compiling metadata with each user interaction, leading to “user-
item matching,” as detailed in Oscar Celma’s book, Music Recommendation and Discovery. This
could expose fans to artists they may have never found organically.
While streaming and social media allow for artist discovery, these formats don’t pay artists as
much per individual listen. Predecessors such as records and cassettes and CD’s were more
profitable per sale; however, streaming and social media offer commitment-free exploration,
infiltrating other music formats’ sales.
According to data collected by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), revenue
reached a record high in 2021, achieving $15 billion in sales across mixed formats popularized
4
through the years. There was special interest in vinyl, which had a major resurgence and
accounted for $1 billion of those sales—the first time vinyl records have topped that mark since
1985 (see Figure 1).
2
Figure 1:
T. Seppala from the technology-news magazine Engadget says streaming helps vinyl sales
because “streaming is a good method for discovery, while vinyl is for investing in the artists and
albums you love.” Still, paid subscriptions and ad-supported streaming accounted for the most
music revenue in 2021.
2
U.S. Sales Database, "U.S. Recorded Music Revenues by Format.” Recording Industry Association of
America, Accessed May 28, 2022. https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/
5
Even for well-established artists, streaming platforms serve as a taste-tester for physical album
sales, as well as other income streams such as live music tickets and merchandise. While
streaming may produce less revenue than other income sources, streaming can encourage a fan to
purchase the higher-profit items. In addition to these revenue streams, the Future of Music
Coalition assembled a list of 42 revenue streams many musicians participate in; so even though
the profit coming solely from recorded music has declined, the income streams for artists have
diversified and expanded, due to the varying ways to consume music.
This thesis will continue to delve into conversations on how independent artists are impacted by
the modern music landscape, with an emphasis on major players such as TikTok and Spotify.
While the Musician’s Institute credits social media for evening the playing field and empowering
artists, we’ll explore how profitable finding your audience can be, as well as the benefits and
pitfalls of these platforms.
6
Chapter Two: How independent artists previously fit in the narrative
In order to understand why the modern music landscape has sparked so much debate, it’s
important to reference the recorded music industry’s history to see what’s been gained and lost.
“The biggest shift really comes with the advent of the internet,” said Katherine Dacey, a
musicologist and professor at Berklee College of Music who specializes in the history of
American music and radio. “If we look at the business model that was cultivated at the beginning
of the recording industry…the model was selling people recordings on the theory that they would
build a library. The most radical thing about the last 20 years is abandoning the notion of the old
library…to a model where…what you’re paying for is access.”
At the beginning of the 20th Century, many musicians were only paid flat fees for their
performances and didn’t receive royalties, so while the record companies profited, the musicians
worked for hire and didn’t see returns from their talent. There were major record label stars such
as Enrico Caruso, who by 1919 made 10% royalties from the catalog price of his recordings, plus
an annual minimum payment of $100,000 —equating to more than $1.7 million today – but,
most musicians were still participating in unions and were employed through work-for-hire; only
the ones with major record deals benefitted from worldwide fame and fortune, not leaving much
space for unsigned artists.
As for widespread outreach, before social media and streaming platforms, radio and television
played a crucial role in exposing artists to audiences during the 20th Century.
7
After the first scheduled radio broadcast in 1920, the “Golden Age of Radio” (1920-1950) was a
hub for mixed entertainment: comedies, soap operas, sports, news and, of course, music.
But with the rise of television, storytelling switched to the small screen while music remained
important to radio. “It became really clear that all these radio stations would need to fill their
airtime with something because they were getting less and less content from their affiliates,”
Dacey said. “And so as that’s happening…they started turning to records and disc jockeys.”
While musical acts performed live on radio during the Golden Age, television began taking
audiences and advertisers away from radio, affecting radio stations’ earnings; consequently,
records were the solution to keep music a prominent part of radio while lowering production
costs. Meanwhile, on TV, emerging shows such as CBS’s The Ed Sullivan Show often featured
live musical guests. Running from 1948 to 1971, this program became so influential, it could
impact a band’s trajectory. That was true for The Beatles, whose first appearance on Ed Sullivan
in February of 1964 had 45.3% of American households tune in for the performance, helping
inspire Beatlemania in America.
As for radio, a singular disc jockey simplified the backend, leading radio to become the
backbone of new music discovery. Since radio had an influence on what was popular, it’s no
surprise labels tried to purchase air time.
The 1950s were dominated by payola, which is the illegal practice of paying a radio station or its
employees to play a song and therefore “manufacture” popularity. Record labels would rebrand
8
payments as listening fees, paying disc jockeys thousands of dollars. Once the federal
government completed its investigation, 335 disc jockeys confessed to receiving more than
$263,000 in bribes. By 1960, the Federal Communications Act was enacted, prohibiting this
practice and forcing broadcasters to disclose if a song purchased airplay, creating more
transparency in the industry. However, it didn’t eradicate the issue–as late as the mid 2000s,
major labels paid multi-million dollar settlements in payola fines.
After the payola scandal, disc jockeys turned to sales data to figure out what to play. Stations
would send out surveys to listeners for requests, or stations would refer to the Billboard charts,
founded in 1940. Because the songs in the Top 40 continued to be played over and over, they
maintained massive popularity.
“The rise of Top 40 and a more regimented approach to programming was supposed to
discourage payola,” Dacey said. “But it also meant that radio was sometimes chasing trends
rather than creating them.”
For example, at the turn of the decade in 1970, disc-jockey Casey Kasem grew in prominence
after hosting a “Top 40” themed broadcast, a practice we still hear across radio today. Although
he wasn’t the first to do a countdown, he is often credited as the forerunner for this type of show.
