Episode 29: The Rise of Artist Audiobooks

What if artists could revolutionise their storytelling and create deeper connections with their fans in this era of digital noise? Allow me to unravel the massive shifts in the industry, focusing on the rise of live audio and artist audiobooks. With a spotlight on Spotify's strategic moves, including acquisitions like Sonantic and Findaway Voices, we uncover how these developments could offer artists new authentic platforms to engage with Generation Z and meet their craving for genuine interactions amidst the rapid-fire world of short-form content.

In a lighter, whimsical twist, I throw a quirky idea into the mix, nurturing a sense of community and interaction among our listeners. Could it spark the next big trend or become a laugh-worthy anecdote at The Music Business Party? Your thoughts and feedback are not just welcomed but are crucial as we venture together into uncharted audio territories. Whether you're an artist, a music label, or a passionate enthusiast, buckle up for an episode that promises not just insights but a community-driven conversation about the future of music.

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Chapters

• 0:02 Future Trends in Audio Content Creation
• 12:37 Musical Community Interaction and Feedback

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, e-book format. I'm also a music creator with credits on a variety of major and indie labels. As a writer-producer, I'm a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are, whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of this community.

Speaker 1: 0:45

I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. Okay, so in this week's episode, I'm going to be looking at a range of factors that I believe point towards the signs of change in audio-related content for artists and labels moving forward. What does that really mean? Okay, I'm going to be looking at the role of live audio, the boom in artist audio books, which I think is very much ahead of us. We're going to be looking at technology, acquisitions and also the goals of the major label groups. Now I'm going to put all that together and build a projection and a prediction of what I think is ahead for artists. Okay, so let's just start off with this.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Over the past decade, spotify have acquired a range of kind of technology-based companies and technology startups that have a strong focus on machine-based learning Now, that have a strong focus on machine-based learning Now. When they acquired those companies, they were able to kind of pave the way to create what I believe is the most advanced form of music recommendation system that we've ever seen. Now, consequently, what this created was Spotify as a market leader in the US and the UK when it came to the younger audience. Now we're now at a point, perhaps in the UK and the USA, where so many people have moved from the free platform over to the premium platform that actually the market has begun to plateau a little bit in music consumerism. Now Spotify are trying to recreate that success in other territories, and I think they will.

Speaker 1: 2:26

But here's what I'm going to talk about. If we look at the companies that they have acquired since the turn of the 2020s, it points us in the direction of what their plans are moving forward. So if we think about some of the companies that they acquired in the earlier part of this decade. So I'm talking about companies like Podsites and Charitable Pods, megaphone. These are some of the companies that enabled them to move in on the podcast market right, and they have safely done that. Now this is where it starts to get interesting If we think about the companies they acquired and then what they did with them and what they turned them into.

Speaker 1: 3:06

They built a music system, they built a podcast platform and next, I believe we're going to see a huge move into the artist audiobook movement. So let me point out two acquisitions that they've made that point towards this. The first one is a company called Sonantic. Now, sonantic are a London-based startup that has built an AI engine to create a very realistic sounding, yet simulated kind of human voice from text, and this is something that we're seeing quite a lot of now in the audiobook market. So it might be that you have a range of different voices, different narrators of books, that can be kind of picked and choosed to be able to read out an audiobook from text. Now, let's park that there for a minute. And then let's also look at their acquisition of a company called Findaway, or Findaway Voices by Spotify, as they've now been labeled, so the caption of this company is be everywhere, earn everywhere, find a way. Voices by spotify is the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world's largest audiobook platforms.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Now, why am I telling you this? Well, let's combine that with this the potential growth of live audio. Now, live audio has been a growing trend in social media and live performances since the pandemic, let's say. But what we are about to potentially see is DSP integration. So an active DSP integration with a live audio trend, integration with a live audio trend. Now, let's combine those two things and all signs point towards two new platforms for artists and labels to communicate a message with fans. Now, on top of that, let me read a quote to you by Angela Lopez, vice President of Strategy and Development at Sony Music. This was in the Global Music Report just last year. It says we are seeing Generation Z want to embrace new ways of engaging with artists. There continues to be a greater shift towards the next generation platforms and we are seeing a rise in revenue streams from new categories.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Okay, now, audio products that are created by artists could enhance their relationship with their fan base in a new way. Now, you know, in an age where kind of narrative can be created quite comfortably through social media on a kind of short form level. There is also a distorted sense, perhaps, of what is real and what is not real. Now, in an age where authenticity is of paramount importance and arguably the biggest selling point for artists, artist audiobooks and the introduction of live audio into dsp integration could help artists to tell a story and make an account of an artist's truth far more accessible than perhaps social media can. Now, a lot of people talk about the age that we're in being something aligned with short attention spans and TikTok. It's also the same age where people sit and binge watch hours and hours worth of television. So it's not like our brains are going backwards and we can't kind of consume information over a longer period of time. We've not gone backwards in our evolution, have we? No, I don't think so. So instead, perhaps, if we are being piped longer messages by artists, it encourages the fan relationship between artists and their audiences.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Now let's go a little deeper into this. Let's look at one of the aspects of social media that a lot of artists use in this day and age, and that is BTS behind the scenes footage. It's an interesting short form piece of content that actually many fans are very, very interested in. Now that could be expanded on in the form of audiobooks. So imagine kind of artist life stories and the truth behind the songs, the inside story of an artist's outlook, their values, their hobbies, what got them into music, creative memoirs, etc. Etc. Imagine all of these narratives that forge a link between a new growth area in streaming platforms and very much the current goals of artists and labels. All those signs point towards artists opening up and talking about who they are and what they do and allowing that as a way to engage with fans.

