Image via Complex Original
Ever since Napster came along, the music industry has been struggling to stay on top of developing trends in technology surrounding music. While album sales are plummeting, it’s clear that music is as necessary to life as air or water (or why else would everyone expect it for free?). In the past few years we’ve seen a million copies of a record purchased off a rapper by a cell phone company (no hate, we see you Jay), and we’ve seen that same rapper turn around and purchase a $100-apiece mixtape off a SoCal rapper who simply felt that’s what his art was worth. Some artists don’t even bother charging for their work at all anymore, instead choosing to tour extensively and rely on high margin tangible items that people still want (we’re referring to tour merch, guys, you know, T-shirts).
And so we constantly find ourselves in a whole new world; when everything changed back in the late 1990s, a whole generation suddenly thought of music as a free commodity, and the flux in coping with that new ideology has left us with a very malleable industry. You may have heard about the "collapse of the record industry," but music will never die, and so the music industry will never die either. But in its ever-evolving state, strategies have arisen to get the right music to the right people. In doing so, the industry has created jobs that have never before existed.
Playlist Maker
Ever wonder who chooses the song that comes next on your music streaming service? Believe it or not, somewhere in a cubicle there’s someone choosing the fate of your next song (if you choose to accept it). Whether you like it or not is a different story, but at least it’s a real live person. Reaching beyond the typical algorithms, like the ones Pandora uses, plenty of streaming music companies are hiring experts to concoct playlists that mix your favorites in with something new that you may actually relate to. At Beats, they even bothered to consult titans like Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor, M.I.A., and even Pharrell to oversee and tweak things like playlist development.
Social Media Manager
Yeezy may not have an official Instagram account, and Jay may not tweet all but twice a year, but you better believe that most of your favorite popular musicians have a whole squad overseeing their day-to-day affairs, from their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, to their own personal websites. Did you really think they were handling all that? The fact is, for many of the bigger stars, there’s a strategy at work beyond the fact that the artist himself is too busy, and sometimes not even interested in this facet of today’s industry. If you had an audience in the millions, would you want to give them new music or monitor the viewing trends on Vine? How about developing and then sticking to a hashtag campaign? Nah? That’s where your social media manager comes in. While you may have a clever tweet to let off a couple times a week, someone is pouring coffee at 6 a.m. while figuring out the best way to describe Young Thug’s latest sartorial decision. Actually, in that case, maybe no one is paying attention at all.
In-House Content Team
The question is of course; what are you going to put on all this social media you have set up? Where is all the content coming from? There’s a job for that too! That’s your in-house content team. As much as you’d like to imagine that somewhere right now Tyler, The Creator is drawing a pink donut in Microsoft Paint (and come to think of it, he might be), the odds are he’s making music, touring, or taking an ungodly meeting. Thankfully, there’s a dude on his in-house content team, who is drawing the pink donut to be splayed across social media, and a limited edition Hawaiian shirt. Seriously. That’s happening right at this moment. (OK, maybe not that specifically.) The content team works in congress with the social media manager to keep the fans fed, as it were, cooking up stories when the independent press might not be.
Digital Media Sales on Streaming Services
While many artists are still hung up on old-world statistics like album sales, there’s a new metric of popularity forming. You may have noticed it yourself, when cruising through Spotify, but it’s apparent on more universal players like YouTube as well—we’re talking about plays and subscriptions. Your job in digital media sales is to sell your given medium as the solution, which hasn’t been the hardest gig for those at the most prominent mobile music apps, though its efficacy for the artist is debatable. That being said, the biggest artist play-counts on major music apps have become increasingly large portions of their revenue, along with more traditional ways of making back their money, like touring. As mentioned, this streaming method is working out for bigger artists, but you’ll still see holes in streaming services when you begin to look for more niche artists. This is beginning to change, but don’t be surprised if you hear of a new occupation to fill that need in music by this time next year.