Another unlikely device that affected these charts was the jukebox, which – beginning in the
1940s – became so prominent, they had their own data set and Billboard category.
9
“They measured jukebox plays because jukeboxes were an incredibly important destination for
records, radio play, and physical sales. And they actually broke them down by region, as well as
offering a national chart that summarized all of them,” Dacey said.
This was just one way data began to infiltrate the mainstream’s purchase choices. Mark
Goldstein, the former label executive, said this was when the record industry began paying
attention to data, letting the numbers dictate which songs to promote or which breakthrough
artists to keep an eye on. In the 1960s, instead of just visiting clubs, according to Goldstein,
labels started going directly to radio stations to look at the listening patterns of the general
population and tracking the Broadcast Data Systems’ spin counts.
“[Labels aren’t] worried about artists,” Goldstein said. “They’re worried about that quarter of
that year and making their numbers better.”
This type of selectiveness further isolated aspiring artists who weren’t signed to labels from the
music scene in the 1960s. Not only did they lack the funds to compete with record label payola,
but with the top artists in the world dominating radio through Billboard charts, there wasn’t
much airtime for the little guys.
10
Chapter Three: The curveballs of mixtapes and MTV
The RIAA began recording sales data by 1973, and in real time, we can see the cassette tape
surpass older music formats. In 1977, cassettes outsold vinyl singles by $4.5 million, and in
1980, cassettes overtook the eight-track by $178 million in sales. By 1983, cassettes were the
best-selling format, outpacing LPs by $100 million.
Cassettes created an unexpected space for independent artists. Blank tapes were significantly
cheaper than pressing a record on vinyl, allowing indie artists to use inexpensive recording
equipment and duplicate their tapes—a much easier process than previous formats. This was
especially prevalent in the punk and hip hop genres.
“The record industry’s great power was the power of distribution,” Dacey said. “If you wanted to
be in Sam Goody’s or Tower Records, you really had to be signed to a record label in order to
get that kind of physical distribution of your product. Now, there were certainly alternative
methods.”
Independent artists suddenly had the capacity to package their music themselves and sell it on
merch tables at shows, in the back of their van, or even on the street.
“You have to admire the ingenuity and the hustle of somebody who’s doing that,” Dacey said.
“But they’re not getting the same nationwide distribution that you would if you were signed to a
11
major label or signed to a smaller label that had some kind of distribution agreement with the
bigger one.”
Cassettes were also responsible for another pivotal moment in music history: the introduction of
the mixtape. With the affordability of blank tapes and the ease of duplicating recordings, fans
could create a compilation of songs of their choice on a cassette, similar to the digital playlist
model we see now. It was common to create a mixtape for another person—someone who hadn’t
purchased the original recordings. This inspired fans to expose each other to new music, but it
also brought up conversations about copyright infringement and piracy, a relatively new
conversation in recorded music at the time.
In 1981, an unexpected challenger entered the arena, one that would prove pivotal in defining the
next few decades of music: MTV.
“MTV was hugely important in the ‘80s in setting the conversation that there were all kinds of
artists who were successful because they'd look great on MTV, rather than having a single that
was super memorable,” Dacey said. Suddenly, a sonic-based industry was diving deeper into
visuals, influencing fashion and the idea that the artist was a brand. This set the scene for future
short-form video entertainment, since outfits and fad dances became intertwined with a song’s
identity, foreshadowing short-form entertainment such as TikTok.
12
Chapter Four: The advent of the internet to present day music formats
Shortly after the launch of MTV, compact discs (CDs) created an unprecedented revenue boom.
With its novel prices and negligible production costs, record companies and artists alike were
rolling in profits they may never achieve again. At the height of their popularity in 2000, CDs
comprised 92.3% of total music revenue ($13.2 billion )—approximately $22.7 billion today.
CDs also maintained mixtape practices, and it was a format independent artists could use easily.
Since CDs faced similar piracy struggles as the cassette, labels turned their attention to policing
bootleg CDs instead of keeping an eye on the newcomer: MP3s.
“We get the compact disc in the 1980s, but again, the basic model is still always gearing the
consumer to buying a recording, a physical recording, so that you’re amassing this library,”
Dacey said. “And of course, the MP3 radically disrupts that entire business model because it
empowers consumers to effectively be distributors, not only just to be the end-consumer for a
product, but to distribute it to other people by posting it on a platform like Napster or putting it
up on their website or any number of other ways that you could circumvent going to Tower
Records and buying a copy of something.”
Just when record companies were welcoming the arrival of digital audio, in 1999 Napster
showed the downside, with a level of piracy that the bootleg CD and the mixtape never
approached. With the rise of the internet, Napster allowed 80 million predominantly young
music fans to go online and gain free, immediate access to a colossal catalog of illegally-shared
13
music. Fans no longer had to buy the album to hear their new favorite song. In fact, they didn’t
have to spend any money at all. This changed the way music was being consumed.
“Royalties became more difficult to calculate, and as such, music creators were very affected by
the idea of the use of their music becoming free through one’s ability to download,” said Patrice
Rushen, an award-winning R&B artist who rose to prominence during the eighties.
Economic experts drew the conclusion that Napster was directly involved in damaging CD sales
by 20%. The peak of 20th Century music revenues was 1999, and in the following five years
there was a steady loss of more than $2 billion dollar in music revenue by 2003.
