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  • Published: 27 July 2021

Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries

  • Pablo Bello   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2343-9617 1 &
  • David Garcia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2820-9151 2 , 3 , 4  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  8 , Article number:  182 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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  • Cultural and media studies

The digitization of music has changed how we consume, produce, and distribute music. In this paper, we explore the effects of digitization and streaming on the globalization of popular music. While some argue that digitization has led to more diverse cultural markets, others consider that the increasing accessibility to international music would result in a globalized market where a few artists garner all the attention. We tackle this debate by looking at how cross-country diversity in music charts has evolved over 4 years in 39 countries. We analyze two large-scale datasets from Spotify, the most popular streaming platform at the moment, and iTunes, one of the pioneers in digital music distribution. Our analysis reveals an upward trend in music consumption diversity that started in 2017 and spans across platforms. There are now significantly more songs, artists, and record labels populating the top charts than just a few years ago, making national charts more diverse from a global perspective. Furthermore, this process started at the peaks of countries’ charts, where diversity increased at a faster pace than at their bases. We characterize these changes as a process of Cultural Divergence, in which countries are increasingly distinct in terms of the music populating their music charts.

Introduction

Digitization is arguably the biggest change the music market has undergone over the last decades. In 2016, digital sales already accounted for more than half of the revenues of the music industry (Coelho and Mendes, 2019 ). There are innumerable aspects on which digitization has impacted how we listen, produce, and commercialize music. For example, digital music is distributed at a null marginal cost, meaning that digital audio can be reproduced ad infinitum without an extra cost on the side of the record label. For the consumer, streaming has had homologous effects. In streaming platforms, listening to new music does not carry an extra monetary cost, as a listener only pays a flat monthly fee to subscribe to a platform like Spotify Footnote 1 . This way, time and search costs are the only ones remaining in the way of music exploration. On the distribution side, online catalogs of music are orders of magnitude larger than those of physical stores due to the lack of space constraints, making a more diverse offer of music (Anderson, 2006 ). There is evidence that the increased availability of music has been accompanied by an enhanced diversity and quantity of music consumption (Datta et al., 2018 ). In this paper, we explore the evolution of global diversity in the past years and find a clear trend towards global diversity in the music market.

Concerns of Cultural Convergence have been part of the public debate for decades. European governments, in particular, have made attempts to protect national cultural industries either directly (e.g. radio quotas) or indirectly (e.g. subsidizing national film production) (Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ; Waldfogel, 2018 ). Because digitization granted easier access to imported goods, predictions were that national cultural products were doomed, especially in smaller countries. Nonetheless, scientific research has not yet provided a definitive answer to whether this fear was well-grounded or not. There is evidence that digitization might have accelerated cultural convergence across countries in popular music (Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014 ; Verboord and Brandellero, 2018 ) while others find an increasing interest in national artists (Achterberg et al., 2011 ; Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ). Discrepancies most likely stem from the inconsistency in the sample of countries included in these studies and the limited granularity of data available. Therefore, the question of whether digitization and streaming are currently propelling cultural convergence is open for debate. For similar cultural products, such as YouTube videos, global convergence is limited by cultural values (Park et al., 2017 ).

The recent availability of datasets on music consumption across large numbers of countries has provided a way of overcoming some limitations of previous studies. In a recent example, Way and his collaborators, look at Spotify users’ listening behavior and find that “home bias”—the preference towards national artists—is on the rise globally (Way et al., 2020 ). A source of concern is the possible influence of a platform’s endogenous processes on the behavior of its users. For instance, what appears as an enhanced preference for national artists could be the result of changes in the recommendation algorithm. Alternatively, increased popularity of playlists like the New Music Friday, which are biased towards national artists (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018a ) could produce a similar effect. Although far from common, major changes in the recommendation system of Spotify happen, the latest one being announced in March of 2019 (Spotify, 2019 ). As a result, recommendations are now more personalized, which, if the nationality of a user is taken into account, could generate increasing divergence between countries by feeding users with national music. According to Spotify, up to one-fifth of their streams can be attributed to algorithmic recommendations (Anderson et al., 2020 ), which may be enough to sway macro-level trends in music consumption.

We deal with platform-specific confounders by supplementing our analysis of Spotify data with a dataset from iTunes. It must be noted, however, that changes similarly affecting both platforms may exist, such as the increasing use of recommendation systems or catalog expansions, as well as the mutual influence that would make these observations non-independent. Another caveat of using platform-specific data is the fact that users of such platforms might not be representative of the entire population. Spotify users are disproportionately young and male when compared to their countries’ population (Datta et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, the composition of users of a platform is in constant change and the timing of adoption correlates with individual listening habits. For instance, in Spotify, late adopters have a stronger preference for local music than those who joined the platform early on (Way et al., 2020 ). To minimize the impact of these issues, we reduce the sample of countries from the 59 available to 39, keeping those in which Spotify is strongly established. Therefore, we expect the population of users in these countries to be more stable than in recently incorporated ones such as India, in which market penetration is quickly expanding. Additionally, this can be considered as a within-sample comparison (Salganik, 2019 ), which, given the large user base of Spotify, is of interest in and on itself.

In this paper, we tackle the question of whether digitized music consumption is globalizing or not by looking at the ecology of the national music charts of Spotify and iTunes in the past few years. In other words, by observing the global diversity in the charts we can discern whether popular music is converging or diverging across countries. More diversity across countries would be a sign of Cultural Divergence. On the other hand, a decrease in diversity would be indicative of a process of Cultural Convergence across countries. We utilize the Rao-Stirling measure of diversity and its components (Stirling, 2007 ) to describe these trends. We find upward trends in the cross-national diversity of songs, artists, and labels, starting in 2017 in Spotify as well as in iTunes and ending in 2020 for Spotify. Popular music is thus diverging across countries in what we define as Cultural Divergence. To complement previous studies, we also look at the diversity of artists and labels and find that these have increased in parallel. Ultimately, this paper describes trends in popular music across a large sample of countries, giving a more clear perspective of the cultural dynamics in the digital era.

Research background

Winner-takes-all.

Cultural markets often exhibit a highly skewed distribution of success (e.g. Keuschnigg, 2015 , Salganik et al., 2006 ). In the music market in particular, a few hits expand across the globe while the majority of popular songs only hoard local success (see Fig. 1 ). Such inequalities are partly due to the scalability of cultural products, a property that refers to the fact that most of their cost is fixed – although this property does not apply to all cultural markets, being the art field an exception – while marginal costs are relatively low. For instance, once a song is recorded or a book is written, the cost of making another copy is insignificant when compared to the initial cost of producing it, measured in time, creativity, or money, making these products scalable to large audiences. As a result, demand is highly concentrated on the best alternatives, even when they are only marginally better than the rest (Rosen, 1981 ).

figure 1

Bars represent the percentage of songs that got to the charts of exactly x countries. The green line represents the total number of streams that songs on each bin have accumulated while in the charts, as a measure of popularity in the period of analysis (2017-mid 2020).

Oftentimes this is an oversimplified view, since quality in cultural products is hard to define, and it is perceived (between others) as a function of previous success, thus creating path dependencies in the popularity of cultural products and artists. This process can be viewed as one in which information is accumulated, with consumers relying on it to moderate the quality uncertainty of their selection of cultural products (Giles, 2007 ). Information is aggregated in the form of consumer reviews, sales rankings, or top charts. In a pathbreaking experimental study, Salganik et al. ( 2006 ) found that information on other listener’s musical preferences results in an amplified inequality of popularity when compared to a world of independent listeners. Using social cues in the form of aggregated information might be beneficial for individuals in cultural markets in which preference is a matter of taste, but there are multiple strategies to leverage such information and its fit varies between individuals (Analytis et al., 2018 ). In the case of artists, during their careers, “small differences in talent become magnified in larger earning differences” (Rosen, 1981 ). This “superstar effect”—defined as the previous success of an artist—is the most important predictor of the popularity of a song, even when controlling for other factors (Interiano et al., 2018 ). Thus, the huge inequalities of success stemming from the scalability of cultural products and the social influence mechanisms intervening in their spread allows for the possibility of a few songs and artists to dominate the charts across the globe.

In principle, both scalability, as well as social influence processes, may have gained bearing after digitization and streaming. On the one hand, digitization reduced the marginal costs of music production by eliminating the need to manufacture an album. Some transaction costs for digital music remain, such as copyrights and distributing platform fees, but overall, the barriers for music to flow across countries are substantially lower than in the pre-digital era. On the other hand, information is more abundant than ever before. Users can get near-real-time data on the listening decisions of millions of other users. On Spotify, anyone can search through the Top 50 playlists tailored for every country. Each of them contains the most popular songs on the platform, which are updated daily. These playlists are extremely popular among users, for instance, the Top 50 Global has over 15 million followers. This deluge of information is complemented with second-order feedback effects (Easley and Kleinberg, 2010 ) such as recommender systems, which might be luring listeners towards the most popular songs. For Spotify, there is evidence that users who rely more heavily on algorithmic recommendations listen to less diverse music and podcasts than those who discover music for themselves (Anderson et al., 2020 , Holtz et al., 2020 ). In short, there are arguments to think that the winner-takes-all effects characteristic of the music market might be gaining bearing under the digital regime, decreasing the diversity and increasing the concentration of the market in the hands of a few hit songs, superstar artists, and major labels.

The long tail

The idea of the long tail, first proposed by Anderson ( 2004 ) in a widely circulated press article sustains that online retailing has led to increased diversity in the consumption of music. This happened because online retailers do not have the limitations of shelf space that traditional brick-and-mortar stores have, and so their catalogs can be virtually unlimited in size. The unlimited digital space can be filled with niche products that do not attract huge audiences but, bit by bit, make a difference in terms of profits generated. In the book following his article, Anderson ( 2006 ) goes beyond the original argument, suggesting that the Internet has a carrying capacity for cultural products previously unattainable and its impact on cultural markets has been broader than initially expected. Not only the distribution but also the production of cultural goods has thrived as a result of the new technologies for distribution (e.g. online retailers), production (e.g. cheaper software), and consumption (e.g. flat fees). Some have even qualified these changes as a renaissance of cultural markets (Waldfogel, 2018 ).

More recently, Aguiar and Waldfogel have argued that the idea of the long tail fails to account for the unpredictability of success in cultural markets (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018b ; Waldfogel, 2017 , 2020 ). When confronted with new artists, for instance, record labels have a scant capacity to assess what will be the success of those artists. Under such uncertainty, producers strive to pick those with better prospects but there will inevitably be miscalculations (e.g. the infamous Decca audition of The Beatles) and artists that were deemed unworthy of being promoted will end up reaping huge success, and the same in the opposite direction. In other words, before digitization, market intermediaries held most of the decision power over which products or artists were worthy of being produced and which ones did not, the inevitable result of which was that some hits were lost. The reduced costs of production and promotion of digital cultural goods have made possible the production of these products. Unlike what the original idea of the long tail proposed, not all of them will be niche products and some will end up achieving unexpected popularity. The same goes for independent record labels, which now have better opportunities to promote their artists even with small budgets. There is evidence that indie artists and labels have gained relevance under the digital music regime (Coelho and Mendes, 2019 ). For instance, top-selling albums in the US produced by independent labels increased from 12% in 2000 to 35% in 2010 (Waldfogel, 2015 ).

Waldfogel and Aguiar refer to this phenomenon as the random long tail of music production. The random long tail contains those cultural goods that despite not being attractive to traditional intermediaries can be brought into production and, due to the inherent unpredictability of cultural markets, sometimes reach unexpected success. Accordingly, the more unpredictable a cultural market is, the greater the number of unexpected hits. For instance, the success of songs is more difficult to predict than that of movies, whose box-office earnings heavily depend on the budget and cast of the film (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018b ). In summary, these studies put forward a vision of the music market in the digital era as more diverse and unpredictable.

Methods and data

Although there are multiple approaches to the study of diversity in social phenomena, Stirling’s ( 2007 ) is one of the most influential and widely applied. More importantly, the Rao–Stirling diversity index has already been used to study diversity in music taste, although at a different level of analysis than here (Park et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2019 ). The Rao–Stirling index consists of three components: variety, balance, and disparity.

