Why do trash songs trend on Youtube?
Economics behind the art in Indian Music streaming industry
Almost everyone seems to be having problem with the music and songs that are being composed nowadays. But why are they doing so? Have the composers lost their taste in music? Why are we served songs with as meaningless lyrics as Po-Po-Po Po-Po-Po. Why is it that people still reminisce songs produced in 70s-80s than the present day songs despite having access to better sound recording systems. The main reason behind this disappointing listener experience is the way in which songs and songwriters are incentived. The bland lyrics and dramatic beats are just the outcome of this same faulty incentive structure. The songwriters operate under multiple constraints incorporated in the very design of this structure while writing these pieces of “art”. In order to comply with these constraints, the artists many a times have to sacrifice their artistic fredom.
How Present day songs differ from Yesteryear’s songs:
- Present day songs are 2.5–3 minutes long in comparison to 7–8 minute songs of the past.
- The role of instrumentals in setting up a song before the lyrics start has been reducing.
- Many present day songs have lyrics that don’t make any sense and are used just for the sake of creating a rhyme.
- Catchy part of the lyrics are used repeatedly till it gets annoying.
The key metric that determines how successful a song is its virality. Every day, more than 60,000 tracks get uploaded to Spotify and it is not easy to make a song stand out in such an ever-expanding library. Combine it with listener’s short attention span and the job sounds next to impossible. Furthermore, the recommendation engines are designed in a way that if a track fails to get initial traction, its reach gets further reduced.
So, is there any secret recipe that song-writers follow to increase their chances of hitting the jackpot? It seems, they have figured it out. Let’s further delve into it in the next section.
How Art gets influenced by Economics:
Spotify considers a song as being “played” only if it is streamed for a minimum of 30 seconds.
As shown in the image above, a song can be divided into three parts. Lets discuss each of these parts in detail:
- Instrumentals (starter): This part is used as a prop to setup a song. It is getting shorter to serve the listener with the catchiest part as soon as possible. In the earlier days, there had been many songs that had instrumentals as long as 1.5–2 minutes which has been reduced to first 10–15 seconds. Although not every track follow the same rule. For example, Camila Cabello’s Havana is a 6 min 43 seconds song where the instrumentals and set-up does not end till you reach the first 2 min 30 seconds.
- Catchiest part (maincouse): It is accompanied by high energy beats and vocals. This is the part that the song-writers use to create a buzz in users head. Same lyrics are used repeatedly to increase the recall value of the song so that users stay engaged. All possible attempts are made to ensure the catchiest part does not end before the 30 seconds mark.
- Non-monetizable part (dessert shots): Music streaming apps consider a song has been played only if it gets streamed for a minimum of 30 seconds. Post 30 second part does not add any value for the creator and hence this part is getting shorter. This is the reason we see songs with an average length of 2.5–3 minutes nowadays than 7–8 minute songs that were the norm in yesteryears.
Spotify: Experimenting with all spices to cook an Indian curry
Gaana and JioSavn together accounts for more than 50% of the Indian music streaming market share. A big reason for Gaana’s success is its early focus on the fast-growing podcast streaming when . It collaborated with popular indian artists such as Zakir Khan, Jackie Shroff and others when others were sceptical of its success. Saavn decided to take a head-on by joining hands with cash-rich Jio. It helped the company to increase its reach by coming up with offers such as free 1 month JioSaavn subscription along with Jio mobile recharge plan.
Globally, Spotify is leading with 31% share in the worldwide music streaming industry. Although its performance hasn’t been as impressive in India. A big reason was its late entry to the country in 2019. By that time, the local players had already built their fiefdoms offering podcasts and regional content. Spotify experimented with 15 different options in order to figure out the right Product market fit. India is the only country where it has tried as much options. It includes Daily, weekly, monthly, annual plans, freemium version, mobile only version etc. As a result of all these efforts, it has been able to capture 15% of the market in 3 years but the market still seems to be dominated by local players.
Secret sauce: Join hands with powerful Telcos
Almost all the major Indian telcos have partnered with music streaming apps offering bundled free subscription along with their regular plans. Airtel joined hands with Wynk, Jio partnered with JioSaavn while Vodafone collaborated with Hungama music. The core idea supporting these partnerships is based on “I scratch your back you scratch mine”. Let’s look at how the two gets benefitted as a result.
Most of the Indian telcos such are already struggling with low Average Revenue per user (ARPU) owing to intense competition that started with Jio’s arrival. Offering a free Saavn subscription with a Rs 500 Jio plan (or any other Telco) incentivizes the user to shift from his intended purchase of Rs 450 plan resulting into an upsell. Secondly, as users generally save their custom playlist in Saavn (or any other music streaming app that they use), it creates a stickiness incentivizing them not to shift their loyalty to Gaana or Spotify. As a result, they renew their existing Rs 500 Jio plan. It helps in improving the retention metric for Jio, solving the industry-wide problem of customers repeatedly porting their services to other telcos. Music Streaming apps also benefit from this collaboration as it provides them access to millions of new users through these bundled offerings. It further reduces their Cost of customer acquisition.
A revised incentive structure is the right way to go in order to revive the melody in songs. So the next time we see a Honey Singh or Badshah song trending on top in YouTube, we know what it takes to get there.