In 2001, Napster was shut down after several copyright infringement lawsuits, including a $20
billion lawsuit RIAA won against the founders of Napster. The same year, Apple’s new product,
iTunes, swooped in to try to make an online sharing model profitable for musicians. Apple
offered a library of 85 million songs that were acquired legally, allowing music fans to purchase
tracks for 99 cents.
iTunes had the singles-focus that the mixtape had foreshadowed, and the accessibility that drew
fans to Napster, but the difference was consumers were purchasing music again. On that same
RIAA chart, we see downloaded singles and downloaded albums enter the market in 2004 – the
first increase in total revenue for the industry since the introduction of Napster in 1999. The
following year, iTunes even outsold Tower Records, the massive music store chain that had
almost completely transitioned from vinyl to the lucrative CD market.
14
In previous models, a single’s primary role was to market the sale of the album. iTunes still tries
to carry that practice over by offering singles that could only be heard with the purchase of an
artist’s full album. But forcing consumers to purchase albums wasn’t working because fans were
used to getting what they wanted for free through platforms such as Napster.
“Part of the industry’s efforts were to try and remake the digital world into a mirror image of the
physical business model that they had cultivated for so long,” Dacey said. “So if we look at the
early 2000s with the introduction of iTunes, I think a lot of people thought they could discipline
consumers into using iTunes and continuing the idea that you bought recordings, and that here,
you could do it a la carte, and you could customize it much more to reflect your own individual
tastes than you could in the era of the album.”
However, it didn’t take long for the music industry to reinvent itself. Pandora gained prominence
in the 2000s as another online tool for music access. Pandora was unique in the sense that it
offered curated radio stations.
Users could create a channel based on their favorite genre, era, artist, or song, and the platform
would play content similar to the users’ selected interest. In addition, users could like or dislike
recommended songs and an algorithm could further understand their taste, allowing fans to not
just consume the content they already enjoyed, but also discover new artists.
15
“The internet introduced a different criteria to not only gather data, but to influence the potential
purchaser,” Rushen said. This was the introduction of gathering personality data from music
consumers.
And unlike iTunes, anyone could tune into Pandora for free if they were willing to listen to
advertisements. Otherwise, they could upgrade to a premium commercial-free subscription.
Pandora was the first platform to really focus its business model on the personalization of music
consumption, but there were ways this model could be improved, since a Pandora radio station
still limited listening autonomy, and fans still didn’t have complete control over the queue.
Meanwhile, iTunes upset consumers when it raised prices for some singles up to $1.29 each,
Streaming further innovated how fans accessed music, taking lessons from all the music formats
that came before. When Spotify emerged in 2008, its founder Daniel Ek said he aimed “to create
a service that was better than piracy, and at the same time, compensates the music industry.” The
platform had an equally massive catalog (like iTunes) and had a paid option to remove ads (like
Pandora), but instead of purchasing singles or creating radio stations, users could create their
own playlists. Following Pandora’s lead, Spotify also explored the concept of suggestion-based
music, made possible by the data collected from user analytics without requiring the consumer to
directly give the song a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Shortly after the success of Spotify, iTunes re-branded as Apple Music, and Pandora also
introduced a similar plan, inspiring other copycat services such as Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer,
and Google, among others. Even Napster returned as a streaming service.
16
“You pay your monthly fee for whatever the service is, and now you have this unlimited buffet
of music that you could sample from,” Dacey said.
Jordon Isbell, founder of the digital marketing agency 270 Media, remembers this switch. She
was interning at a marketing and public relations firm in 2011, just as the music industry was
rewiring.
“From the beginning it was all CD sales; all Walmart partnerships, and Target, and in-store
activations. Things like that,” Isbell said. “And now, it’s really transitioned over the years [to],
how do we have an online presence with streaming?”
Isbell worked at many notable music companies, including Universal Music’s record label
“Show Dog,” before founding her own company in 2020 that focuses on artists’ digital strategy.
While she noted that her clients still enjoy physical sales, especially in the country genre,
streaming has taken over. “The physical product placement in stores is important, but it’s
definitely not a top priority for us anymore,” Isbell said.
17
Chapter Five: Streaming criticisms and benefits
While streaming platforms dominate the market for music consumption, this format certainly has
its critics. From its inception, streaming has caused controversy; namely, with how it
compensates – or doesn’t compensate – artists.
Many streaming platforms haven’t properly disclosed their payment rates. The exception is
Apple Music, which reversed its payment policies after Taylor Swift threatened to pull her
album, 1989, from the platform.
Apple had only paid artists for their streams after the consumer’s three-month free-trial expired,
but Swift convinced the company to pay artists at a per-stream-rate even during trial periods.
While most services are estimated to pay a fraction of a cent per stream, Apple Music raised its
rate to an average of one cent per stream. While other services won’t reveal their rates, the only
other platforms that are estimated to pay more per individual stream are Napster at $0.019 per
stream, and Tidal, Jay-Z’s streaming platform, at around $0.013 per stream, per research from
the online news outlet Digital Music News. YouTube is last, with an estimated $0.00069 per
stream.
Still, Spotify has been the main recipient of streaming backlash, since it’s considered the
blueprint for this new payment model–and has the most users of any platform. It’s estimated to
pay between $.003 and $.005 per stream. A streaming royalty calculator estimates that 1,000,000
streams will total only $4,000 in sales. Compared to the CD sales the industry had been enjoying
18
a decade prior to Spotify’s inception, the value of a song fiscally plummeted. And if an artist is
signed to a major label, or works with a producer or songwriter or distributor, that fraction of a
cent can be divided even smaller.