Variety is a function of the number of distinct units (songs, artists, or labels) in the charts on a given day. The more unique units the more variety there is in the charts. Naturally, in the case of songs variety is bounded by the fact that the same song cannot occupy more than one chart position per country so changes in variety should be interpreted, rather than the absolute size of the indicators (which also applies to the other measures of song diversity). We measure variety as the number of distinct units divided by the total number of chart positions. Balance refers to how evenly distributed the system is across units. Here we measure balance as 1−Gini, a common measure of the inequality of a distribution. In this case, it is the distribution of chart positions across songs, artists, or labels. The more equally distributed positions are the higher the balance in the system. Importantly, balance does not give any information about the number of units in the charts (variety). For instance, label balance would be highest if two labels produce all the songs in the charts with equal shares as well as if every song in the charts was produced by a different label (and there were no songs in more than one chart-country). The disparity is defined not by categories themselves but by the qualities of such categories or elements. In other words, the disparity is a measure of how different the elements of a system are. We define the qualities of a song by its acoustic features Footnote 2 and then calculate the euclidean distance between songs. In the case of artists, we define them by the central tendency of the acoustic features of their songs on the charts. The Rao–Stirling index combines variety, balance, and disparity into a single indicator of diversity Footnote 3 .

Additionally, we introduce Zeta diversity, a measure from biology. Zeta diversity was developed by Hui and McGeoch ( 2014 ) to tackle the issues with pairwise measures of diversity. Aggregated pairwise distance measures are consistently biased (Baselga, 2013 ) and, when the number of sites (countries) is large, they approximate their upper limit (Hui and McGeoch, 2014 ). More importantly, Zeta diversity gives a more nuanced view of the interplay between global and local hits. The distribution of the number of countries in which a song reaches the charts is right-skewed, as shown in Fig. 1 , meaning that most songs enter the charts of just one or two countries. As a consequence, what aggregated measures such as Rao–Stirling mainly capture is the effect of local hits. The influence of global hits is mostly null in such measures because of their paucity. Zeta diversity, on the other hand, measures distances at multiple orders. For instance, Zeta of order 3 ( ζ 3 ) represents the expected number of songs shared by groups of three countries. It is calculated by looking at all possible combinations of three countries and calculating the number of songs that each group shares. Higher orders or Zeta (e.g. songs shared by groups of 10 or more countries) capture the prevalence of more global hits. Here, we characterize Zeta by its central tendency, but other options are possible. As the order of Zeta increases its value decreases monotonically since there are always fewer songs charting in groups of three countries than in groups of two. In short, Zeta diversity gives us a more nuanced view of the distribution of success of songs across the charts compared to other diversity measures.

The data for the study comes from Spotify’s top 200 charts and iTunes’ top 100. We illustrate the analysis focusing on Spotify’s data because of the larger sample of countries (39 vs. 19). The entire list of countries can be found in Supplementary Table S1 online. Because iTunes data could not be retrieved from an official source (instead we obtained it through Kworb.com), the results are reported only as a means of externally validating our main findings. Spotify’s data covers the period from 2017-01-01 to 2020-06-20, iTunes top 100 daily charts for the period 2013-08-14 to 2020-07-16.

Figure 2 shows distances between countries as a function of the songs shared between their charts within a year. Countries appear geographically clustered. One cluster is formed by Western countries of which Spain is the exception, being part of a different cluster, together with the Latin American countries. The third cluster encapsulates the Asian countries and Brazil. There are some noticeable anomalies, such as the closeness between Turkey and Brazil. Upon closer examination, most of the songs shared between them are produced in the United States. This is likely the result of the small market penetration of Spotify, making for a user base of early adopters more internationally oriented. Alternatively, it could be the result of a small catalog of local music. In any case, the observable consequence is an over-representation of international (and mainly US) hits in both countries’ charts.

figure 2

Jaccard distances calculated over annually constructed incidence matrices. Countries are colored according to the continent they belong to (red: Americas, yellow: Europe, blue: Asia, Green: Oceania).

Although positions are fairly stable over the years, if anything, clusters of countries seem to consolidate, being these three groups more clearly discernible in 2020 than in 2017. Following Park et al. ( 2017 ) we also look at the relationship between countries as a projection of the two-mode network between countries and songs. The modularity of the network indicates the degree to which countries are clustered into modules beyond what would be expected on a random network. Modularity increased consistently from 2017 up to 2020 (see Supplementary Fig. S4 ) indicating that countries within clusters are becoming more similar in their music charts and, at the same time, drifting away from other clusters. These results are consistent with general notions of cultural, geographical, and linguistic distance which elsewhere have been proved to be the main determinants of music taste similarities between countries (Moore et al., 2014 ; Pichl et al., 2017 ; Schedl et al., 2017 ) although with a few exceptions such as the above-mentioned.

Seen as a whole, the diversity of songs, artists, and labels has increased during this period. Variety has grown not only on Spotify but on iTunes as well (Fig. 3 ). The resemblance between the two trends is startling, especially if we consider how different these platforms are, one being a streaming platform with growing popularity (Spotify) while the other (iTunes) is a digital music shop whose user base is in decay. The resemblance between the trends points to the external validity of the observations, although there could be some degree of influence between the platforms and thus they cannot be regarded as completely independent observations. The upward tendency in variety starts in 2017 and plateaus at the end of 2019 on Spotify while it keeps increasing in iTunes.

figure 3

Values range from 0 (same set of songs in every country) to 1 (no overlap between the charts). Calculated for countries in both datasets (16 countries) and the same chart size (100 positions). Time series are calculated with daily frequency and smoothed over a 10-day window. Both Spotify and iTunes display consistent trends of increasing variety over time.

The increase in song diversity can be observed in Fig. 4 . Balance, disparity, and variety have all increased during the period. The disparity indicator also shows a strong seasonal burst around Christmas. This is consistent with other findings, suggesting that in countries in the Northern Hemisphere musical intensity declines around Christmas while the opposite is true for the Southern Hemisphere (Park et al., 2019 ). Overall diversity (Rao–Stirling index) rises from 2017 up to 2020 and then plateaus. Hence, not only there are more distinct songs in the charts (variety) but these are acoustically more dissimilar (disparity) and their distribution over the chart slots is more equal (balance) than at the beginning of the period.

figure 4

Diversity, measured as balance, disparity, variety, or a combination of them, has been increasing consistently across countries with a plateau at the beginning of the year 2020. Besides the secular growth, disparity shows a strong seasonal component centered around Christmas.

As for songs, the diversity of artists has also grown. However, the trend is distinct at the head of the charts than at the bottom. By slicing charts at certain ranking positions we create a top 10, top 50, and top 200 for each country. When it comes to balance and variety, the increase has been more pronounced at the head of the charts, which already presented a higher level at the beginning of the observed period. However, disparity is lowest within the top 10, indicating that the group of artists with songs on the head of the charts are stylistically more similar than those who just make it to the charts (a group that subsumes the former). What we can derive from these trends is that, while there are proportionally more unique artists at the top of the charts, the music that those artists produce is relatively similar, as if there was an acoustic “recipe” for reaching the peak of the charts. In general, artist diversity as a whole has increased at a similar pace across strata of the charts (Fig. 5 c).

figure 5

All the components of artist diversity have increased steadily during the period. As for songs, artist disparity bursts around Christmas. While balance and variety are higher at the peak of the charts, disparity shows the opposite pattern.

The increasing diversity of songs and artists in the charts has been accompanied by a more equally distributed market for record labels (Fig. 6 a). Again, the trend is steeper if we look only at the head of the charts. The number of distinct labels with at least one song in the charts has also increased in a stratified manner (Fig. 6 b). In general, labels had on average fewer artists and songs on the charts at the end of the period. While in the first 6 months of 2017 labels had on average 5.88 songs on the charts (and 2.19 artists), for the first half of 2020 it was one less song (and only 1.66 artists). Interestingly, the number of songs that each artist got on the charts has increased slightly, going from 2.67 in 2017 to 2.96 in 2020 (comparing the first half of each year).

figure 6

The left panel shows the balance of labels over time for three sizes of the top chart, displaying increases over time especially for the highest positions in the chart. The right panel shows the variety of labels on the charts. The same patterns as for balance can be observed.

We can take a closer look at the interplay between local and global hits through the Zeta diversity measure. Figure 7 presents the results for monthly Zeta diversity measures of orders 2—which is equivalent to pairwise distances—up to 20—the mean number of common songs shared by groups of 20 countries. We observe that across all orders of Zeta the mean diversity tends to decrease with time (brighter colors) which is consistent with the previous results Footnote 4 . When we look at the decay of Z -values along orders of Zeta ( x -axis) we observe that it gets steeper over time. In other words, the slope of the regression with Z -values ( y -axis) as a dependent variable and Z -order ( x -axis) as a predictor gets greater with time. Table 1 presents the results of a linear regression model that shows the increase in steepness over time. The substantive interpretation is that global hits have taken the lion’s share of the increase in diversity, becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon.

figure 7

The x -axis represents the order of Zeta and the y -axis the z -value, or mean percentage of songs shared across groups of x countries. Both axes are represented on a log10 scale. The function of Zeta with order shifts down over time and becomes steeper.

By analyzing 4 years of data of music charts in 39 countries, we find clear evidence of increased diversity in the music charts across countries. In the short period covered by this study, the number of unique songs, artists, and labels on the charts in our sample of countries has grown considerably. Despite the concerns expressed by several governments, particularly in Europe (Waldfogel, 2018 , p. 220), popular music is not increasingly globalized. Instead, countries’ popular music was amidst a process of Cultural Divergence that seemed to have come to a halt at the end of the observed period. The increase in diversity seems to be driven by a segmentation of the music market rather than an evenly heightened idiosyncrasy of music consumption. In other words, countries that were already close to one another in taste are becoming more similar but increasingly different from other clusters of countries. Such clusters appear strongly determined, but not only, by geographical and cultural distance. Research shows that regional clusters also differ in the acoustic properties of the music that their populations listen to (Park et al., 2019 ). Therefore, although diversity is usually taken as a positive trait of a system, the segmentation which is driving the increase in diversity can be a source of concern.

We also show that diversity has been on the rise in terms of artists and record labels. Particularly, the rise of label diversity rules out the possibility that the big labels are producing pop music fitted to different markets, as the proponents of glocalization would argue. As a consequence of these trends, not only songs might be increasingly distinct across countries, but also their production and distribution.

Whether it is the preferences of users or shifts in the production and distribution of music that are driving these changes is not clear. The possibility that Cultural Divergence is the result of a random long tail in music production is more consistent with the pace and ubiquity of these changes than preference-based accounts of the same phenomenon. Therefore, as an alternative to preference-based explanations of the increase in home bias (Way et al., 2020 ) and global diversity, we propose that these observations could be explained by changes in music production. One first source of concern with the preference-based explanation stems from the speed and ubiquity of the observed changes. Cultural shifts of this scale are generally slow, comparable in speed to the evolution of traits in animal populations (Lambert et al., 2020 ). Also, there is evidence that changes in the aggregated preferences of a population are mostly driven by generational replacement (Vaisey and Lizardo, 2016 ). Instead, we argue that field configurations can more rapidly sway macro-patterns by conditioning the opportunities of individuals. In the case of music, the random long tail of music production may have increased the available options of users to express their idiosyncratic preferences, which, being to some extent geographically determined (Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ; Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014 ; Way et al., 2020 ), would likely result in national music charts drifting away from each other.

