#Music

If you want a highly contemporary example to illustrate how digital technology allow the audience to personalise their music experience and artists to promote their music for free, look no further than Twitter's new music service #Music.  You can read a simple explanation of how it works - recommends music to the user based on who they follow on Twitter - by reading this BBC News article.  Alternatively, you can get a more in depth analysis of how it will benefit everyone - Twitter, the music industry, artists and the audience - on the Wired website. Here's a short extract from the Wired article to illustrate the promotional benefits of the service:
"It’s a smart play to get more musicians to become more active on Twitter. Let’s say you are Lady Gaga. When your new single drops, you can now use Twitter Music to send it out to every one of your 36 million followers–and they can play it without even leaving Twitter, thanks to Twitter Cards. Her followers can retweet that, effectively amplifying your 36 million strong following by an order of magnitude. Because website can embed tweets, complete with media, news organization and bloggers can take the original Tweet and drop it in a story so people can play the track all across the Web. And if enough people Tweet it, that song hits the Popular tracks page. Which means even more people hear it. It’s an upward spiral You can also imagine what happens to the obscure artist if a Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber tweets one of their new tracks. It’s got amazing viral possibilities that are great for artists, which means they’re more likely to be active on Twitter. And as it turns out, musicians are one of Twitter’s more vital assets."

A Surprising Fact About Music Sales

Who would have thought it?  Newsbeat reports that the 18-24 year old are the largest group responsible for purchasing music recorded on vinyl records - a format more familiar to people over the age of 35.  Read the full article here.  There are some interesting reasons given for the growth in Vinyl sales, including the physical experience of it and the personalised service associated with going into a small, independent record store to buy it.  Interesting to note, also, that the XX (signed to Beggars Banquet, parent company of Rough Trade) had one of the best selling vinyl records last year.