“Whenever you really break down how much songwriters get paid now due to streaming, it’s
really, really unfortunate and really sad,” Isbell said. Her husband is a songwriter who has been
in the industry for a decade, and just this year he had his first song, for Luke Combs, hit the
charts; but the payment alone didn’t reflect the amount of traffic the song received. “I think
continuing to figure out ways to bring that [payment discrepancy] to the forefront of people’s
attention [is crucial], so they can realize that there’s a huge gap there that needs to be filled,” said
Isbell.
There have been countless fiery articles bringing this issue to the spotlight, including this New
Yorker article by Alex Ross, who brings up other issues such as Spotify’s lack of transparency in
song royalties, podcasts that spread misinformation, and its greenhouse gas emissions. Regarding
its relationship to independent artists, Ross says Spotify’s payment arrangement “has reaped
huge profits for major labels and for superstars while decimating smaller-scale musical
incomes—as perfect an embodiment of the winner-takes-all neoliberal economy as has yet been
devised.”
According to RIAA data from 2021, streaming claims more than 60% of total industry revenue,
and for the first time in industry history, music revenue in the U.S. surpassed $15 billion. That
same year, Spotify announced that it has paid out more than $7 billion to its music rights holders.
19
However, the main question is how those billions are being distributed. According to Rolling
Stone, major record labels own sizable portions of Spotify through billions of dollars of stock.
While Universal still owns the most shares today, Taylor Swift again had an influence when
signing to the label, demanding that “any sale of their Spotify shares result in a distribution of
money to their artists, non-recoupable,” as well as the ownership of her master recordings. Still,
these deals are benefitting signed artists, making it unclear the rate at which independent artists
are getting paid.
But on the flip side, the digital availability of songs also allows for a valuable feature: playlists.
Spotify revealed that a song is uploaded to its platform every 1.4 seconds (around 60,000 songs
per day), and playlists can give an artist a chance to break through the noise. There are two main
routes for playlisting: those curated by a streaming company’s staff; as well as algorithmically-
developed playlists catered for a specific user’s taste. Users can also make their own playlists,
and share them with others, but their following often isn’t as large as those curated by Spotify or
Apple Music.
For the algorithmic playlists, listeners can find mixes made up of both music they regularly listen
to, as well as similar content; they can manage every single release of artists they regularly listen
to through Spotify’s “release radar” playlist; or, they can utilize the “discovery tool” to find
brand new artists who algorithmically fit that user’s preference.
I tried to speak with both Spotify and Apple Music to learn more about their recommendation
engines, and while several people were eager to help, all came back to say that due to internal
20
rules, they could not get clearance to speak to any press about the company. However, Chris
Macowski, the Global Head of Music Communications at Spotify, directed me to his favorite
quotes provided by Spotify’s indie music partners as part of a publicity campaign for its
Discover tool, detailing the company’s perspective on their efficacy.
Editorial playlists are curated by Spotify’s professionals who work to capture a vibe or genre.
These playlists can have millions of followers; currently, the “Today’s Top Hits” playlist has
more than 31 million likes. And according to a Spotify-brand video explaining the process, if a
song does well on a smaller editorial playlist, it can move up the ranks to more popular playlists.
Emerging independent artist Emma Charles experienced the boosting power of editorial playlists
firsthand. Growing up in Connecticut in a family full of musicians, Charles’ love for music
began at an early age. She began playing violin by age four, followed by piano; by middle
school, she was already writing original songs. However, Charles didn’t launch her current artist
project until 2018 when she was 20 years old.
It took two years for her first editorial placement. Charles’ song, “25,” landed on Spotify’s Fresh
Finds playlist in 2020, a playlist that has more than 1.1 million likes to date. Now, the song has
topped 248,000 streams and, as a result, Charles’ listeners explored other songs in her catalog,
especially “Comfort in the Chaos,” which was released two years prior. Now, that single has
more than 222,000 streams to date.
21
“I’m happy with the number; I want it to keep growing!” Charles said. The success of this
placement grew her fanbase. As of August, 2022, Charles has more than 51,000 regular fans who
tune into her catalog each month – fans who can trickle into other income streams, such as
concert tickets, merchandise sales, and more. Additionally, she was featured in the popular
YouTube series, “Jam in the Van,” which has been the stage for artists such as Lawrence, Spin
Doctors, Sublime, The MisterWives, and Elle King, among others.
Charles hoped for similar results with her single, “Get To Me,” which had more pop influence
than her previous folk tracks. “I was like, My goal for this is to have it on a Spotify playlist if
nothing else, and that didn’t happen,” Charles admitted. “At least I got [25, the previously placed
single], you know? That’s good enough for me.”
While “Get To Me” didn’t get placed on a Spotify playlist, Charles eventually would see another
song land on one. Released in May of 2022, her single, “Organ Donor,” found its way to even
more editorial playlists, landing on Spotify’s “Fresh Finds,” “Fresh Finds Pop,” and “Chill-
Singer-Songwriter,” as well as the Apple Music playlist, “New in Alternative,” causing the song
to rise in streams across platforms quickly.
Streaming allows artists ranging from beginners to Emma Charles to Ed Sheeran to coexist on
the same platform, now that there is easier access to third party distributors such as Distrokid,
which uploads artists’ music for a small fee. Distrokid offers a flat rate of $19.99; once that’s
paid, an artist can upload an unlimited number of songs to all streaming platforms for 12 months.
Distrokid also submits songs to Spotify for playlist consideration, which is why several artists
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will upload singles a month in advance of an album’s release date to give curators ample time for
listening – and hopefully, enough fans will pre-save their release and boost their numbers for a
specific song. Charles went through a company called Ingrooves, which doesn’t charge artists
upfront, but rather takes 10-30% of wholesale (the aforementioned .004 cents per stream).