Methodologically, this research shows the potential of Zeta diversity, a measure devised for the study of biodiversity, to gauge the globalization of cultural products at different levels. Since truly global hits are extremely rare phenomena when compared to songs that reach in small groups of culturally similar countries, they carry very low weight when calculating pairwise distances, which is a common way of looking at cross-national diversity. National charts could drift apart without affecting the likelihood of the eventual hit to spread globally and conventional pairwise measures would not pick this dynamic. As we show, this has not been the case for the music market, in which the positive trend in diversity has been accompanied by a significant decrease in the spread of global hits. The application of Zeta diversity is not without issues, one of them being that its calculation is computationally demanding when compared with the other measures of diversity presented here, because of its combinatorial nature. In return, it offers relatively stable estimates of rare events, a useful feature when studying heavy-tailed distributions in general, and cultural markets in particular, in which global hits are highly unlikely but more consequential in terms of collective attention than the more common local hits. More broadly, our analysis applies mathematical methods from ecology to analyze the consumption of cultural content. This interface between disciplines has other applications, for example, to understand the dynamical reorganization of user activity on social media (Palazzi et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, our work builds on existing literature utilizing methods from ecology to study musical taste and consumption (Park et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2019 ).

To conclude, our results run counter to the notion of an unbounded market that can be distilled from the idea of globalization. It also challenges the expectations of the winner-takes-all set of theories that predict heightened inequality in the distribution of success under decreased restrictions to global expansion. Instead, the music market has become, in this short period, more hostile to the spread of hits across the globe. From a positive perspective, this means that “national cultures” are not disappearing, although this might come at the expense of a more segmented market in bundles of culturally similar countries, and the risks associated with such segmentation if spread, for instance, from esthetic to normative judgments.

Data availability

Data and code for the analyses are available at https://github.com/PabloBelloDelpon/Spotify_paper .

Users also have the option to get free access to a limited version of the platform, which is ad-supported.

Spotify measures the acoustic features of each song and groups them into the followingcategories, all of which we include in the analysis: danceability, energy, key, loudness, mode,speechiness, acousticness, instrumentalness, liveness, valence, tempo, and duration.

More precisely, Rao–Stirling is calculated as in Stirling ( 2007 ): D  = ∑ it ( i ≠ j ) d ij   ⋅   p i   ⋅   p j , where p i and p j are the proportions of elements i and j in the system and did is the euclidean distance between their respective acoustic representations.

Zeta diversity is measured in the opposite direction than the previous indicators of diversity. Higher values indicate more overlap of songs across charts and smaller values indicate less overlap.

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Acknowledgements

D.G. acknowledges funding from the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) through project VRG16-005. We thank Marc Keuschnigg and Paul Schuler for their insightful comments on previous versions of this article.

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Bello, P., Garcia, D. Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 182 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00855-1

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music industry research papers

A new era of the music industry? Blockchain and value co-creation: the Bitsong case study

European Journal of Innovation Management

ISSN : 1460-1060

Article publication date: 20 December 2022

Issue publication date: 18 December 2023

The study aims to investigate the impact of technological innovation, such as blockchain, in the music field from a value co-creation perspective, highlighting how it is determining a radical change in the business model and value creation process.

Design/methodology/approach

To shed light on how blockchain adoption is reconfiguring the music industry, the authors adopted a qualitative-based approach based on a case study, allowing us to investigate value co-creation at three levels (macro, meso and micro) through exchange and integration of multi-actor resources.

The authors found that blockchain adoption in the music industry can singularly shape the business model, representing a powerful tool to enhance inter-organizational cooperation in value creation. It effectively deals with operational and business issues, besides financial transactions, profoundly impacting both the creation and distribution of value within the supply chain.

Research limitations/implications

The research contributes to a better understanding of innovation adoption in a specific setting, the music industry, giving support and guidance for players working in this ecosystem. The blockchain-music link helps close the gap between music and society through technology, thus providing a foundation for future research.

Originality/value

The paper provides new insights into the antecedents and mechanisms of value co-creation, spanning macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of context. It also illustrates the factors underpinning Bitsong viability to embed the value co-creation perspective in designing the business model within a value network.

  • Technological innovation
  • Value co-creation
  • Music industry

Centorrino, G. , Naciti, V. and Rupo, D. (2023), "A new era of the music industry? Blockchain and value co-creation: the Bitsong case study", European Journal of Innovation Management , Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 65-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-07-2022-0362

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Giovanna Centorrino, Valeria Naciti and Daniela Rupo

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The Internet and digitization have made technology innovation easy, powerful, cheap and copious. The extent to which the convergence of inexpensive digital information goods and computing and communication devices are changing business and society is under everyone's eyes ( Karimi and Walter, 2015 ; Marrone and Hazelton, 2019 ; Javaid et al ., 2021 ). This disruptive impact of digital technology and the Internet, revolutionizing information exchanges, is challenging traditional approaches of organizing, producing and capturing value ( Karimi and Walter, 2015 ), gaining prominence both in the business world and in academic debate.

Like any cultural sector, the music industry represents a valuable setting to uncover the opportunities of this innovation. With digitization and transmission on the web, the music industry is recombining the value creation process. It shows itself in a new guise, capable of encompassing features and functions that were not imaginable in the past. On the one hand, a new world opens, the digital universe, which allows us to observe the emergence of new ways of creating, distributing and promoting musical works by artists and producers, with equivalent advantages also for its fruition by buyers. On the other hand, such intense technological innovation gives rise to considerable problems, born precisely from the freedom of, and ease of access to, an unlimited amount of shareable and downloadable content in the absence of adequate control over the ownership of this content.

In this industry, many issues have arisen regarding the evolution of music consumption, the increase in bureaucracy and the economic complexity of the music network. Moreover, the continual evolution of music-related commercial activities goes together with the adoption of digital technology, driving an epochal paradigm shift in business models. According to Teece (2010) , “ a business model embodies nothing less than the organizational and financial architecture of a business ” ( Teece, 2010, p. 173 ). The impact of innovation is determining a radical change in the structure and governance of music firms to sustain competitive advantage ( Andreassen et al ., 2018 ).

In this scenario, the business model design has become even more critical given its capability to enable improvements and innovations to conduct business activities. In the fascinating and chaotic scenario, the emergence of Blockchain technology (BT) has opened a new world of social, financial and technological possibilities, as it is considered one of the most important, challenging and disruptive recently developed phenomena ( Dai and Vasarhelyi, 2017 ). Thanks to the adoption of blockchain, a new business ecosystem is taking shape in the music field, in which artists, music-loving users, music providers and stakeholders interact to pursue their goals, co-creating value in a harmonious way.

Although literature has widely highlighted the advantages of blockchain as a promising research stream ( Nakamoto, 2008 ; O'Leary, 2017 ; Coyne and McMickle, 2017 ; Pimentel and Boulianne, 2020 ) and as an external enabler of new business ideas in the music industry ( Chalmers et al ., 2021 ), few studies have investigated the nexus between value co-creation (VCC) and BT ( Skaržauskaitė and Skarzauskiene, 2021 ; Zhang et al ., 2021 ). Furthermore, critics of BT state that it will be years before we see some of the benefits of such technology in the art sector ( Beck et al ., 2017 ). Through debate, an objective and rational analysis is clearly needed to cut the hype of a utopian vision and help us understand the reality of the current landscape, the potential for the future and what the next steps may be to bridge this gap.

Therefore, the necessity for a shift in traditional value creation approaches has evolved in tandem with the vast amounts of data available to organizations' external stakeholders and expanding digitization.

We adopt the lens of VCC, conceived as an enabling factor of value creation through the involvement of various stakeholders in decision-making ( Garcia-Castro and Aguilera, 2015 ), where each actor offers distinct characteristics to the setting that has an impact on the other actors as well as the overall context.

Following this approach, we observe how recent digital innovation amplifies the boundaries of the new sharing economy, emphasizing the benefits of quick and easy access to a wide range of resources at a reduced cost. Studies have identified the challenges that deserve more investigation ( Ranjan and Read, 2016 ), among which the intricate stakeholder participation, difficulties in opening up value chains, and trust and intellectual property issues. To the best of our knowledge, our research is the first attempt to get insight into the link between VCC and BT in the music industry, observing the phenomenon at macro - , meso - and micro- levels, in which value is created through exchange and integration of multi-actor resources.

This research aims to provide a theoretical and practical understanding of the interplay between BT adoption and music under the lens of VCC.

What are the relevant implications of blockchain adoption for the business model of music organizations, from the design of musical projects to the production, distribution and consumption of products?

How is the paradigm shift determined by this innovation influencing value creation within the network, giving shape to a singular VCC process?

To answer our questions, following prior research ( Foss and Saebi, 2018 ), we used a qualitative methodology based on a case study deemed suitable to investigate how the deployment of blockchain in the music business might benefit the VCC process.

The case study examined is Bitsong, a decentralized music streaming platform that uses BT to provide the global community of artists, fans and music providers with a trustworthy music marketplace.

Our contribution is threefold. Firstly, the research examines the antecedents and mechanisms of VCC across different dimensions and levels of the context within blockchain networks, exploring the associated interdependencies across these levels and dimensions.

Secondly, the research contributes to the knowledge of inductive case study methodology useful for assessing the implications of BT for practitioners and researchers in a real-world setting.

Thirdly, the research contributes to advancing the theory of VCC within a network built on a digital platform by proposing an architectural guideline.

The paper is structured as follows. The next section analyses the available literature on VCC, blockchain and its application in the music industry. Section 3 discusses research methodology for developing and evaluating the case study. Section 4 details the Bitsong case application and the case study's findings in terms of blockchain and VCC. Section 5 concludes with theoretical and practical contributions, including future research prospects.

2. Theoretical background

2.1 value co-creation and blockchain.

Most research on the linkage between innovation and VCC has emphasized the positive aspects of the roles of buyer and supplier ( Chowdhury et al. , 2016 ). Indeed, business models ultimately lead to value generation by effectively facilitating interactions between suppliers and buyers via an innovative platform, such as blockchain ( Panayides, 2006 ). The interaction process between actors is not always harmonious, as is true for all interactions in the context of relationships.

Value creation, a significant issue in economics, business and management studies, has taken on new meanings and consequences over time, developing into co-creation of value at the beginning of the century ( Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2000 , 2004 ; Vargo and Lusch, 2004 ). The term's beginning may be found in the manuscript of Kambil et al. (1996) , who used it to underline the importance of consumers in corporate strategy; nevertheless, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000 , 2004) were the authors that popularized the concept of VCC.

At the definitional level, VCC still has uncertain boundaries, as few studies explicitly clarify its meaning and contents ( Neghina et al. , 2015 ). Overall, VCC theory gives a valuable framework for understanding how to add value to “existing value” ( Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2014 ) or use existing value to lead growth through interplays between firms and actors. Moreover, it delineates actions related to the participation of actors as active partners in service innovation through various interactive channels.

Several studies have investigated the paradigm of VCC. According to Hilton et al. (2012) value, being a personal evaluative judgement, cannot be co-created; instead, actors realize it as an outcome of service co-creation. Therefore “value is subjectively determined, and it is considered the outcome of the service co-creation process” ( Neghina et al. , 2017 ). The fundamental assumption in such service systems is interaction for the co-creation of value ( Durugbo and Pawar, 2014 ) where the co-creation process involves customers as part of the value chain, i.e. as an individual that adds value to a service or product ( Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004 ; Vargo et al. , 2008 ).

Yi and Gong (2013) developed and validated a scale to measure customer VCC behaviour in conformity to the two central notions of customer participation and citizenship behaviour. The first notion fits the required behaviour necessary for successful VCC. Customer citizenship is intentional behaviour that is not crucial for VCC, even if helpful to give extraordinary value to the firm.

To further develop the conceptualization of VCC, Neghina et al. (2015) proposed one of the first studies dealing with a conceptual understanding of VCC. They illustrated a framework regarding VCC in six dimensions correlated to more straightforward joint actions (individuating, relating, empowering, ethical, developmental and concerted collective efforts).

These authors also hypothesized nine antecedents of VCC, described as the communication, relating and knowing of customers' behaviour in co-creating value. Co-creation interactions necessitate both analogical and digital communications and unique management strategies. Parallel to the massive volumes of data that have been available to enterprises' external stakeholders and the growing digitalization, the need arose for a change of traditional VCC methods. Co-creation, on the other hand, still presents many challenges, including the complexity related to stakeholder participation, problems in opening up value chains, and trust and intellectual property issues.

In an increasingly digital corporate environment, the challenge of innovation asks for a comprehensive grasp of the function of information technologies such as blockchain and how they influence the design of new business models capable of generating value.

