How a single music discovery platform could change the world

With the right new process, this new music discovery can change the music business.

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A guest post by  David Sherbow of My Life With Music.

What if artists, musicians, indie labels, artist management companies, bloggers, playlisters, journalists, major streaming services and major music business sites like Amazon Music Tunecore, CD Baby, Reverbnation, Bandcamp, Sonicbids, Music X-Ray, Bandzoogle, Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube etc. were to consolidate their support and efforts into one music discovery platform on the Internet that has global reach. 

In so doing, they could foster the development of a far more promotable community than the one that exists now, create greater exposure for any artist in that community, allow them to have better control over the financial fate of their music and filter out the next generation of mainstream major artists and their mega hit songs. 

Major labels are benefiting substantially from streaming revenues resulting from their massive catalogues that have enabled them to come back from the dead and prosper at pre-2000 levels. In reality, they are doing very little to advance the state of the industry. Streaming data and YouTube, Instagram and TikTok plays enable labels to cherry pick songs and promote and monetize artists who have created their own bases.

Whatever entity takes over this wide-open music discovery space, will potentially be able to control 50-80% of the better new music produced around the globe for free or for minimal expense.  It would be decidedly better than what exists now because with only one major destination to go to, people could influence others, be influenced themselves and make serious decisions about music and the artists they really like.  At this destination, music filtered into a playlist by the platform’s quality control system would be programmed with continuity and repetition.  More importantly, the cost effectiveness and efficiency of a new music discovery platform could be scaled down and become more manageable for those individuals and entities most concerned. Once again, star making machinery would be in place.

Serious artists are desperate for a seamless, user friendly platform that provides them with a process and a real chance to effectively generate substantial exposure and significant financial reward.  If everybody competed in the same space like they used to in the past and had the same promotional tools at their disposal as everyone else to get noticed immediately, then with or without record companies, great artists and great songs will be discovered by the mainstream music listening public.

Artificial Intelligence and its decision-making algorithms, which some believe will revolutionize music composition, can only go so far without integrating human creativity into the hit music making process.  Imagine, for example, if a big brand like Amazon were to joint venture with companies like Nike, Coca Cola, Pepsi/Gatorade and any big streaming service, in a music discovery and artist booking platform. It would have instant, massive public exposure and could easily start with up to five genres: Pop/Rhythmic/EDM, Urban/Hip-Hop, Rock/Singer-Songwriters, Country, and perhaps Latin.

Musicians would see the immediacy of their opportunity to be discovered and would be willing to pay a reasonable fee to submit their music to the music discovery platform just as they do now to Sonicbids and Reverbnation to get festival and SXSW slots or to Music X-Ray to get their music heard by label A&R or artist management staff.

Given the multiple choices and distractions that affect the average music fan, daily, there must be something more involved to engage these people into making decisions about new music. Spending money, and lots of it, on these people that you absolutely need to make new music and artists happen, is also a must.  Ask yourself, what’s in it for the average music fan to leave their usual music streaming or current discovery site of choice and go to another place to discover new mainstream music.  The answer is nothing.  My twenty years in the bigtime record promotion and marketing business (see www.linkedin.com/in/davidsherbow)  tells me that whoever or whatever gives these average fans major incentives for them to participate in a systematic discovery process will dominate the competition. 

One of the biggest problems facing the music business today is the discovery of new artists. Most people who look at the business today realize that most of the music signed and put out by labels today sounds much the same and has little depth. Mark Mulligan, a leading music business analyst, wrote a defining piece a while back that explains this problem in detail.  

Pop Music Eats Itself: A&R Is Facing A Data Driven Crisis [Mark Mulligan] 

From 1974 to 2010 my life took me to virtually every aspect of the music business. FYI, I was the first Head of Urban Promotion at Asylum Records in 2004. My urban independent promotion company, Whitewall Records, Inc. broke over 100 No. 1 records between 1995-2010. See my Linkedin profile and attached resume therein for the total picture.

About 13 years ago I built a music discovery site called MPTrax.com and a booking site called Live Music Machine. Between them, the sites cost hundreds of thousands to build and both were not successful mostly due to timing, lack of additional funds, not having a major partner and less than perfect execution.  I was close to a deal with Myspace and Reverbnation but neither materialized. 

I believe that reintegrating both sites back into a single updated, technologically advanced platform, I call Zudah.com for now subject to a future change, can change the way music business will be done in the future and allow whatever entity or entities that own it to prosper significantly. Below are brief descriptions of the sites I built and links to short videos that explain in detail how they worked back in 2007-2009.

MPTrax.com was a music discovery e-business platform. Viewed in the context of it having been designed, built and launched 13 years ago, one can understand how far ahead of its time it was. The following video link explains everything the site did in its original configuration   http://vimeo.com/29693578.

Integrating a similar but substantially updated 2022 version of my music discovery platform, Zudah.com, will seriously increase credibility with artists who no longer see a recording contract as the necessary end game. If done correctly, Zudah will become the go to place for artists to find a true and viable path for exposure and financial success. It will help to diffuse the current homogenous state of new music today and define a much better culture for discovering new music and future mainstream artists. Not to mention, Zudah, and its joint venture partner, if it has one, would own the music discovery platform along with a major corporate sponsor, like an Amazon, Google, Apple, etc.  Together they will be able to control a large portion of the best new music developed in the future by yet to be recognized artists as well as profit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Live Music Machine

When MPTrax didn’t take off, I extracted the booking app and improved it. Any artist could put the LMM calendar anywhere on the Internet and be booked by anyone at any time.  The app also had a “Book Me” button that could be put on an artist’s YouTube video, so they could be booked. The following short video explains how Live Music Machine worked in its original configuration. https://vimeo.com/6062251.

A comprehensive, seamless artist booking platform is an absolute necessity for today’s artists to become more successful. Such a platform will change the way music business is done in the future especially when integrated as a part of the updated Zudah music discovery platform. Whomever figures out a new and better path to music discovery will control the music business of the future. It’s inevitable that Spotify, Deezer, SoundCloud, YouTube and Amazon Music will eventually develop their own labels or figure out a way to own new content on their platforms. I need to get ahead of this and develop a broad-based music discovery platform with a major corporate partner and a broad focus on creating a true funnel for the discovery of major new mainstream artists.