"What excites me the most about the future of music podcasts is how artists will use Anchor's platform. Audio recording could replace social sharing as the primary way that artists communicate with their fans and develop those relationships. Talking into your phone to record a message is quicker and easier than crafting a tweet or staging a photo. It's also more natural and intimate to hear an artist share a message in their own voice than it is to read their thoughts in text form."
Essay | Hypebot.com
"My feeling is that there are exciting, interesting things that are occurring outside these music news headlines. More people are discovering the activity happening in their own home states, like I did, and considering a return to the cities they left because they thought they had to in order to pursue their dreams. These people will start their own Treefort Music Fest. They will build music businesses and concert experiences for their cities, oozing with state pride and local personality. Most of the industry events and publications will totally miss this surge of local entrepreneurial activity."
Essay | Hypebot.com
"Hutchison described the struggles of finding love and meaning in adulthood in a way I related to more than any other artist. He didn’t just write songs about ex-girlfriends and past breakups but explained exactly what the experience of heartbreak feels like instead. He captured the moment when it feels like water fills up your lungs and only that person can save you, but they aren't there. He shared what it’s like to be broken inside and still attempt to function in this world."
Essay | Hypebot.com
"In his 2014 book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, Rushkoff explains that 'present shock' is a feeling that people experience when a predicted future arrives. It’s the shock of losing the lean-forward momentum and realizing the future is now the present. It’s the shock when the vision of the 'celestial jukebox' – 'music anywhere, anytime' – is a reality. It’s the shock when the world’s biggest companies finally enter the subscription music market. It’s the shock when indie artists complain online about paltry royalty payments for their creations. It’s the shock when Pandora and Spotify go from press darlings to public enemies."
Essay | Hypebot.com
"The music industry has bought into this idea that casual listeners are fanatic listeners with less time. If we just make it easier for them to harvest the fruits of fanatic labor they will love the same music. In effect, the 'programmer' needed for music services is a fanatic listener that takes them on a guided tour of their rabbit holes. Casual listeners, in this context, are viewed as lazier or older listeners (often both). With more ambition or time, they too would research and discover new music, but the effort is too great. Rather than accept that casual listeners are different listeners, we have wrongly labeled them as 'lesser' listeners."
Essay | Hypebot.com
"We may not recognize the person staring back at us, but that reflection is us, and it speaks volumes about music fans today. We’re overloaded with choice, often opting to listen to the same old songs as a way to avoid facing unlimited options. Moreover, we outsource choice — using filters like iTunes and Pandora rather than “doing the work” ourselves. We stand alongside the conveyer belt that the web provides us, assigning thumbs up or down to songs as they pass us by. If unsure, we skip the song entirely, because determining if we like it proves just as — if not more — paralyzing."
Essay | Hypebot.com
"Welcome to capture culture: Where music is not solely bought from a store and collected in our home but captured from our environment through mobile apps and instantly stored in the cloud."
Essay | Billboard
“If I love a music app, it’s the kiss of death,” says one music fanatic turned top-level digital music executive, who asked to remain anonymous. “No normal person will use it.” In other words, if a music fanatic finds a “music problem” interesting enough to solve, it doesn’t mean that the solution will be a workable business or that anyone beyond a few other music fanatics has this problem to begin with.
Essay | Billboard
"Shazam and Pandora aren’t just apps; they’re features. To use them, a person should only need to know that they want to identify a song or listen to a custom radio station, and-like magic-the desired process should occur. Siri can be the genie who makes it happen."
Essay | Billboard
"To exfm, the entire web is a music library, waiting to discovered, played, and captured. Music is not something to be collected over a lifetime, it’s there to be captured and shared with friends in the moment. Every day presents an opportunity to discover something new and revisit the past."
Essay | Billboard