Only recently has the potential of new technological innovations, such as blockchain, been given attention as a source of competitive advantage in the ongoing debate on economic value creation ( Erevelles et al. , 2022 ; Mačiulienė and Skaržauskienė, 2021 ; Zhang et al. , 2021 ).

BT, or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), is a database system that preserves every data transaction processed in a network of various nodes or computers ( Coyne and McMickle, 2017 ; Dai and Vasarhelyi, 2017 ; Kokina et al. , 2017 ; Tapscott and Tapscott, 2017 ; Pimentel and Boulianne, 2020 ); it serves to record and share information through a peer-to-peer network.

Trust through consensus and cryptographic proof: peers validate transactions, and no single party controls the data;

Security through a distributed and encrypted database, making it more difficult to compromise than a centralized database;

Privacy using a system of public and private “keys,” where a user's public information is viewable by anyone in a network, but one's private information is protected with cryptography;

Transparency using pseudonymous identities, where transactions are viewable by everyone in a network, with real identities provided if needed;

Disintermediation, where transactions occur directly between peers, without intermediaries.

In the framework of VCC, the adoption of BT is seen as a powerful tool to alleviate trust issues and intellectual property appropriation concerns ( Seulliet, 2016 ). Ian Grigg is a financial cryptographer that introduced the idea of the value of a digitally signed receipt backed up by financial cryptography between two parties that can be controlled by a shared third entry. By bringing a significant theoretical improvement to the business recording system, this novel methodology minimizes both transaction fraud and the entity of internal recordings ( Cai, 2021 ). However, BT not only has the ability to create trust in decentralized data storage but also has the potential to bring about radical changes in business automation, digital economic models, investment ecosystems and even transform the governance paradigm by incorporating decentralized participatory governance paradigms into multi-stakeholder digital business environments ( Zutshi et al. , 2021 ).

Admittedly, BT can be considered an opportunity and a threat like any other innovation. This latter scenario is primarily due to technological threats, such as ransomware assaults on the BT network ( Moll and Yigitbasioglu, 2019 ), although blockchain ensures highly secure transactions ( Deloitte, 2016 ). Other potential problems could come from the anonymity of some cryptocurrencies, which could be used to trade potentially in suspicious criminal transactions or laundered funds, or to fund terrorist acts ( Turner and Irwin, 2017 ).

Even though DLT is a relatively new phenomenon, it constantly combines some well-known technologies in new and creative ways. As new functions are added to technology, the related value proposition shifts. Angelis and Da Silva (2019) , exploring the relationship between BTs and their underlying value drivers, identify four distinct blockchain stages of increased maturity, each of which corresponds to a specific type of value driver. Table 1 synthesizes the fundamental logic that determines how specific drivers generate value along the evolutionary stages of the blockchain ( Angelis and Da Silva, 2019 ).

It is worth noting that the range of applications grows as DLT develops and refines. However, a typical assumption is that some business actions stay the same regardless of which technology is used. But this last choice could be wrong as growing technology usually offers new products or services and changes in the sought-after and derived benefits. Value drivers related to the use of BT can also be referred to as the VCC notion, given the above-described capability of this paradigm to provide a helpful framework for figuring out how to add value to “existing value” ( Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2014 ). In this context, BT has opened up a whole new universe of possibilities regarding social, financial, economic and technical advancements and gives it its multi-level dimension.

The blockchain notion can be linked to network theory; according to Gummesson (2008) , “a network is made up of nodes (such as people or organizations) and relationships and interaction between those. Network theory is part of ‘complexity theory’, recognizing that numerous variables interact, that the number of unique situations is unlimited, that change is a natural state of affairs and that processes are iterative rather than linear” (p. 2).

In trying to understand the complexity of the subject, great importance is assigned to the “value in context” notion ( Chandler and Vargo, 2011 ), where “contexts” are groups of distinct actors with specific knowledge, abilities and reciprocal relationships. A value network, or context, is a multidimensional phenomenon that presents a distinctive environment with multiple levels of interactive collaborations ( Best et al. , 2022 ). As resources are accessible by various actors, they connect actors one to another (and vice versa), and for this interconnection, they are valuable as “together, the connected actors influence the ‘expansion and contraction’ of a resource […]. As a result, disparate actors access resources that they do not own or unilaterally control, they become connected because of their joint access to a resource” ( Chandler and Vargo, 2011, p. 37 ).

It is important to recognize that each part of the network is always linked to the systemic context. According to Alves et al. (2016) : “Depending on the context, resources may or may not hold value to a specific actor; therefore, the context influences the co-creation of value” (p. 1628).

This perspective makes complex system context such as blockchain more understandable by adopting systems-level thinking to explore how actors combine through exchanges within a specific context and investigate how that context frames value creation and exchange ( Chandler and Vargo, 2011 ).

At the micro- level, where individual stakeholders (funder, staff, directors) exchange resources to directly benefit other stakeholders, making knowledge exchange a dyad;

At the meso- level, as a triad of knowledge flows for service exchange in the network;

At the macro- level, the context for service exchange is a complex network in which different stakeholders share knowledge and interact in direct and indirect service exchanges.

These three levels also imply that value created and/or destroyed at one level, such as the micro- level, may impact value created and/or destroyed at the meso- and/or macro- levels ( Best et al. , 2022 ). The presence of a meta-layer representing the evolution of each level is helpful in understanding the evolution of each of the three levels over time. For each level, the VCC is unique on that level ( Chandler and Vargo, 2011 ).

2.2 Blockchain in the music industry

Since its introduction in 2009, businesses have explored the use of BT in countless ways. In this line, over the last few years, BT has gained popularity in various industries ( Coyne and McMickle, 2017 ; Dai and Vasarhelyi, 2017 ; Kokina et al. , 2017 ; Pimentel and Boulianne, 2020 ). In particular, independent music companies are slowly but surely recovering control over their money and art thanks to BT.

From an economic standpoint, blockchains facilitate the transformation of a centralized platform into a free market for the exchange of values. As a consequence, they attract participants (stakeholders), fuelling the participation required for the platform's existence, at the same time.

Based on the organization and functioning of the music industry in the pre-digital era, the value chain of the record industry had a simple and linear structure, the salient phases of which were the creation of musical pieces, their recording, the production of supports, the physical distribution, sale and, finally, consumption. The traditional marketing of music took place through a distribution network whose control was in the hands of the record companies ( Vaccaro and Cohn, 2004 ).

With the advent of digital technologies and the Internet, the dynamics of the sector have changed and evolved. The most significant effects have occurred in the promotional and distribution phases. Digitization and the consequent lowering of costs and entry barriers, on the one hand, have made it potentially possible for artists to record their songs and reach fans without necessarily going through a record company. On the other hand, they have facilitated the entry of new actors into the sector, such as Internet Service Provider companies, ICT companies and digital intermediaries, such as streaming platforms. The advent of digital technology led to the entry of a new category of players in the supply chain: Aggregators.

Aggregators are intermediaries that allow the distribution of music content on digital platforms, such as Spotify, iTunes, Deezer and other players. In addition to uploading and managing songs on the platforms, Aggregators are also responsible for collecting royalties deriving from the sale of music and then distributing payments to artists and record companies.

Hosoi et al. (2016) argued that the possibility for artists to self-produce quality recordings and self-promote through digital channels is the result of disintermediation that has shifted most of the time value generated by record companies, small and niche artists, and new digital services. Furthermore, the advent of streaming has resulted in a general decline in revenues shared throughout the supply chain ( De León and Gupta, 2017 ).

The music industry is also one of the most complex markets that have faced and are still facing numerous challenges today ( Chalmers et al. , 2021 ), as happened with the paradigm shift brought about by streaming and as is currently happening with the complex licensing and copyright systems that pose considerable problems and difficulties for rights holders.

In the cultural sector, the music industry was the first to be affected by digitization. Digital transformation of music products began in the 1990s with the appearance of mp3 and continued with the spread of peer-to-peer networks and streaming, until today, when the affirmation of Pay per Play systems continues unbounded.

According to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) data, the size of the global recorded music market grew by 7.4% in 2020. Due to steady growth in paid subscription streaming revenues, which offset a fall in physical and performance rights revenues, this was the sixth straight year of increased revenues. Streaming was responsible for growth in eight of the top ten markets worldwide. Subscription streaming revenues, in particular, grew across the board. Record firms' continued investment established the groundwork for the dominating digital industry and strengthened its resilience in the face of the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic in 2020. Despite these developments, many artists complain about a lack of transparency in administrating their licenses, months or years of waiting for royalty payments, and insufficient and unjust pay-out levels. The music industry, despite adversity, is growing steadily all over the world. Sector bureaucratization, information asymmetry between the creative and distribution sectors, growth in the number of intermediaries, unfair distribution of royalties and the spread of piracy ( Borja et al ., 2015 ), however, threaten the sustainability of the system, mainly to the detriment of the artist, who receives only a tiny part of what is generated by his work. In this regard, online streaming services certainly do not help since the commissions paid per listen are extremely low. Listeners are not doing too well either, being forced to navigate different platforms (and their subscriptions) to listen to their favourite music.

Today, with the advent of blockchain, the music industry is facing another potentially disruptive innovation: blockchain may undermine and question many aspects such as centralization and intermediation on which it has always relied; firstly, the power of the big record companies and secondly, streaming services and other features on which the structure of the music industry as a whole has been based.

In recent years, DLT protocols have attracted the attention of many artists and musicians who have seen the potential for a new era of innovation for the music industry, able to create conditions for the development of a more sustainable business model capable of solving many of the main problems outlined above, such as the need for adequate levels of remuneration, faster and more efficient payments and, in general, greater transparency in the management and monetization of music rights.

3. Research design

3.1 methodology.

To shed light on how the application of blockchain in the music industry can lead to a VCC process, we adopted a qualitative-based approach ( Plakoyiannaki and Budhwar, 2021 ) constructed on a case study research methodology ( Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007 ; Ojasalo, 2008 ; Yin, 2009 ). This method is suitable to investigate the adoption of innovation in a specific setting. Our case study (Bitsong), being a pioneer and in some way a unique case, allows contextualizing the multi-level implications of blockchain adoption representing a complex and context-bound phenomenon that is not suitable for study in other modalities ( Halinen and Törnroos, 2005 ). Compared to other methods, this method is regarded as appropriate for the study since it provides a more accurate and complete evaluation of the subject matter; the case-oriented methodology makes specific facts understandable ( Ragin, 1999 ).

Regarding the type of approach, we preferred to perform interviews based on open questions, since they present certain advantages over closed questions: (1) the respondent can answer in their own terms; (2) the questions do not suggest certain kinds of answer to the respondent; (3) they are useful to explore new areas or ones in which a researcher has limited knowledge.

As Alles and Gray (2020) point out, it is essential to place BT within the business environment in which it operates. In this regard, case study research enables in-depth and contextual analysis of a real-life phenomenon ( Yin, 2009 ), highlighting the complexity detected in an activity involving various sources of evidence and a large amount of data. Another reason to investigate this specific case in depth is that Bitsong today represents a starting point of an essential cultural change ( Ragin, 1999 ) in the music industry.

A preliminary literature review was conducted at the start of the study. As the data analysis progressed, a second literature review was conducted to compare and relate the findings to earlier studies.

The phenomenon's complexity required a holistic approach. For this reason, the research uses combined data collection tools constructed from various sources: official documents, Internet documents, the Bitsong website, published interviews, scientific papers, direct observations, semi-structured interviews with key informants, and informal follow-ups based on e-mails and short phone interviews. Semi-structured video and face-to-face semi-structured interviews were deemed the principal source-gathering instrument for the study and helpful in offering flexibility in approaching the respondents ( De Villiers et al ., 2019 ). It is important to note that observing facial expressions or body language can help the researchers better understand the interviewers. However, in some cases, video interviews can lead to substantial advantages ( De Villiers et al. , 2022 ). Due to the Covid pandemic, this solution became preferential owing to the safety linked to reducing contact and travel. Significant open questions were formulated as broad statements, followed by more specific questions to obtain relevant data for the study. At the same time, some questions do not precisely match our research questions with the intent of encouraging interviewees to talk about a topic.

