HELP ME MAKE AN IMPACT
Music has always had the power to traverse borders and rally huge groups of people in difficult times. Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” became the anthem of protest during the Vietnam War. Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” became the marching song for racial injustice across the American South. Music has always been a way to negotiate our sometimes-harsh reality. Why should that be any different now, when we’re faced with an increasingly divided society, from racial disparity to growing income inequality? What role does music have in empowering people to solve the today’s biggest problems? WuTang Clan’s GZA is using hip hop to make physics more accessible to all through his album, Darkness. In elevating the role of his album as a tool for science education, GZA has effectively connected audiences to a socially relevant narrative. Suddenly, an act of purchase becomes an act of purpose. What if Apple partnered with Khan Academy, the free online learning platform, so people could learn along with GZA’s album and take part in physics tutorials inspired by his lyrics? Such an experience stretches digital’s capabilities beyond a traditional distribution channel, giving the platform a new role to play in how we engage and connect with our favorite bands and songs.
Leading social platforms like Facebook understand that this generation values what’s going on in their personal lives just as much as what’s happening around the world. Landing on Facebook, your social (small ’s’) newsfeed is seamlessly married with world events across politics, science and entertainment (Social, big ’S’). When music is meant to reflect our cultural reality, why is the experience offered by streaming platforms kept separate from current events? Imagine if Spotify partnered with VICE to pair culturally relevant news to music that helps make sense of it. When the Black Lives Matter protests first began, VICE could have provided the news of what was happening in real time while Spotify supplied ancillary content via curated songs that fueled the civil rights movement in the 60s. It could have made space to promote today’s artists who use music as a means to explore the inequalities faced by people of color.
When artists like Beyonce and Rihanna, arguably two of the world’s most influential female voices in music, are using their fame to influence the public discourse, it’s clear that social is culturally relevant.
Social consciousness is becoming the rule, not the exception, to relevance. Streaming platforms can leverage how we accumulate our social currency to better connect with audiences in ways they’d be willing to pay for.
Today’s most powerful brands are maintaining relevance by elevating the role they play in society. For example, Google isn’t a search engine — it’s a local public policymaker implementing solutions that improve life in cities for everyone through internet access. What problems can the music industry uniquely solve?
Research shows that music can help Alzheimer’s patients remember things about themselves, manage stress and facilitate positive interactions with loved ones. With the number of people living with Alzheimer’s set to increase by 40% in 2020, and no preventative measures or cures in sight, what if streaming platforms could reduce the disease’s negative impact? Since our brains are hardwired to connect music with long-term memory, what if streaming music platforms could help people by allowing them to catalogue their emotional associations to music? Imagine if streaming platforms allowed people to create music time capsules today to reduce their pain and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in the future or partnered with Nest to play a specific song when a family member walks into a patient’s room to help spur recognition. Suddenly, subscribing to a streaming service is a meaningful solution to a socially relevant problem instead of a means to avoid ads. In seeing digital as a way to innovate solutions for real problems rather than an opportunity to acquire more market share, music platforms will be able to unlock new forms of value.
THE TIME FOR BEING SHORTSIGHTED IS OVER;
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEEDS A LONGTERM VISION
The digital music experience can be of value — something worth paying for — if it is treated not as a new distribution channel, but as a new way to experience what music was always intended to do: make people feel something, connect us to something and help us do something. The post-digital world is about rejecting the status quo. If we are going to amplify the powerful experience of music in an online environment, we need to use data to take risks. Digital platforms need to stop behaving as end-of-the-line distribution channels and instead transform themselves into integrative production hubs and catalysts of action. The digital revolution isn’t a curse on the music industry, but an opportunity to re-define its power and place in the world.
How do you think the music industry can be improved in the post-digital age? Join in the conversation by tweeting us at @GoodMrktng and use the hashtag #MusicMatters.
To learn about what we do at N/A, visit NAisGood.com.
