đ Seasonâs greetings, reader! Welcome to issue #2 of The Hum, a newsletter offering insights into the intersection of music, sustainability, technology, and innovation. We started this newsletter to understand the social, cultural, and environmental impact of the music industry and its ongoing evolution. The Hum is edited by Fernando de Buen and Roxanne Hoffman, strategic designers who care about the planet and value the warm sound of a vinyl record.
In our last issue, we introduced a series on portable audio and its impact, and shared news on streaming platform payout models, sustainable commitments from music industry giants, and techâs idea of how AI should be used in music.
In this issue we will focus on tensions in the industry today. We explore the challenges to make green touring and concerts a reality, the financial viability of music for small acts, and regulatory pressure on digital service providers. We also continue with part 2 of our history of portable audio (when radio was king).
Governments and streaming companies battle it out
Last month the French Senate approved a new music streaming tax and, unsurprisingly, streaming companies are not happy. The tax aims to fund the Centre National de la Musique, which supports and trains musicians. Streaming is a notoriously low-margin business, so experts are anticipating that Digital Service Providers (DSPs) will have to either raise prices or leave certain countries altogether. The law goes into effect in 2024, so its impact is as of yet unknown.
A similar issue happened in Uruguay a few months back. In October, Spotify announced plans to leave the country over a new law that mandates âfair and equitableâ remuneration for music creators (songwriters, producers, and performers). Spotify argued the law was unclearâand potentially unfairâgiven that they already pay 70% of their revenue to rights holders. After some media pressure and 40,000 users signing a petition for Spotify to stay, the Uruguayan government backed down and clarified that rights holders (usually labels) and not DSPs would be responsible to pay creators. Only then did Spotify reverse its plan to leave the country.
Governments and regulators seem to be trying to advocate for musicians, but the realities of royalty structures and streaming costs are often times at odds with their efforts. On one side, streaming platforms offer a valuable service for users and musicians, albeit at low margins. On the other side, many musicians struggle to make ends meet day to day, and deserve to make living wages from their work. Something to keep an eye on in 2024.
Green touring: The show must go on
As live concert ticket sales have risen beyond pre-covid levels, high profile artists have attempted to reduce the carbon footprint of their events. Radiohead was one of the first artists to draw attention to their carbon footprint. In 2007 they commissioned the sustainability agency âBest Foot Forwardâ to calculate the emissions of their two prior U.S. tours and determined that the largest emissions contributor was from transportation from fans.
Since then, one of the most well known artists to set an example of what green touring can be is Coldplay. Their âMusic of the Spheresâ tour which kicked off March 2022 included partnerships with SAP to provide sustainable flights, BMW for the rechargeable batteries to power the show, and Energy Floorsâs kinetic energy tiles so even dancing became another energy source. Based on their websiteâs sustainability update, Coldplay reduced their emissions by 47% from their prior tour, and still believes more can be done. Similarly, other artists have made sustainability their objective and found challenges. Massive Attack, who partnered with the University of Manchester Tyndall Center to measure their impact and set a live music sustainability road map, is currently organizing a 2024 festival set to use 100% renewable energy but is encountering a challenge Radiohead encountered more than a decade agoâtransporting fans to the show without generating emissions. Other initiatives include Billie Eilishâs Overheated event and the Dave Matthews Band show at Enmarket Arena.
These artists have made huge strides in setting a precedent for green touring and events. But for artists whose net worth has not yet reached tens of millions, who can afford to make a difference? Organizations such as the Green Touring Network, Julieâs Bicycle, Vision 2025, the Goethe Institute, Reverb, and many others have developed several guidelines and best practices, although for independent artists to have sway with their venues and fans is difficult. Despite being a pioneer for sustainability in music, even Radiohead band leader Thom Yorke admitted to being a âhypocriteâ when it comes to climate change in a 2019 interview, referring to his travel-heavy lifestyle being at odds with his sustainability goals.
Managing venues and accommodating audiences poses challenges even for large acts, especially as effects of climate change become evermore present. At a Taylor Swift show in Rio de Janeiroâs Nilton Santos stadium, the sweltering heat and lack of water caused one concert goer to die of cardiac arrest and others to faint. While progress has been made to make concerts sustainable, more needs to be done to address the concert goersâ carbon footprint and the live music experience in a hotter world.
Tracing the history of portable audio
In this series we explore how portable audio changed the way we listen to music enabling it to become ubiquitous, intimate, and easily shareable. Read more about why we choose to tell its story in our first issue.
Turn up the radio
The history of portable music dates back tens of thousands of years to Sumerian clay tablets, Neanderthal bone flutes, and other artifacts. However, portable audio players, devices which amplify sound, start with the pocket radio. While the radio was patented in 1896 by Guglielmo Marconi, it wasnât until the late 1920s that the radio become common in every U.S. household. By 1954, the Regency TR-1, the first commercial transistor radio, hit the market and kicked off the lineage of personal devices as we know them.
But it was more than radio waves that pushed the device into vogue. Parallel innovations in manufacturing, music, and technology set the stage. Greater use of plastics during WWII enabled the device to be cheap, produced in large quantities, and well insulated. The teenagers born during the baby boom formed the audience for a rebellious new genre ideal for this new format, rock ânâ roll. Last but not least, the advent of the transistor, a small electronic component that replaced vacuum tubes allowed the radio (and many other devices) to fit in your pocket and run on batteries.
The popularity of portable radios changed the landscape of audio devices unlike anything that came before. The sheer scale of portable radios echos the ever growing mass production of personal devices weâve become accustomed to today. According to an article linking Beatlemania to transistor radios, 5.5 million devices had been sold in the U.S. by 1962, a year later that number nearly doubled to 10 million. Radios became personal devices where several new radio stations popped up to satisfy different tastes. With the creation of Nielsen's radio index in 1942 and the Audimeter in 1946, the music industry began using the number of listens or listeners as a metric of success and planted the seed for a data-driven music economy.
In the next issue weâll explore how magnetic tape solidified portable audio as a medium and developed it into a customizable cultural object.
Is sustainability impossible for small artists?
In the age of streaming, many musiciansâespecially emerging and middle-sized artistsâstruggle financially to make ends meet. The evidence is not new, with examples ranging from Grammy-award nominated musicians to well-known indie acts struggling to make ends meet.
However, as environmental awareness rises, more attention is being put on musiciansâ efforts to address their carbon emissions. Large acts that have the capital and large audiences to manage green touring programs are often in the lead, but smaller artists that donât have the resources to implement the changes necessary to be sustainable will probably struggle to adapt. Existing efforts to tackle climate change, like Brian Enoâs Earth Percent, which asks musicians to donate a percentage of their income to climate causes, only work for those musicians with income to spare.
As a growing number of musicians rely on touring and selling merchâtwo activities that are difficult to decouple from carbon emissionsâto financially survive (a report by the American Economic Liberties Project estimates that 95% of touring artistsâ income comes from live shows and merch sold at them), a reckoning may be imminent. We may need to reconsider small artist finances, rethink the business model of recorded music, or accept a reality where making music as a full-time job becomes increasingly difficult.