Specifically, 12 interviews focusing on the VCC phenomenon surrounding Bitsong were conducted between September 2021 and April 2022.

On average, 60 min interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed.

The interview questions help to understand the motivations underpinning the organization's development of the value network; the different forms of value experienced at the personal, organizational and network levels; and how the value was created, provided and captured. The general approach helps understand VCC factors and outcomes at different levels of the blockchain and the interactions among the three levels investigated.

The diverse respondents and the various circumstances allowed a wide range of opinions to be apprehended. After each interview, transcription was an essential point for subsequent discussions. Data were analysed and interpreted using steady comparative analysis to find starting concepts, link this evolving set of ideas to higher-level categories, and then, when required, establish potential linkages between classes ( Sarker et al ., 2012 ). The constant comparing process implicitly involves data triangulation across respondents, types of organizations, and respondents' organizational responsibilities, among other things. Secondary documents allowed us to verify this information. This process improved the validity of the data and allowed for better understanding of the phenomenon under investigation ( Piekkari et al. , 2010 ).

The key informants (KI) and interviewees were the Founder CTO (KI_1), the Artist Manager (KI_2), the brand Director (KI_3), the project manager (KI_4) and one of the musicians (KI_5) (see Table 2 ). Moreover, the role of participant observation allows us to produce a reliable portrayal of the case study phenomenon and better check the validity of VCC in the three levels of analysis. For this reason, the investigators twice met KI_1 to participate in a practical explanation of the mechanisms underlined in the Bitsong Blockchain. Each author, under his guide, pretended to be a possessor of the crypto token, the virtual currency and used it to participate in the blockchain. Apart from allowing better understanding of the process, this training made us aware of the potentiality of the technology ( Figure 1 . Data process).

We used quotations to provide a better sense of meaningfulness to the case description and offer real examples of fundamental concepts and relationships ( Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007 ).

3.2 The case profile

3.2.1 bitsong: the case study.

Based on theoretical sampling considerations, we selected the case of the Bitsong platform for our exploratory case study for the following reasons.

First, the Bitsong company represents a suitable example to understand the endogenous mechanisms underlining the VCC of a blockchain in the context of the global music industry, which is utilizing this technology to disrupt industry incumbents, offering innovative services that promise to make transactions cheaper, automated and more secure ( Chalmers et al. , 2021 ).

The second reason regards our understanding of the meaning Bitsong gives to BT as the next-big-thing technology or the ability to seize these opportunities holistically within its business context ( Alles and Gray, 2020 ).

Bitsong, conceived in 2017, was built on the Ethereum blockchain and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) distributed filesystem to create a decentralized and trustworthy hub focused on interconnecting the various market players of the music industry. This was the initial concept, since at that time the only ecosystem which allowed project building with potential impact on a large scale was Ethereum: the founders then realized that it did not suit their vision and/or goals for Bitsong. Therefore, in the second half of 2018 they adopted Cosmos as an ecosystem, which completely changed the scenario and allowed them to start building their own Blockchain from scratch, customizing it to their vision and standards.

Bitsong differs from a streaming platform as it is a decentralized system of services supporting an active community of artists, music providers, fans and investors. It represents a technological environment – a new way to listen, watch and enjoy the content. It is a locus where every artist can distribute their music and sponsor it on world music channels; where users can be rewarded by simply enjoying their favourite kinds of content; and where precise, transparent and automated rules enforced through BT run the ecosystem –and not a small number of influential record labels. Accordingly, user activities, such as downloading or streaming a song, are recorded on the blockchain, and the artist or distributor can verify data in real-time about the performance of their product.

Indeed, as aforementioned, many artists complain about the current unfair remuneration level and the lack of transparency in managing their licenses, waiting a long time to obtain the payment of royalties, and the ecosystem is today characterized by significant inefficiencies, high confusion levels, difficulties in identifying and monetizing music rights, and consequent payment flows.

As per KI_2: “ In this scenery, blockchain is seen as the technology that may resolve this impasse in favour of the musician, and with this in mind, Bitsong was born. In the Bitsong ecosystem, we have gone behind the gap between producers and consumers, bringing together record labels, musicians, and fans in creating the value they search for, both from an economic point of view and artistic” .

Indeed, thanks to technological innovation able to do without many of the intermediaries, artists are allowed to distribute their music independently without losing money and at the same time protect their work of art. Bitsong can efficiently mitigate the piracy phenomenon that, as unauthorized use of an artist's music production, invention and conception, especially with copyright infringement, represents one of the main factors that has led to the music industry's decline and regression.

As a public blockchain, Bitsong does not require any authorization to access the network, perform transactions, or participate in verifying and creating new blocks. It is useable from any smart device and places artists and fans as the main protagonists, eliminating costly bureaucracy, giving musicians more control over their music-based revenue.

“We must add that the Bitsong network was created using the Cosmos-SDK infrastructure. As most actors within the network know, Cosmos has the ambitious goal of connecting a galaxy of independent Blockchains, the so-called “Internet of blockchains”. This infrastructure, together with the inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol, the Tendermint Core consensus mechanism and the Application BlockChain Interface (ABCI) interface, allows Bitsong to communicate with other blockchains based on different applications, as well as allow transferring and exchanging Bitsong token with other networks. BTSG is the native token of the Bitsong Blockchain and is used in network governance to vote on network development proposals and validate transactions".

The idea was born with Angelo Recca and Iulian Anghelin: the aim was to propose a rapid income model to artists without intermediaries, and a way to listen to music and earn money to users.

Under the leadership of Mr Recca, Bitsong was launched on the mainnet. Since its creation, it has attracted over 3,000 users and approximately 2 million blocks, increasing the team by over 300%. These words represent his main idea about his contribution: “ Either I create, or I manage. I have chosen to create”.

In recent times Mr Recca decided to end his term as Bitsong's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to become the Chief Technology Officer.

4. Results and discussion

The study aims to understand the nature and dynamics of VCC processes in an innovative network within the music field. We adopted a multilevel perspective at the macro - , meso - and micro- levels to comprehend this process better. This approach led us to pay attention to different phases in the entire innovation process, zooming in on value creation factors in which the stakeholder relationship ( micro- level), the business unit ( meso- level) and the ecosystem ( macro- level) form an indissoluble whole in which value is co-created.

It is worth noting that each level is influenced by events that occurred in the past or by a present situation or future perspective. Moreover, the three modes are interconnected as past influences present as expected futures. According to Halinen and Törnroos (2005) , it is crucial to “be alert to the ‘past loadedness’ of a network, which entails how the network actors are guided by their past and to what pasts they are connected with. This should be done to find explanations about how networks evolve, develop and dissolve, or expand and contract over time ” (p. 1291). Understanding how value is embedded within an innovative network context with multi-actor collaboration is complex and practically problematic due to the multidirectional flows spanning various network groups ( Best et al. , 2022 ).

In the Bitsong case, the actor categories involved (stakeholders) in the architecture of the new business are not only the many parties in the process of producing the final work as artists and producers but also the consumers, fans, investors and the governance. For any category, the value logic is different ( Foss and Saebi, 2018 ); nevertheless, VCC processes appear clear for each one of the categories, and this awareness emphasizes the motivations related to participation in the blockchain mechanism ( Figure 2 ).

In this line, facilitating value creation in collaboration with other stakeholders is considered a co-evolutionary process ( Best et al., 2022 ). The different typologies of values as part of a value-network, jointly creates a “value space” in which, according to Best et al. (2022) : “ differentiated value outputs accruing to individual partners are captured and aggregated by the network through resource and knowledge exchanges . Outputs and success factors across stakeholders within a value network need to be differentiated and measured at individual, firm, and network levels” (p. 478).

4.1 Value co-creation factors at the macro- level

The Bitsong network embedded in the various actors represents the case study macro level of analysis. At this level, the context is an innovative ecosystem where multiple simultaneous service-for-service exchanges occur ( Beirão et al. , 2017 ). According to Granstrand and Holgersson (2020) “An innovation ecosystem is the evolving set of actors, activities, and artefacts, and the institutions and relations, including complementary and substitute relations, that are important for the innovative performance of an actor or a population of actors.” (p. 3).

Here, a critical value co-creating factor is the governance of the blockchain that comprises rules and common language definitions. According to Beirão et al. (2017) , “ Value cocreation factors at the macro level are related to resource access, resource sharing, resource recombination, resource monitoring, and governance/institutions generation ” (p. 24).

The Bitsong decentralized network is based on a crucial system of governance. In our paper, we refer to governance defined as: “ the means of achieving the direction, control, and coordination of stakeholders within the context of a given blockchain project to which they jointly contribute ” ( Pelt et al ., 2021, p. 21 ). In describing the governance structure of these blockchain projects, the key respondents have identified several variables: the blockchain consensus mechanism, the role of validators and delegators, and the process that allows members to become involved in the network.

The Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), a specific variant of the Proof of state consensus, allows users to commit their balances as votes, supporting electing a fixed number of delegates to validate incoming transactions on the blockchain. As such, validators manage operations on behalf of their delegators, guaranteeing security and consensus. Any change to the Bitsong network is subject to governance votes. Examples of decisions that may be put to a governance vote include mainnet upgrades, changes to the voting period, changes to the size of the validators set or allocation of Community Pool funds.

The Bitsong set of validators is responsible for committing new blocks in the blockchain. The validators participate in the consensus protocol by broadcasting votes which contain cryptographic signatures signed by each validator's private key. Validator candidates can bond their BTSG (the currency for music, powering all the features of the Bitsong ecosystems) and have BTSG delegated or staked to them by BTSG token holders.

The delegators choose validators and stake the BTSG to them. The rewards may vary according to various factors, including the amount of BTSG staked to the chosen validator and the commission of the validator charge. Rewards are in cash and can be re-delegated for a compound effect, spent in the Bitsong music ecosystem, or traded for crypto or fiat currency.

At this level, it is evident how resource monitoring can lead to VCC outcomes, generating benefits to the actors and the ecosystem. Another crucial point at this level is the legislative setting that has not yet been regulated in Italy. It is worth noting that VCC involves resource integration with actors (who provide services reciprocally) and through comprehensive experiences in integrated and interconnected service ecosystems. Thus, institutions that govern the ecosystem are vital in facilitating a joined environment for VCC. The lack of regulation on blockchain represents a critical aspect, as interviewee K_1 explained. “ I believe that to better continue my activity, if it is necessary, I will transfer to a country where there exists a better legal framework that offers consumer protection and bans hazardous practices related to the blockchain. Here in Italy, our legislative system has not yet sufficiently regulated the blockchain in the music industry, which needs a strong set of rules also aimed to protect each actor of the network .”

4.2 Value co-creation factors at the meso- level

According to scholars, communities are the locus where people share and create new knowledge, common interests such as the development of innovations of a given product or service and goals and values ( Troise, 2022 ). The meso- level of the Bitsong platform, as a virtual community place, is characterized by the flow of information and communication among the music world and some Bitsong actors. At this level, VCC is particularly linked to the organizational aspect of the blockchain. It includes resource access, quality of services, the network's reputation, financial aspects related to each participant, the cost and time saved for participating in the network, and the relationship between the artist and his fans through Fan Tokens. As digital assets representing a loyalty formula with great potential, Fan Tokens are an innovative form of digital membership for fans, giving them access related to the music entities/brand that they had previously never had. This new asset gives its owner both the power to influence the decision of his favourite musician and access to exclusive promotions and other services. In the words of KI_4: “With the NFT and Fan Token, it is possible to create a privileged bond between artists and followers. Accordingly, it is possible to obtain benefits from the revenues of a tour or an album financed with the tokens. Fan Tokens allow voting on songs to be included in the line-up at a concert. Each artist can easily create their Fan Token and associate it with a social profile even outside of Bitsong (Twitter is an excellent first candidate), allowing fans to participate, for example, in a virtual meeting with their favourite artist by linking their BTSG wallet to the social network and using Fan Tokens ”.

