Generator Research has an alarming study for Pandora, Spotify, and other music streaming services: at their current business model, they are doomed to be unprofitable. The Generator report offers information on the top thirteen music streaming services, and one gloomy outlook. Meanwhile, last week saw the launch of yet another social streaming app (musx), and a potential partnership between Steam and Spotify. Also, Pandora is trying to take fate into its own hands by taking music publishers to court over a century-old royalty agreement. While Generator’s study found that the biggest suck on resources were the royalties that subscription streaming services had to pay to publishers, rulings against music publishing giants could upset the entire industry.
Our official response:
Colbert don’t care
Our weekly nerdout is a little bit more metal than usual because Slash is holding a hackathon at SXSW music festival! An 80s hair metal icon holding a hackathon makes them cool, right? Like, not just nerdy cool but cool kid cool? Right? Okay, we might be reaching a little. But we do love our hackathons, and we just wish other people loved them too.
Speaking of love, how deep doth our love flow for music? Well, we love music a whole bunch, but the “our” in that sentence actually refers to humanity. The National Geographic notes that every human civilization has engaged in a form of musical development, but a sense of rhythm doesn’t just start at humans…
…and doesn’t stop in just this reality. Video game creator Harmonix (of Guitar Hero fame) is creating a first person shooter. Based around music. Chroma, a collaboration with Hidden Path Entertainment, will allow players to use their musical prowess to jump higher, reload faster, and generally have all the advantages that are imbued to musicians in real life.
Finally this week, Slate has printed the words of one of NYU Music Tech’s own. Grad student Ethan Hein took on the issue of pop music pedagogy vs. more traditional techniques in response to a Quora question. Is he right? Shoot us an email or let us know in the comments!
Got a tip? Send us a message at scienceofmusicnyu@gmail.com , or Tweet to @NYUSciOfMusic, or post it to our Facebook page.
NYU Science Of Music 