With the career-changing possibilities of playlisting, the Berklee school’s Dacey warns of
another consequence to this model, as history seems to repeat itself. “We’re seeing the revival of
payola on streaming platforms, and in part because streaming is now such an important part of
the Billboard algorithm for determining things like the Billboard Hot 100,” she said.
I experienced the payola aspect personally in 2020 when I was looking to release my first song
ever to streaming; I had researched curators who didn’t work for Spotify, but who had built a
following for their playlists on the platform, hoping I could get my song the right placement.
When submitting my song for consideration, I got a response that a curator would add my song
for a fee, and I could be on the playlist for longer if I paid more money. Many unsigned and
inexperienced artists could be vulnerable to this practice.
Another way modern versions of payola can happen is by purchasing bots to stream music on
repeat. The band Vulfpeck went viral when it asked their fans to play a completely silent album
on repeat – even while sleeping – in order to get them royalties. Once the band earned $20,000
from this practice, Spotify caught wind and took the album down.
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Artists should not have to break the law to get their music heard; in fact, artists might be
reassured that many fans find new music and listen to more genres than ever before. A study
found that in 2017, Spotify recommended more than 30% of all listening that happened on its
platform. Additionally, Spotify’s increased traction helped artists generate more than $40 million
in ticket sales.
However, Dacey brought up a counterpoint: “[Streaming] has created an environment where
every new artist now has to compete with 100 years of sound recording in a way that wasn’t
really true in the analog days,” she said. “That’s become increasingly difficult with the …digital
market; where whatever is really hot rises to the top and whatever has been popular in the past, it
dominates.”
But having more artists for comparison purposes makes the data more sophisticated. For
example, Spotify offers a tool that can directly compare “lookalike” artists who have similar
fanbases. This recommends an artist to new fans who are more likely to enjoy your music.
Marketing expert Isbell uses this feature to help with her tactics. “I pull up Spotify listenership,”
she said. “So I’m like, Okay, well they listen to X, Y, and Z, so they will also like my artist. And
so we take all of that into consideration when building out social calendars and marketing plans.”
This is also a way for a lesser-known artist to discern which successful acts they could
potentially open for on tour to find like-minded audience members.
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Data strategists and artists alike can take this thinking one step further with programs such as
“Spotify For Artists” that provide age, gender, and location of an artist’s listeners, which can
help refine marketing campaigns and clarify where to tour. Several streaming services have
similar artist profiles.
I have a “Spotify for Artists” profile for a song I released in February of 2021. At the beginning
of my streaming, my listenership was split down the middle between male and female
consumers, with 5% identifying as non-binary, but I have sustained a fanbase that is 73% female.
I can also see that more than half of my supporters are between the ages of 23-27, and my
fanbase is overwhelmingly from the Midwest, where I grew up. From this information, I
wouldn’t plan a West Coast tour because few people would come: instead, I should tour the
Midwest in trendy venues that are designed more for the female gaze. Additionally, if I were to
design merchandise, I should stock up on women’s T-shirts. And while most of my branding has
already been more relatable to a female in her 20s, it wouldn’t hurt to write a song about where I
come from.
“If you want to make the best decisions, have the raw data and manipulate it yourself,” said
former label executive Goldstein, who endorses the strategies of choosing a brand direction
based on fan analytics. That means working with the data you have: understanding your
audience, and catering your content to them. That way, it increases the likelihood of content
interaction and promotion to like-minded users.
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According to a related article in the digital publication Complex, various label executives saw a
massive return when they decided to promote a track whose statistics showed unusually high
playlisting and song repeats. After dumping money into promotion and posting cross-platform,
those tracks had even bigger success. Independent artists can do something similar: If you’re
able to pay for a small advertisement/boost, an artist can analyze a song’s success in a data pool,
which can serve as a good predictor of its large-scale impact and save artists from creating
content for the unlikely audience and help design concert setlists. While there’s a chance an
advertisement does its job and leads you to success, it’s important for an artist to perform a cost
analysis to decide if an ad buy is right for them. A $50 ad campaign would need 12,500 streams
on Spotify to recoup the direct investment, so it might be good to start small and discern the
efficacy of your campaign before investing large sums. But an artist doesn’t have to pay to view
their listenership statistics: artists can analyze their streaming data for free by their Spotify,
Apple or Pandora artist accounts.
“The game is still the same game,” Goldstein expressed. “You have to identify what your
audience is, what your potential new audience is, what they’re interested in, and how you can
deliver something to them that’s true to what your vision is, but at the same time, satisfies the
needs that that audience perceives that it has, because they don’t know what they need.”
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Chapter Six: The social media part of the equation
In considering how people regularly consume music in 2022, and certainly in light of catered
algorithms in streaming, it would be negligent to ignore social media’s role. Before digital, the
industry relied on newspaper ads, music magazine reviews, or, as we touched on, radio and
television for widespread outreach. But the truth is, before the era of digital, there was no
comparable medium to social media. There wasn’t an access point for an independent artist to
reach millions of people for organic overnight virality. Social media sits somewhere between an
advertisement tool and an actual consumer platform, especially with the rise of short-form video
entertainment.
Starting with YouTube’s founding in 2005, music has been tightly intertwined with the rising
popularity of this video-sharing platform. After MTV largely stopped showing music videos,
YouTube became the primary hub for music video consumption, as well as music and song
playlists without videos. In fact, the first video to hit one billion views on the platform was
PSY’s “Gangnam Style”in 2012. Today, it sits at more than 4.5 billion views, still getting traffic
years later for its memorable dance. The YouTube advertisements from this video alone are
estimated to have made PSY millions of dollars.