Fans can use Fan Tokens to get digital collectables, purchase non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and take advantage of gamification features connected to fan benefits or unique experiences. As expressed by a musician (K_ 5): “ Fan Tokens allow artists to ‘tokenize’ their music and create a new equilibrium where art, real engagement, and passion win. With my Fan Token, engagement becomes a currency of exchange between me as the musician and my fans who establish a relationship based on trust and shared contribution to the success of musical projects and products ”.

At the meso- level, co-experience and co-accountability processes enabled shared values to emerge as an essential predecessor to the Bitsong value propositions. The Bitsong Community Pool is a self-managing fund to support the ongoing development of the Bitsong ecosystem and community.

The findings revealed that the development of a network improved the network's professionalization by allowing for greater administrative efficiency, reduced costs and a considerable number of performance outputs. Shared values connected the network's nodes and qualified for the co-creation of value propositions ( Best et al. , 2022 ).

4.3 Value co-creation factors at the micro- level

At the micro- level, VCC factors enable dyadic interactions between individual actors ( Cucino et al. , 2022 ) to integrate resources so as to co-create value with other actors through the blockchain: VCC outcomes benefit individual actors ( Beirão et al. , 2017 ). Another crucial point is seeking service quality representing a precursor of value delivery at the micro- level. The enabling factors are a series of mechanisms, including bi-lateral communications, set out to resolve problems jointly. Moreover, from in-depth analysis of customer profiles, the Bitsong network could fine-tune innovative processes to better handle the latest trends in the music field.

As the platform's purpose is to develop technology for the collective good, crypto tokens represent the value linked to the platform's success, giving economic benefits to all the ecosystem stakeholders.

The blockchain world manages to issue unique digital securities, and blockchain bases value on uniqueness, and they acquire value when there is more demand than supply. The advantage it has over normal coins is that it is not reproducible; phasing does not exist. The NFT acronym of “non fungible” token is a unique digital certificate that allows the encamping of content that can be digital, a foot, a video, etc. Being a unique NFT it acquires value.

Musicians can receive equal royalty payments, venues can avoid counterfeit tickets and record labels can easily track music streams and reimburse all artists who contributed to songs or albums.

Moreover, because of blockchain's immutability, it is possible to protect copyright, avoid costly legal services and reduce, if not eradicate, piracy. If a piece of music is on the blockchain, it is as if it were recorded and signed by a notary with the owner's name, date and time. The song will be recognized as belonging to the legitimate owner given that no one can alter the blockchain data.

Artists can upload the metadata of their musical works (audio and video) independently or through music providers and then start earning at once.

Supporters pitch blockchain's DLT as a method to release music quickly, streamline royalty payments, cut out expensive intermediaries and give music composers a single point of origin. “Blockchain can restore a fair and transparent system for making, purchasing, selling, listening to, and managing music. Such characteristics make blockchain fast spreading all over the word also due to the Covid pandemic that has profoundly changed habits regarding music.” (KI_3).

5. Conclusion

This paper presents the Bitsong case study, a suitable setting to investigate the impact of innovative technologies, i.e. blockchain, through a paradigm of VCC in a new network context ( Halinen and Törnroos, 2005 ). Our findings offer an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the linkage mentioned above, uncovering relevant interconnections between the actors involved, for various reasons, in the music network; the consumer, seen here in the evocative role of “music lover”, is placed at the centre of this ecosystem, consistently with the most advanced managerial philosophy.

This study offers several contributions. First, it allowed the analysis of the Bitsong case to be integrated into its context that, although fundamental in any case study, became highly critical in analysing a blockchain as a unique and problematic issue. Accordingly, we paid much attention to avoiding the lost inherent nature of the network, particularly the co-creation aspect. To this aim, the paper conceptualizes how co-creation occurs through joint exploration of the three most important levels, i.e. macro, meso and micro of Bitsong by highlighting different elements of a complexity deemed sufficiently significant to detect.

Business partnerships and networks are often created because of the adoption of technological innovation. Within a competitive network, an invention should be viewed as the consequence of numerous players' interactions rather than as the output of a single actor ( Ojasalo, 2008 ). One characteristic of a network is its natural flexibility and ability to change and adapt to the various modifications of the environment. Since business change and environment dynamics are concepts which are deeply rooted with time and temporality, the temporal dimension cannot be overlooked in research, particularly regarding the nature and scopes of networks, as specific contexts suitable to explore concrete issues of the adoption of an innovation through in-depth case studies.

Second, the temporal dimension was taken into consideration during the whole case-study process as it “ ranges from narrow to broad, indicating that the co-creation of experience can be approached as taking place at isolated moments in the present, or as also encompassing past memories or imagined future experiences ” ( Jaakkola et al ., 2015, p. 192 ). This last aspect is deemed of interest, also given the growing attention attributed to the development of virtual currencies linked to the blockchain, and issues regarding its stability that question the fate of the cryptocurrencies sector.

Third, the conceptual model presented here also demonstrated how value operates through various interactions, considering co-creation and value dimensions from different levels of analysis. The study helps advance understanding of the co-creative processes occurring thanks to adopting innovation in a specific context, such as the blockchain network in the music sector. Results offer guidelines for actors involved in this system, facilitating them in envisaging the main features of the emerging business model, providing a framework to build future research.

Each level of context frames service-for-service exchange in a way that impacts VCC uniquely at that level. The context at the macro- level frames exchange as it occurs among triads, at the meso- level it frames exchange as it occurs among dyads, and at the micro- level it frames exchange as it occurs among individual actors ( Chandler and Vargo, 2011 ).

Finally, this study allows us to understand the multi-level implications of blockchain adoption, which poses direct threats of disruption of traditional incumbents. Accordingly, investigation in the specific setting enables us to capture the advantages of the innovation in a new business model, compared to the traditional one.

Indeed, blockchain has begun to receive more media interest and funding from a variety of areas, including government, finance and the creative industries ( Andreassen et al ., 2018 ). The potential use in the context of music is particularly intriguing as it seems to provide answers to issues that musicians have been highlighting for years regarding transparency, value sharing and relationships with third parties who stand between them and their fans, the fundamental and most significant relationship in music.

Blockchain technology has the potential of being genuinely transformative if it can assist commercial and contractual connections in the music industry to keep up with both technology and communication between artists and listeners.

Obviously, there are certain limitations to this study that could be addressed in future research. It was previously impossible to obtain sufficient data on the performance of platforms already in use due to the early stages of development. Future studies could extend the analysis to similar cases and the music industry as a whole if its evolution confirms, as it seems, that a new business model can influence the competitive system profoundly. Furthermore, we are conscious that the originality of the paper is affected by the results of the Bitsong case study, and therefore the results cannot be generalized.

Finally, not much research has been carried out on blockchain in the music industry. Not only is literature restricted, but so is the public's opinion of the effectiveness of technology in this field.

The impact of blockchain on the entertainment and creative sectors is just getting started. New cases will continue to emerge in the coming years, which will enable opportunities for further theoretical development through contextual explanation, which can allow generalisability ( Plakoyiannaki and Budhwar, 2021 ).

Some critical instances will be required to convince the industry that the new technology is viable. This paradigm shift will distinguish market leaders who are the first to innovate and provide new and gratifying solutions. Media firms that use blockchain to increase efficiency can create shared value, providing a unique method to stand out and attract new members to the ecosystem.

Understanding innovation technology is critical for generating strategic planning that can assist media organizations in differentiating themselves from the competition and potentially develop a new level of collaboration and trust in the future music industry.

What is certain is that blockchain technology has only recently begun to reveal the potential of its adoption in specific sectors, and the full implementation of this innovation in the music industry is still far from replacing traditional business models. That is why, as for any other innovation, knowing its potential and implications on value creation allows us to better appreciate the feasibility of its promises.

music industry research papers

Data process

music industry research papers

Bitsong network

Blockchain evolutionary stages: how they add value

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Corresponding author

About the authors.

Giovanna Centorrino is an Associate Professor SECS/P07 in the Department of Economics at the University of Messina. She completed her studies at the University of Messina. She is coordinator of the Master in Business Consulting and Management. Her main research interests concern the area of accounting, National and International accounting standards, environmental, social sustainability and accounting History. Giovanna has published more than fifty monographic scientific works, articles and contributions in scientific journals and national and international volumes. Her teaching activity concerned the topics of Accounting, Financial Statements, and national and international accounting principles. She has taught in various degree courses, Master's and Specialization Schools at Italian and foreign universities.

Valeria Naciti, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Department of Economics of the University of Messina in the Horizon 2020 Leading Towards Sustainable Gender Equality Plans in research performing organizations project. Her main research interests concern social, sustainability and gender accountability in companies and public administrations, integrated reporting and corporate governance mechanisms. Valeria has published her research in some of the most relevant peer-reviewed scientific journals in the sector.

Daniela Rupo PhD is a Full Professor of Business Administration at the Department of Economics, University of Messina, Italy. Her teaching assignments range from financial and management accounting to business valuation. She has participated and is currently working on various national and international research projects about: intangibles, business valuation, corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting, value co-creation and governance. She is an author of several journal papers and books. She is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Auditor.

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EDITORIAL article

Editorial: the impact of music on human development and well-being.

\nGraham F. Welch

  • 1 Department of Culture, Communication and Media, University College London, London, United Kingdom
  • 2 Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
  • 3 School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
  • 4 Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Editorial on the Research Topic The Impact of Music on Human Development and Well-Being

Music is one of the most universal ways of expression and communication for humankind and is present in the everyday lives of people of all ages and from all cultures around the world ( Mehr et al., 2019 ). Hence, it seems more appropriate to talk about musics (plural) rather than in the singular ( Goble, 2015 ). Furthermore, research by anthropologists as well as ethnomusicologists suggests that music has been a characteristic of the human condition for millennia (cf. Blacking, 1976 ; Brown, 1999 ; Mithen, 2005 ; Dissanayake, 2012 ; Higham et al., 2012 ; Cross, 2016 ). Nevertheless, whilst the potential for musical behavior is a characteristic of all human beings, its realization is shaped by the environment and the experiences of individuals, often within groups ( North and Hargreaves, 2008 ; Welch and McPherson, 2018 ). Listening to music, singing, playing (informally, formally), creating (exploring, composing, improvising), whether individually and collectively, are common activities for the vast majority of people. Music represents an enjoyable activity in and of itself, but its influence goes beyond simple amusement.

These activities not only allow the expression of personal inner states and feelings, but also can bring about many positive effects in those who engage in them. There is an increasing body of empirical and experimental studies concerning the wider benefits of musical activity, and research in the sciences associated with music suggests that there are many dimensions of human life—including physical, social, educational, psychological (cognitive and emotional)—which can be affected positively by successful engagement in music ( Biasutti and Concina, 2013 ). Learning in and through music is something that can happen formally (such as part of structured lessons in school), as well as in other-than-formal situations, such as in the home with family and friends, often non-sequentially and not necessarily intentional, and where participation in music learning is voluntary, rather than mandated, such as in a community setting (cf. Green, 2002 ; Folkestad, 2006 ; Saether, 2016 ; Welch and McPherson, 2018 ).

Such benefits are evidenced across the lifespan, including early childhood ( Gerry et al., 2012 ; Williams et al., 2015 ; Linnavalli et al., 2018 ), adolescence ( McFerran et al., 2018 ), and older adulthood ( Lindblad and de Boise, 2020 ). Within these lifespan perspectives, research into music's contribution to health and well-being provides evidence of physical and psychological impacts ( MacDonald et al., 2013 ; Fancourt and Finn, 2019 ; van den Elzen et al., 2019 ). Benefits are also reported in terms of young people's educational outcomes ( Guhn et al., 2019 ), and successful musical activity can enhance an individual's sense of social inclusion ( Welch et al., 2014 ) and social cohesion ( Elvers et al., 2017 ).

This special issue provides a collection of 21, new research articles that deepen and develop our understanding of the ways and means that music can impact positively on human development and well-being. The collection draws on the work of 88 researchers from 17 different countries across the world, with each article offering an illustration of how music can relate to other important aspects of human functioning. In addition, the articles collectively illustrate a wide range of contemporary research approaches. These provide evidence of how different research aims concerning the wider benefits of music require sensitive and appropriate methodologies.

