Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The digital revolution has rocked the music business for more than a decade, changing the way we buy, play and discover new music.
But it turns out digital technology is leaving an even deeper impression. Increasingly, the data that is created by all of this music streaming, buying and sharing is influencing the music that is being created.
It’s all the subject of an article in this month’s issue of “The Atlantic.” And as part of the “NewsHour's” partnership with them, we took a closer look.
I traveled to New York City, which, as loud as ever, is still an important center of the music business.
Drummer Zach Danziger of the band Mister Barrington has played for some of the greatest names of pop, including U2 and Mariah Carey. He now finds, like many consumers, there is almost too much choice in music.
ZACH DANZIGER, Professional Drummer: The sheer mass of choices make it hard to actually sometimes dig in and get behind, like, a particular artist, because you’re, like, oh, I like that, but I want to hear these other 50.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Writer Derek Thompson spent the last six months researching the big data behind the music.
So the title of this piece you have written is “The Shazam Effect.” What does that mean?
DEREK THOMPSON, The Atlantic: Shazam is this magical app that allows people to identify just about any song in the world, up to 30 million songs.
What you do, essentially, you hear a song in a bar, in a restaurant, or on your television, and you pick up your smartphone and you press a button, and within seconds, the phone has identified the piece of music.
JUDY WOODRUFF: More than 12 years old, this app is ancient in digital terms, predating the smartphone, streaming services and most of online social media. Shazam was somewhat of an accidental pioneer.
WOMAN: Shazam.
DEREK THOMPSON: So this tool that we use just to discover new music has become a tool that the music industry uses to shape the future pop music. And so that is the Shazam effect.
No comments:
Post a Comment