In 2021, YouTube announced that users watch four million hours of content monthly, and 25%
of that is spent consuming music. It was also one of the first websites to include recommendation
engines to keep people on the site: by 2012, the website began tracking watch time to refine
suggested videos.
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Goldstein remembers a student asking him how to go viral on YouTube. “The fact is nobody
knows for sure, even the person that designed the algorithm that Alphabet [YouTube’s parent
company] uses or designed the algorithm that Spotify uses. It’s changing all the time,” Goldstein
said.
Also in 2012, Vine was introduced, which was the first short-form video app … really short. At
its launch, the videos could only be six seconds long. The New York Times said, “[Vine’s]
musical whims warped the music industry.” This new app had the potential to create stars out of
uploaders, and it did: Ruth B was one of the notables to emerge from Vine after her six second
video went viral, playing a snippet of what would come to be known as her song, “Lost Boy.”
This song ended up peaking at number 24, staying on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 22 weeks.
Twitter acquired Vine in 2012 and shut down the app about four years later. No one really
understood why, but this gave room for TikTok to enter the scene. Byte Dance launched TikTok
in 2018 to the global stage after acquiring the Chinese music app Musical.ly in 2014, and seeing
success from another Chinese app, Douyin. A huge focal point of the app is music. And with its
concentrated algorithms and user data, the “For You Page” recommendation engine is extremely
personalized. Reaching the right audience is the reason it’s so common for an everyday person to
go viral—including an entry-level musician.
“The brilliance of TikTok is that the music industry’s figured out how to get fans to do all the
advertising work for you,” musicologist Dacey said. “They’ve tapped into a young person’s
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desire to participate.” Statistics show that 62% of TikTok users are between the ages of 10 and
29.
Award-winning artist Rushen saw this in real time with the revival of her eighties’ hit, “Forget
Me Nots.” On both TikTok and Instagram Reels, the track went viral in 2021 as fans created
dance and rhythm challenges to the song, which Rushen would later discover. “The ‘trend’ has
made my name one that people are re-discovering over and over. [It is] very much a blessing and
validation that the song still has relevance in its feel and messaging today,” Rushen said.
Currently, “Forget Me Nots” has more than 76 million (and counting) streams on Spotify.
Rushen isn’t the only artist with an older song getting a new life. If a track develops a trend on
TikTok, it will dictate the streaming charts, no matter when the song was originally released. For
example, as of April 30, 2022, The Neighborhood’s “Sweater Weather,” The Walters’ “I Love
You So,” and returning Vine star Ruth B.’s “Dandelions,” all experienced a second life, and in
early 2022, they were in Spotify’s Global Top 50 chart after trending on TikTok, despite being
released in 2012, 2014, and 2017, respectively.
Another game-changing example has been Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” which reached
number one on Spotify’s global chart after a high-profile placement on the TV show Stranger
Things caused it to go viral across social media. This song was from Bush’s 1985 album, Hounds
of Love. At the time of this writing, the original sound recording has been used on more than 3.6
million TikTok videos. As for streaming, the song has surpassed 635 million streams on Spotify.
In addition to TikTok, this is a great example of how a powerful sync placement in a show or
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movie (especially one that repeats and becomes centralized to the plot like “Running Up That
Hill), can skyrocket a song’s popularity. TikTok and streaming simply amplified that fame.
“If you’re controlling a catalog that includes something like [Hounds of Love], and all of a
sudden there’s this flare up of interest in it, it’s hugely profitable,” the Berklee school’s Dacey
said. She also credited this success to how TikTok has circulated tracks. “If you look at a print
campaign, which the industry was using through the seventies, you have a clear sense that there
is an advertising agency and a record label behind that. But when you see teenagers who seem to
be spontaneously latching onto a really catchy chorus….then it feels like an organic
endorsement,” she said.
Diego “Bloom Line” Reyes, an EDM producer based in Mexico, also credits TikTok for older
catalog success. “Songs from the eighties are now trends and topping the charts! Also, people
that didn’t have one song on streaming platforms are getting millions and millions of streams
over a 15-second video,” said Reyes.
Reyes began using the app in 2021, mixing his content with comedy and music. After posting a
mashup of a Dua Lipa track with a High School Musical song, Reyes said he gained 10,000
followers in one day. The video now has more than 823K views.
He collaborated with artist Brooke Alexx, who has more than 340K followers on the app. After
Alexx posted about their collaboration, “Intimidate You,” the video went viral. “Streams went
through the roof,” Reyes said. Now, the track is inching close to 2.5 million streams.
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Digital strategist Isbell primarily focuses on social media in boosting her artists’ campaigns.
“[Recommendation engines] definitely [are at] the forefront of how we handle a lot of what we
do digitally, especially for clients who really want to…lend themselves to the algorithm,” Isbell
said. “Any time we’re able to get a video or get a hit on something where the engagement is
really hard – not just the views, but people are commenting and sharing it and saving the sound –
those are a big win for us. And it’s always a really exciting day at the office when that happens.”
Indie artist Aimee Vant took advantage of virality-focused marketing. Though she began her
music career in 2017, Vant took her digital strategy more seriously earlier this year in promotion
of her single, “Airbnb.”
“I’ve tried posting five-to-seven days a week on TikTok and Instagram Reels, with additional
Instagram grid posts every week or two,” Vant said. Her most successful avenue has been
TikTok, where she says the “engagement rate can be unmatched if the algorithm favors you, and
a huge part of that seems to be consistency.”