In terms of childhood and adolescence, for example, Putkinen et al. demonstrate how musical training is likely to foster enhanced sound encoding in 9 to 15-year-olds and thus be related to reading skills. A separate Finnish study by Saarikallio et al. provides evidence of how musical listening influences adolescents' perceived sense of agency and emotional well-being, whilst demonstrating how this impact is particularly nuanced by context and individuality. Aspects of mental health are the focus for an Australian study by Stewart et al. of young people with tendencies to depression. The article explores how, despite existing literature on the positive use of music for mood regulation, music listening can be double-edged and could actually sustain or intensify a negative mood.

A Portuguese study by Martins et al. shifts the center of attention from mental to physical benefits in their study of how learning music can support children's coordination. They provide empirical data on how a sustained, 24-week programme of Orff-based music education, which included the playing of simple tuned percussion instruments, significantly enhanced the manual dexterity and bimanual coordination in participant 8-year-olds compared to their active control (sports) and passive control peers. A related study by Loui et al. in the USA offers insights into the neurological impact of sustained musical instrument practice. Eight-year-old children who play one or more musical instruments for at least 0.5 h per week had higher scores on verbal ability and intellectual ability, and these correlated with greater measurable connections between particular regions of the brain related to both auditory-motor and bi-hemispheric connectivity.

Younger, pre-school children can also benefit from musical activities, with associations being reported between informal musical experiences in the home and specific aspects of language development. A UK-led study by Politimou et al. found that rhythm perception and production were the best predictors of young children's phonological awareness, whilst melody perception was the best predictor of grammar acquisition, a novel association not previously observed in developmental research. In another pre-school study, Barrett et al. explored the beliefs and values held by Australian early childhood and care practitioners concerning the value of music in young children's learning. Despite having limited formal qualifications and experience of personal music learning, practitioners tended overall to have positive attitudes to music, although this was biased toward music as a recreational and fun activity, with limited support for the notion of how music might be used to support wider aspects of children's learning and development.

Engaging in music to support a positive sense of personal agency is an integral feature of several articles in the collection. In addition to the Saarikallio team's research mentioned above, Moors et al. provide a novel example of how engaging in collective beatboxing can be life-enhancing for throat cancer patients in the UK who have undergone laryngectomy, both in terms of supporting their voice rehabilitation and alaryngeal phonation, as well as patients' sense of social inclusion and emotional well-being.

One potential reason for these positive findings is examined in an Australian study by Krause et al. . They apply the lens of self-determination theory to examine musical participation and well-being in a large group of 17 to 85-year-olds. Respondents to an online questionnaire signaled the importance of active music making in their lives in meeting three basic psychological needs embracing a sense of competency, relatedness and autonomy.

The use of public performance in music therapy is the subject of a US study by Vaudreuil et al. concerning the social transformation and reintegration of US military service members. Two example case studies are reported of service members who received music therapy as part of their treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other psychological health concerns. The participants wrote, learned, and refined songs over multiple music therapy sessions and created song introductions to share with audiences. Subsequent interviews provide positive evidence of the beneficial psychological effects of this programme of audience-focused musical activity.

Relatedly, McFerran et al. in Australia examined the ways in which music and trauma have been reported in selected music therapy literature from the past 10 years. The team's critical interpretive synthesis of 36 related articles led them to identify four different ways in which music has been used beneficially to support those who have experienced trauma. These approaches embrace the use of music for stabilizing (the modulation of physiological processes) and entrainment (the synchronization of music and movement), as well as for expressive and performative purposes—the fostering of emotional and social well-being.

The therapeutic potential of music is also explored in a detailed case study by Fachner et al. . Their research focuses on the nature of critical moments in a guided imagery and music session between a music therapist and a client, and evidences how these moments relate to underlying neurological function in the mechanics of music therapy.

At the other end of the age span, and also related to therapy, an Australian study by Brancatisano et al. reports on a new Music, Mind, and Movement programme for people in their eighties with mild to moderate dementia. Participants involved in the programme tended to show an improvement in aspects of cognition, particularly verbal fluency and attention. Similarly, Wilson and MacDonald report on a 10-week group music programme for young Scottish adults with learning difficulties. The research data suggest that participants enjoyed the programme and tended to sustain participation, with benefits evidenced in increased social engagement, interaction and communication.

The role of technology in facilitating access to music and supporting a sense of agency in older people is the focus for a major literature review by Creech , now based in Canada. Although this is a relatively under-researched field, the available evidence suggests that that older people, even those with complex needs, are capable of engaging with and using technology in a variety of ways that support their musical perception, learning and participation and wider quality of life.

Related to the particular needs of the young, children's general behavior can also improve through music, as exampled in an innovative, school-based, intensive 3-month orchestral programme in Italy with 8 to 10-year-olds. Fasano et al. report that the programme was particularly beneficial in reducing hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity, whilst enhancing inhibitory control. These benefits are in line with research findings concerning successful music education with specific cases of young people with ADHD whose behavior is characterized by these same disruptive symptoms (hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity).

Extra-musical benefits are also reported in a study of college students (Bachelors and Masters) and amateur musicians in a joint Swiss-UK study. Antonini Philippe et al. suggest that, whilst music making can offer some health protective effects, there is a need for greater health awareness and promotion among advanced music students. Compared to the amateur musicians, the college music students evaluated their overall quality of life and general and physical health more negatively, as did females in terms of their psychological health. Somewhat paradoxically, the college students who had taken part in judged performances reported higher psychological health ratings. This may have been because this sub-group were slightly older and more experienced musicians.

Music appears to be a common accompaniment to exercise, whether in the gym, park or street. Nikol et al. in South East Asia explore the potential physical benefits of synchronous exercise to music, especially in hot and humid conditions. Their randomized cross-over study (2019) reports that “time-to-exhaustion” under the synchronous music condition was 2/3 longer compared to the no-music condition for the same participants. In addition, perceived exertion was significantly lower, by an average of 22% during the synchronous condition.

Comparisons between music and sport are often evidenced in the body of existing Frontiers research literature related to performance and group behaviors. Our new collection contains a contribution to this literature in a study by Habe et al. . The authors investigated elite musicians and top athletes in Slovenia in terms of their perceptions of flow in performance and satisfaction with life. The questionnaire data analyses suggest that the experience of flow appears to influence satisfaction with life in these high-functioning individuals, albeit with some variations related to discipline, participant sex and whether considering team or individual performance.

A more formal link between music and movement is the focus of an exploratory case study by Cirelli and Trehub . They investigated a 19-month-old infant's dance-like, motorically-complex responses to familiar and unfamiliar songs, presented at different speeds. Movements were faster for the more familiar items at their original tempo. The child had been observed previously as moving to music at the age of 6 months.

Finally, a novel UK-based study by Waddington-Jones et al. evaluated the impact of two professional composers who were tasked, individually, to lead a 4-month programme of group composing in two separate and diverse community settings—one with a choral group and the other in a residential home, both funded as part of a music programme for the Hull City of Culture in 2017. In addition to the two composers, the participants were older adults, with the residential group being joined by schoolchildren from a local Primary school to collaborate in a final performance. Qualitative data analyses provide evidence of multi-dimensional psychological benefits arising from the successful, group-focused music-making activities.

In summary, these studies demonstrate that engaging in musical activity can have a positive impact on health and well-being in a variety of ways and in a diverse range of contexts across the lifespan. Musical activities, whether focused on listening, being creative or re-creative, individual or collective, are infused with the potential to be therapeutic, developmental, enriching, and educational, with the caveat provided that such musical experiences are perceived to be engaging, meaningful and successful by those who participate.

Collectively, these studies also celebrate the multiplicity of ways in which music can be experienced. Reading across the articles might raise a question as to whether or not any particular type of musical experience is seen to be more beneficial compared with another. The answer, at least in part, is that the empirical evidence suggests that musical engagement comes in myriad forms along a continuum of more or less overt activity, embracing learning, performing, composing and improvising, as well as listening and appreciating. Furthermore, given the multidimensional neurological processing of musical experience, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that it is perhaps the level of emotional engagement in the activity that drives its degree of health and well-being efficacy as much as the activity's overt musical features. And therein are opportunities for further research!

Author Contributions

The editorial was drafted by GW and approved by the topic Co-editors. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the Edited Collection, and have approved this editorial for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to all the contributing authors and their participants for their positive engagement with this Frontiers Research Topic, and also for the Frontiers staff for their commitment and support in bringing this topic to press.

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Welch, G. F., Himonides, E., Saunders, J., Papageorgi, I., and Sarazin, M. (2014). Singing and social inclusion. Front. Psychol. 5:803. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00803

Williams, K. E., Barrett, M. S., Welch, G. F., Abad, V., and Broughton, M. (2015). Associations between early shared music activities in the home and later child outcomes: findings from the longitudinal study of Australian Children. Early Childhood Res. Q. 31, 113–124. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2015.01.004

Keywords: music, wider benefits, lifespan, health, well-being

Citation: Welch GF, Biasutti M, MacRitchie J, McPherson GE and Himonides E (2020) Editorial: The Impact of Music on Human Development and Well-Being. Front. Psychol. 11:1246. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01246

Received: 12 January 2020; Accepted: 13 May 2020; Published: 17 June 2020.

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Copyright © 2020 Welch, Biasutti, MacRitchie, McPherson and Himonides. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Graham F. Welch, graham.welch@ucl.ac.uk ; Michele Biasutti, michele.biasutti@unipd.it

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Advances in Speech and Music Technology pp 51–69 Cite as

Music Recommendation Systems: Overview and Challenges

  • Makarand Velankar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8946-0350 12 &
  • Parag Kulkarni 13  
  • First Online: 23 September 2022

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3 Citations

Part of the Signals and Communication Technology book series (SCT)

Recommendation systems are a backbone for promoting products and services on social networking and e-commerce websites. Major platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, and YouTube use recommendation systems to promote different commodities. The current systems are mainly based on metadata and collaborative techniques. Over the past few years, these systems have evolved with keyword filtering, item feature-based filtering, finding aggregates, and commonalities between users. Online streaming music applications nowadays dominate music consumption. Popular websites such as YouTube or social media applications allow users to listen to songs and recommend the songs based on user history. Thus, the need is identified to provide the user personalized, enhanced musical experience. This chapter covers the overview of recommendation systems and the challenges involved. Various challenges include cold start issues, relevant data in-availability, overspecialization, lack of freshness, data sparsity, and unreliable metadata. These issues apply to recommendation systems, in general, to address user needs effectively.

  • Music recommendation
  • Content-based
  • Collaborative approach
  • Hybrid approach
  • User orientation

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Anupam Biswas

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Emile Wennekes

Multimedia Department, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, Warsaw, Poland

Alicja Wieczorkowska

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Silchar, Cachar, India

Rabul Hussain Laskar

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Velankar, M., Kulkarni, P. (2023). Music Recommendation Systems: Overview and Challenges. In: Biswas, A., Wennekes, E., Wieczorkowska, A., Laskar, R.H. (eds) Advances in Speech and Music Technology. Signals and Communication Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18444-4_3

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The Top 10 Most Interesting Music Research Topics

Music is a vast and ever-growing field. Because of this, it can be challenging to find excellent music research topics for your essay or thesis. Although there are many examples of music research topics online, not all are appropriate.

This article covers all you need to know about choosing suitable music research paper topics. It also provides a clear distinction between music research questions and topics to help you get started.

Find your bootcamp match

What makes a strong music research topic.

A strong music research topic must be short, straightforward, and easy to grasp. The primary aim of music research is to apply various research methods to provide valuable insights into a particular subject area. Therefore, your topic must also address issues that are relevant to present-day readers.

Also, for your research topic to be compelling, it should not be overly generic. Try to avoid topics that seem to be too broad. A strong research topic is always narrow enough to draw out a comprehensive and relevant research question.