Speaker 1: 7:44

Now, there's something kind of deeply personal right about an audiobook, both, you know, in its connection with the listener and also in its delivery by the author. So you know it's not a podcast series which, you know, requires like a you know, sort of weekly or bi-weekly commitment. You know it's a documentation of an era, right in the same way as a music product is, you know, requires like a you know, sort of weekly or bi-weekly commitment. You know it's a documentation of an era, right in the same way as a music product is, you know. So if it's narrated by an artist with a flair for kind of you know, storytelling, it will surely be quite gladly received by a fan base who crave that sincerity, that relationship with the artist. Now, clips of kind of, you know, stripped back versions of songs coupled with stories, would make for a very compelling sense of enjoyment for a lot of music fans, and that would reach fans in a way that perhaps artists can't quite do on stage or even in just their music or even just in social media. Now we have digital packages, right? Music's very visual now, isn't it? So we have digital packages that are released by artists, but perhaps one of the things that is missing in the current era of things is the liner notes that came with albums. That kind of had like an insight as to who played on what or how this song came about or what the song means to people. You know, maybe if there were an audio book which actually accompanies the release of an album, it would entice fans to engage with that album even more than they already had.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Okay, let's combine this with a little bit of kind of brand alignment. I'm going to read another quote here by Bob Workman, who's the Senior Vice President of International Brand Partnerships at Warner Music. This was a quote from 2023. He says our artists have a wide palette of interests, passions and skill sets. That's certainly within the field of brand partnerships, and there's a lot of opportunity. We're often engaged in an area of activity that might not be fundamentally about the music. So an effective way I'm back in my own words now to establish branding alignment could be the form of, you know, kind of spoken word brand endorsements that sit inside an artist's audiobook right, we're already witnessing this in the podcast market, so it could fit in the audiobook market in the same way, but for artists and their interests and that link between them and the fans. So the ability to pipe in kind of artist spoken ads mid book could potentially create, you know, a pretty decent income stream for artists and labels alike and a brand new way for both of those entities to make money that sits in audio content but sits outside of their musical product.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Now the audiobook concept also allows artists to explore their views in a greater depth than perhaps even in their songs, even those songs that are always going to be the medium that pulls us into an artist. But when an artist can actually elaborate on those songs, it allows for something new that we perhaps haven't really seen before. So perhaps it's specific values that an artist holds, or maybe views that can connect them with like-minded people in a way that sometimes can be, you know, kind of difficult to achieve just through the music. So the artist audiobook model could allow artists and fans to engage and share insights in a way that also benefits, you know, the corporate interests of the major labels. Now let's go back to what we just said before about technology acquisitions at Spotify, etc. All of these things that I'm saying here. They all fall in perfect alignment with the goals of the DSPs. Now let's just go back to the acquisition of Synantic. Now, this is a company that makes incredibly lifelike voice recreations. They've already used their technology in films.

Speaker 1: 11:32

Now, that technology, if that were to be applied to the artist audiobook movement, it perhaps might not work, because the goal there is the authenticity and that connectivity between the artist and their fans. However, if it had been used, how would we even know? Sometimes the questions are more interesting than the answers, but I'm just posing the questions right now just to get us thinking about this, because I think it is ahead of us. I think there is an opportunity here for independent artists to be able to move forward and create audio content that sits outside of their music or that sits with their music, to assist its growth. Just imagine that releasing an EP and releasing a book that explains how you did that EP Anyone can do that. Anyone has access to those tools to be able to make that happen. Now we could. Anyone has access to those tools to be able to make that happen. Now we could grow that further and expand it further and further and further, but it is an area that seems to please all of the parties involved with the release project.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Okay, anyway, I just wanted to share that wacky thought with you. It's something I've been thinking about for a little while and I wanted to share it with you, the community on here on the Music Business, buddy. Okay, so I will leave that thought with you, let it marinate in your mind and let me see what you think about it. Feel free to reach out to me at any point. There's just a little button that you can click close to where you are listening to this right now. That will get you directly in touch with me where you can give me feedback or suggestions on things that you want covered. Don't forget to rate the podcast and all that kind of stuff, but in the meantime, thank you for being here and may the force be with you. The Music Business Party. The Music Business Party.