Vant got creative with her TikTok content to promote her song, including creating challenges for
producers or other artists to duet and add their own verse or spin on the track, which led to a
spike in her engagement. Not only did she eventually make it to Spotify’s curating team, landing
a late placement on its “Indie Pop” playlist, which has nearly 1.7 million likes to date, but she’s
also caught the attention of managers and A&R label representatives who want to work with her.
During the height of the song’s popularity, she peaked at around 25,000 monthly listeners. And
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despite the song being released in February, Vant has retained 18,500 monthly listeners at the
time of this writing (August, 2022), while more fans trickle through her catalog.
“TikTok has been the root of a general boost in engagement of my music,” Vant said. “It’s
allowed my songs to find people that connect on a deep enough level to engage consistently. I’ve
noticed more people coming to shows and have had more people show interest in my merch.”
The rapper Megan Thee Stallion made her name on TikTok with the 2020 viral track, “Savage.”
“All of a sudden, a song that might not have been a hit…is being spread like wildfire via these
challenges, and it’s tapping into this whole vein of unexpressed creativity, and the intensity
around this little piece of a song then drives all this traffic to Spotify,” Dacey said.
Now, Megan Thee Stallion is one of the most prominent female rappers in the industry. Her
recording of “WAP” with Cardi B has earned more than a billion streams on Spotify. Doja Cat
also grew her following on TikTok after going viral with the song, “Say So,”
In August 2022, Cat was the 10th most streamed artist in the world on Spotify. Additionally, she
has around 25 million TikTok followers. Such a massive social media following can be lucrative.
Unlike predecessors such as Vine, TikTok creators get paid for contributing to the app’s success.
Celebrities with more than one million followers on average top $12,000 per TikTok post.
Plugging Doja Cat’s following into a TikTok estimated earnings calculator (depending on
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followings and average post engagements), Doja Cat is estimated to make anywhere between
$15,000 and $25,000 per post.
For platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, that same following on average earns more than
$20,000 per post, especially when paired with brand endorsements. Pop star Selena Gomez has
one of the largest followings on Instagram, and in 2018 she was estimated to make around
$800K per Instagram post.
Artists don’t have to be Billboard chart-toppers to financially benefit from this opportunity.
Anyone from a macro-influencer level (between 250,000 and one million followers) to nano-
influencers (anyone with less than 10,000 followers) is capable of making money on TikTok by
joining the creator fund after establishing consistency in engagement. In order to be eligible,
creators have to achieve over 100K authentic views in 30 days time, and from there, they can
apply to the Creator Fund.
In recent years, I discovered three artists who came out of Berklee College of Music who have
had major success on TikTok. After developing organic followings, these artists have garnered
the attention of industry notables. Laufey released a Christmas song with singer/songwriter
Dodie and has since performed with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. Lizzy McAlpine earned
celebrity admirers (leading to duets with Ben Kessler, Jacob Collier, and FINNEAS, to name a
few), and after building her fanbase, McAlpine nearly sold out her first headlining tour in one
week. Salem Ilese reached number one on Spotify’s “Global Viral Top 50” after her smash song,
“Mad at Disney,” was a trending song on TikTok in 2020, and she topped more than 264 million
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streams on Spotify alone; according to an estimated streaming royalty calculator (averaging that
estimated fourth-tenths of a cent per stream), that’s more than $1 million in earnings for just one
of the many platforms where “Mad At Disney” is available. Ilese ended up trending again after
releasing a duet challenge to her single, “PS5.”
Ilese has a larger following than Laufey and McAlpine, with 3.8 million TikTok followers, so
her estimated earnings per post (at time of writing) is anywhere between $2,280 and $3,800.
Laufey and McAlpine are both macro-influencers, and they’re still estimated to make an average
of $539 and $482 per post, respectively.
In order to be favored by the algorithm, artists are encouraged to post frequently. While
influencers early on could post one-to-three times per week, record label executives are now
recommending that artists post at least three-to-five times per day in order to compete with the
high volume of creators and achieve virality on their videos.
However, this large output of content can result in burnout and strain. “You think of these artists
who just moved to Nashville and they just want to put out music, but 40-to-50% of their job now
is staying on top of social trends and making posts all the time,” said digital strategist Isbell. “It’s
more difficult to keep your head above water because you’re trying to post three TikToks a day,
and then post a reel on Instagram, and then now Facebook has this option, and Twitter’s over
here, and there’s all these different platforms to keep up with. You feel [like you’re in a] constant
scramble versus being able to really hyper-focus on one area.”
34
Vant is having difficulty getting traction while promoting her newest single. “It’s incredibly hard
to spend hours creating content that you’re proud of, and then to see it perform badly on social
media. TikTok is responsible for breaking some of the biggest artists of our generation, and that
brings a lot of frustration.”
Reyes agreed. “I feel so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that an artist nowadays has to do
to stay relevant and have a shot at becoming successful. I feel like I have to write, produce, mix,
and also produce content, edit videos, think of new ideas, be aware of trends—it can become too
much at times.”
Hannah Resnick, a regular contributor to the culture website PopSugar, recently analyzed
TikTok’s effect on the music industry because of her interest in how independent artists find
fame. She noted downsides to catered algorithms in chasing virality.
“The algorithm is constantly changing, as is what’s popular and trending,” Resnick said. “So the
cycle requires artists and labels to constantly chase the newest thing.”
This algorithm chasing can influence an artist’s creative process. Social media experts found that
TikTok has shortened users’ attention spans and, typically, a creator has three seconds to capture
one’s attention before that user decides to scroll past a video.
