At this year’s 57th annual Grammy Awards show, a new singer and an old hand took the top awards. Sam Smith, a 22-year-old British crooner, won record and song of the year as well as best new artist. And then Beck, who’s been making music for years, won album and rock album of the year.
In other categories, Beyoncé won two awards for R&B song and performance while what might be called the song of 2014 (or at least the one stuck in your head the minute you see the title), “Happy” earned Pharrell Williams a Grammy for best pop solo performance.
While some of the winners (and losers) might have been surprising, what is not in dispute is that the music industry is in a state of flux as listeners shift from buying music to streaming it.
In 2014 sales of downloaded albums and songs fell 9 percent and 12 percent, according to Nieslen. At the same time, on-demand streaming of music rose 54 percent to record levels.
If – to misquote Meghan Trainor – “It’s all about the stream,” where does that leave musicians and artists who had a hard enough time earning a living when their songs sold for 99 cents a piece.
In this episode of Money Talking, Derek Thompson senior editor at The Atlantic and Alex White, CEO and co-founder of the Next Big Sound, sound off on the state of the industry and who’s making money. And Thompson explains how all the data tracking what we're listening to and where we're listening is influencing what is getting produced. It’s what he calls, the “Shazam Effect.”