Tips for Choosing a Music Research Topic

  • Check with your supervisor. In some cases, your school or supervisor may have specific requirements for your research. For example, some music programs may favor a comparative instead of a descriptive or correlational study. Knowing what your institution demands is essential in choosing an appropriate research topic.
  • Explore scientific papers. Journal articles are a great way to find the critical areas of interest in your field of study. You can choose from a wide range of journals such as The Journal of Musicology and The Journal of the Royal Musical Association . These resources can help determine the direction of your research.
  • Determine your areas of interest. Choosing a topic you have a personal interest in will help you stay motivated. Researching music-related subjects is a painstakingly thorough process. A lack of motivation would make it difficult to follow through with your research and achieve optimal results.
  • Confirm availability of data sources. Not all music topics are researchable. Before selecting a topic, you must be sure that there are enough primary and secondary data sources for your research. You also need to be sure that you can carry out your research with tested and proven research methods.
  • Ask your colleagues: Asking questions is one of the many research skills you need to cultivate. A short discussion or brainstorming session with your colleagues or other music professionals could help you identify a suitable topic for your research paper.

What’s the Difference Between a Research Topic and a Research Question?

A research topic is a particular subject area in a much wider field that a researcher chooses to place his emphasis on. Most subjects are extensive. So, before conducting research, a researcher must first determine a suitable area of interest that will act as the foundation for their investigation.

Research questions are drawn from research topics. However, research questions are usually more streamlined. While research topics can take a more generic viewpoint, research questions further narrow the focus down to specific case studies or seek to draw a correlation between two or more datasets.

How to Create Strong Music Research Questions

Strong music research questions must be relevant and specific. Music is a broad field with many genres and possible research areas. However, your research question must focus on a single subject matter and provide valuable insights. Also, your research question should be based on parameters that can be quantified and studied using available research methods.

Top 10 Music Research Paper Topics

1. understanding changes in music consumption patterns.

Although several known factors affect how people consume music, there is still a significant knowledge gap regarding how these factors influence listening choices. Your music research paper could outline some of these factors that affect music consumer behavior and highlight their mechanism of action.

2. Hip-hop Culture and Its Effect on Teenage Behavior

In 2020, hip-hop and RnB had the highest streaming numbers , according to Statista. Without a doubt, hip-hop music has had a significant influence on the behavior of young adults. There is still the need to conduct extensive research on this subject to determine if there is a correlation between hip-hop music and specific behavioral patterns, especially among teenagers.

3. The Application of Music as a Therapeutic Tool

For a long time, music has been used to manage stress and mental health disorders like anxiety, PTSD, and others. However, the role of music in clinical treatment still remains a controversial topic. Further research is required to separate fact from fiction and provide insight into the potential of music therapy.

4. Contemporary Rock Music and Its Association With Harmful Social Practices

Rock music has had a great influence on American culture since the 1950s. Since its rise to prominence, it has famously been associated with vices such as illicit sex and abuse of recreational drugs. An excellent research idea could be to evaluate if there is a robust causal relationship between contemporary rock music and adverse social behaviors.

5. The Impact of Streaming Apps on Global Music Consumption

Technology has dramatically affected the music industry by modifying individual music consumption habits. Presently, over 487 million people subscribe to a digital streaming service, according to Statista. Your research paper could examine how much of an influence popular music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have had on how we listen to music.

6. Effective American Music Education Practices

Teaching practices have always had a considerable impact on students’ academic success. However, not all strategies have an equal effect in enhancing learning experiences for students. You can conduct comparative research on two or more American music education practices and evaluate their impact on learning outcomes.

7. The Evolution of Music Production in the Technology-driven Era

One of the aspects of music that is experiencing a massive change is sound production. More than ever before, skilled, tech-savvy music producers are in high demand. At the moment, music producers earn about $70,326 annually, according to ZipRecruiter. So, your research could focus on the changes in music production techniques since the turn of the 21st century.

8. Jazz Music and Its Influence on Western Music Genres

The rich history of jazz music has established it as one of the most influential genres of music since the 19th century. Over the years, several famous composers and leading voices across many other western music genres have been shaped by jazz music’s sound and culture. You could carry out research on the influence of this genre of music on modern types of music.

9. The Effect of Wars on Music

Wars have always brought about radical changes in several aspects of culture, including music styles. Throughout history, we have witnessed wars result in the death of famous musicians. If you are interested in learning about music history in relation to global events, a study on the impact of wars on music will make an excellent music research paper.

10. African Tribal Percussion

African music is well recognized for its unique application of percussion. Historically, several tribes and cultures had their own percussion instruments and original methods of expression. Unfortunately, this musical style has mainly gone undocumented. An in-depth study into ancient African tribal percussion would make a strong music research paper.

Other Examples of Music Research Topics & Questions

Music research topics.

  • Popular musical styles of the 20th century
  • The role of musical pieces in political movements
  • Biographies of influential musicians during the baroque period
  • The influence of classical music on modern-day culture
  • The relationship between music and fashion

Music Research Questions

  • What is the relationship between country music and conservationist ideologies among middle-aged American voters?
  • What is the effect of listening to Chinese folk music on the critical thinking skills of high school students?
  • How have electronic music production technologies influenced the sound quality of contemporary music?
  • What is the correlation between punk music and substance abuse among Black-American males?
  • How does background music affect learning and information retention in children?

Choosing the Right Music Research Topic

Your research topic is the foundation on which every other aspect of your study is built. So, you must select a music research topic that gives you room to adequately explore intriguing hypotheses and, if possible, proffer practically applicable solutions.

Also, if you seek to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Music , you must be prepared to conduct research during your study. Choosing the right music research topic is the first step in guaranteeing good grades and delivering relevant, high-quality contributions in this constantly expanding field.

Music Research Topics FAQ

A good music research topic should be between 10 to 12 words long. Long, wordy music essay topics are usually confusing. They can make it difficult for readers to understand the goal of your research. Avoid using lengthy phrases or vague terms that could confuse the reader.

Journal articles are the best place to find helpful resources for your music research. You can explore reputable, high-impact journal articles to see if any research has been done related to your chosen topic. Journal articles also help to provide data for comparison while carrying out your research.

Primary sources carry out their own research and cite their own data. In contrast, secondary sources report data obtained from a primary source. Although primary sources are regarded as more credible, you can include a good mixture of primary and secondary sources in your research.

The most common research methods for music research are qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, and analytical. Your research strategy is arguably the most crucial part of your study. You must learn different research methods to determine which one would be the perfect fit for your particular research question.

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Example Of The Future Of Music Industry Research Paper

Type of paper: Research Paper

Topic: Music , Artists , Industry , People , Song , Future , Public , Taxes

Words: 1100

Published: 2020/12/28

The music industry

In the today’s world, music has increased, and the people also started receiving it well. Therefore, musicians use the music talents in conveying important messages that entail; preaching peace, educating and entertaining the citizenry. Nonetheless, the parties involved in the music industry should take the business seriously to avoid getting at loggerheads with the musicians (Gordon, 2005). The conflicts lead to demotivation in the musicians thereby weakening them in producing more music. Nonetheless, the relevant bodies should also control the musicians from using the platform to spread hate speech thereby fueling enmity between the community members. The music industry has grown owing the increasing number artists in the different countries. Additionally, the industry has grown due to the mentorship and the fame that comes with music. As a result, those with the required resources in terms of capital end up recording a song the releasing it through the use of the platform. On the others hand, the technology advancements have also led to an upsurge in piracy (Swift, 2014). Consequently, many musicians have complained to the officials about the issue on copyright. It is because; piracy results in the production of the similar songs that the musicians produce, but without their consent. As a result, most people turn to the copyrighted materials due to the cheaper prices. Additionally, the high competition among the musicians has also created enmity among themselves. Mostly, the conflict arises when one artist could defame the other in order to get the most airplay in the media. Moreover, the artists could also discredit one’s work in order to get favor from the public thereby increasing their preference in one’s music. On the other hand, the musicians also lead disagree and cause conflict between them and the media personnel who refuse to give the songs the airplay (Lymburner, 2009). As a result, the selected songs end up having more airplay than the others. Nonetheless, the musicians should also engage to increase chances of appealing to the media in the production of good quality videos. However, the technology advancements have made the work easier for both the musicians and the public because one can easily download a song from the internet thereby storing it in the preferred gadget. As a result, many artists turn to internet because most of the people rely on to download most things from the internet. On the other hand, the high recording prices put away most of the potential musicians who do not have the ability to raise the set fee for recording and directing a song. Therefore, the high fees tend to lock out most of the people thereby discouraging them. Conversely, it becomes very hard for an upcoming artist to get recognition from the public due to the overshadowing by the already established artists who always want to remain at the top. As a result, the lack of a platform for the upcoming artists view the action by the established artists as a threat to their music careers and some could even opt to quit the industry. Nonetheless, people have also started embraced music as a career that can sustain an individual. For a long time, music faced stereotype that the musicians are always failures who turn to music for consolation. However, many schools have also incorporated music in the syllabus to provide the students with a platform for music thereby changing the perception of the most students. As a result, parents allow their children to take music as a career thereby supporting them fully (Lymburner, 2009). The existence of the DJ academies and the music schools have also contributed greatly to the musicians’ career by molding them into musicians. In addition, the music industry provided a platform for the musicians where they can raise adequate money. Therefore, music is also another commercial business that requires seriousness from all the parties involved. For the reason, the returns that the musicians get from the music have led to an improvement in the living standards thereby eradicating poverty in the communities. On the other hand, music industries also provide employment opportunities to many young people. For instance, the music directors and producers and all the leaders of the music industry earn a living due to the music. However, despite the high fees charged on the music production, the public also put the artists on toes to produce more due to the increased demand from all the target audiences. Therefore, to appease the public and to remain in touch with them, the musicians would have no other choice, but to produce the songs one after the other. In addition, the evolution of music has rendered other music extinct because people change with the changing technologies; therefore, it is essential for a musician to keep releasing the songs in order to receive profits consistently (Swift, 2014). Moreover, the different artists led to the creation of many music genres thereby providing a wide range of choices from where the musicians choose. Therefore, the diversity of the music genres satisfies the varying demands of the target markets. Nonetheless, too much commercialization in the music industry also led to deprivation of most of the low-income earners from accessing the music concerts. Some critics argue that the high fees charged for the concerts tend to discriminate the people with low purchasing power. For this reason, they end up disregarding the artists. However, the fees depend on the artists’ fame, for instance, the more famous an artist is, the high the fees charged for the live concerts and vice versa. Nonetheless, people should not oppose the musicians because everyone has a target market thereby leading to the disparities in the amounts charged. In his book, “The future of the music business: How to succeed with the new digital technologies: a guide for artists and entrepreneurs,” musicians should fully maximize their talents in order to get the maximum revenues from it. Nevertheless, the artists should also swallow their pride and lower the fees charged to increase their viewership. On the other hand, the commercialization and the high demand have also led to the composition of songs that add no value to the human life. For instance, some of the dance moves portrayed in some of the videos do not encourage the viewership from the children (Gordon, 2005). Furthermore, some of the songs negatively impact on the young adults thereby emulating everything watched in the songs. As a result, some of the obscene videos contributed to the loss, and extinction of the communities’ moral values. The book by Gordon outlines the strategies that the musicians could adopt to get maximum profits in the future. Therefore, it acts as guidelines in giving insight to the musicians on the activities in indulge in for business purposes. In addition, the article by Lymburner also talks about the future of the music industry and the trends that people could use to determine the state of the music industries in the days to come. However, Taylor Swift also gives her insight and her own experience in the music industry. In summation, the music industry requires a consistent monitoring to protect both the musicians and the viewers. Therefore, the governments need to appoint a regulatory body who main work would entail the scrutiny of the music processes thereby streamlining the industry. The musicians should also follow the ethics required of them to eradicate some of the videos not suitable for most people. Nonetheless, the musicians require total support from the public for the industry’s growth.

Gordon, S. (2005). The future of the music business: How to succeed with the new digital technologies : a guide for artists and entrepreneurs. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. Lymburner, C. (2009). The future of the music industry. S.l: s.n.. Taylor Swift. (2014). For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story www.wsj.com/articles/for-taylor-swift-the-future-of-.

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