Noah Nethery, a composer and computer/data scientist for Johnson & Johnson, noticed that
musicians are adapting their writing styles, causing the foundation of pop music to get to hooks
35
quicker, evolving what music sounds like in the era of algorithms. Nethery studies computational
creativity at New York University, where he pitched the idea of looking at the relationship
between music, data, and artificial intelligence.
“[Musicians] might be…less inclined to write the music that they want to write,” Nethery said.
“And they might write music that is more what they think will have a better chance of getting
picked up by TikTok’s recommendation algorithm.”
One of the ways TikTok virality is affecting music is song length. Prominent TikToker and viral
sensation JVKE started with a 15 second clip. After completing the song, the finished product
was only two minutes long. “If you want a song to go viral on TikTok, it doesn’t need to be that
three minute, 30-second length anymore,” Nethery said.
In 2020, 24% of charting songs came in under the three-minute-mark, but that statistic jumped to
62% in 2021. Lastly, TikTok has personalized artist-to-fan relationships.
“Parasocial relationships are essentially what drives, I think, long term engagement,” said NYU-
researcher Nethery said. “So a musician can no longer just release music and not have a
relationship with fans. It’s increasingly better if they start producing more personality-driven
content.”
Charlie Puth garnered more than 120 million views on TikTok for the promotional video of his
track, “Light Switch.” In the video, Puth embraces his reputation as a music theory brainiac by
36
dramatizing his creative processes, including the percussive element of an actual light switch
sound. Not only does Puth lean into his brand in his videos, but the Berklee School of Music
alum often duets with fans on the app to engage them directly. Puth’s followers often make
content in hopes of interacting with the pop star, whether it’s asking what note a mundane sound
is or making comedic content imitating his music-analytical personality.
Indie artist Vant credits personality-driven content as an influence to her success. “All of our
favorite major artists tend to have big personalities beyond their art that make us feel even more
connected,” said Vant.
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Chapter Seven: The future of music and the final verdict
Nethery believes short-form platforms are here to stay as a music marketing asset. “If we look at
how attention is monetized in the attention economy, our attention is mostly guided to where
mobile is. And if you look at TikTok, it is a purely mobile-first experience,” Nethery said. The
app’s engagement continues to increase. Between 2018-2021, it gained an average of 242 million
new users per year, and from 2021 to 2022, new TikTok users increased by 586 million.
“There are countless examples of TikTok helping artists’ careers take off,” PopSugar journalist
Resnick said. “But I do think something to be wary of is that having one viral hit is temporary,
and it’s what comes after that will make a career.”
It’s hard to tell which music format will come next and influence artist earnings, after Napster
devalued the price of music in a consumer’s mind forever, and streaming conditioned consumers
into having immediate access to almost all recorded music.
Musicologist Dacey guessed that there could be separate streaming services for each record label
as we’ve seen with some TV platforms, and that could upset the benefits independent artists have
gained. But however the industry evolves, Dacey heeds one warning:
“I would always be cautious of anybody who is offering a simple solution. Things have the
potential to transform the music industry, but it [takes] … five, ten years before those things
really take root to know whether or not they’re going to lead in a positive direction.”
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The modern age of music has democratized distribution, providing independent artists with free
marketing tools to reach like-minded audiences, and expunged the notion that a song needs to be
new to succeed. But, we still see record labels and now streaming companies wanting a large cut
of an artist’s profit, which, as presented by the historical context of this thesis, isn’t all that new
of an idea. But it may be reaching its expiration date, as more artists become capable of mass-
exposure on their own.
“TikTok has opened the door for independent artists that don’t want to depend on a label, which
is nice,” EDM-producer Reyes said. “But it also seems like nowadays, the only way to become
successful in the music industry is through TikTok. It opened the door, but also shut all the other
ones.”
Will independent artists continue on this data-driven trajectory? That will be determined by the
next music format, trend, or even algorithm — whatever that may look like.
39
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
This thesis presents a conversation about the digital music landscape, and how it offers independent artists more tools to find their audience. Transitioning from a tangible product to digital recordings changed the way artists interact with their fans through the use of algorithmic discovery, data, and virality, while also widening outreach through online access. Throughout this thesis, I will weigh the benefits of popular social media apps and streaming companies, as well as the pitfalls of these industry changes. Additionally, I will explore how these mediums impact my case studies: three rising artists. The conclusion will address industry conversations about the future of music based on the precedent set by the evolution of music formats. Interviews included are Katherine Dacey, musicologist; Mark Goldstein, former music lawyer/record label executive; Jordon Isbell, digital strategy executive; Noah Nethery, data scientist and music academic; Hannah Resnick, contributing entertainment journalist; and Patrice Rushen, award-winning R&B artist from the eighties; as well as my three case studies, Emma Charles, folk-pop singer-songwriter; Diego “Bloom Line” Reyes, EDM producer; and Aimee Vant, indie-pop singer-songwriter.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Griffin, Haley
(author)
Core Title
Independent artists in the modern music landscape
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism (The Arts)
Degree Conferral Date
2022-12
Publication Date
09/15/2024
Defense Date
09/15/2022
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
algorithmic discovery,audience,data,independent artists,Music Industry,OAI-PMH Harvest,virality
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Seidenberg, Willa (
committee chair
)
Creator Email
haleygriffin317@gmail.com,hgriffin@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111996063
Unique identifier
UC111996063
Legacy Identifier
etd-GriffinHal-11217
Document Type
Thesis
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
Griffin, Haley
Type
texts
Source
20220917-usctheses-batch-981
(batch),
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
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Repository Name
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Repository Location
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Repository Email
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Tags
algorithmic discovery
data
independent artists
virality