Five things we learned at FastForward London

Nearly two hundred people from across the worldwide music business gathered at the inaugural London edition of industry conference FastForward last Friday. We had a front row seat to listen in on discussions covering broadcast, data in music, streaming playlists and the future of the business. The Music Network is very excited to be a media partner for the forward-thinking, focused conference, and we’ll also be covering their event in Amsterdam next year.

Read on for the top five things we discovered at the conference last week, and keep your eye out for the follow up in February. 

1. Radio has a future – just not as we know it

Who still thinks the arrival of streaming services, podcasts and smartphones will render radio obsolete? While there’s no doubt that broadcast fans now have a wealth of other places to find music, entertainment and news, those working in the music industry still see radio as a key component in the marketing plan for a music release as radio stations make efforts to adapt to the digital age. 

While stations previously had a six-week window to play tracks pre-release, now singles get serviced at radio at the same time as arriving on streaming services. So radio is now all about “creating events and communal moments around music,” said Sean Adams of BBC Radio’s 6 Music. That could include playing new albums in full, hosting festivals and gigs and interviewing artists ahead of the release of new music.

“We don’t just look at radio play, it’s about multi marketing touch points across the whole channel,” added Dusko Justic, who is VP of International Marketing at Sony Music.

What happens outside of the broadcaster’s platform is equally as important as what happens within it, especially when it comes to visual content, according to Head of Creative at 7digital Kellie While. “That’s not necessarily a webcam pointing at a radio show, some of the most engaging posts are 30 second clips of producers and guests. It’s about radio networks being able to get their brands out everywhere else, and then driving traffic back.”

2. Streaming stats can be deceiving

Pitching for a spot on one of Spotify’s popular playlists is part of most new music release plans, but those opportunities can’t break artists alone. While a track sitting high on New Music Friday will inevitably enjoy high streaming numbers thanks to visibility, streams don’t necessarily create a loyal fanbase.

“Data can be quite deceptive,” said Siofra McComb, who works at German-born indie label !K7 Records. “We had an artist streaming into the millions because one of his tracks was being used in a video about motorcycles. However, while people were watching the video, it wasn’t leading to any engagement with the artist.”

Samantha Mandel-Dallal at Spotify said that the streaming service is trying to reach a better level of understanding about how to break artists by using data to see how tracks in playlists perform, like seeing if listeners are skipping or saving, and comparing that to what’s happening outside of the platform.

“If you’re on a big playlist, people might be finding you by accident which is why we want to compare that discovery to what’s going on elsewhere,” she explained. “Once we have all of that, we can try and help push artists to the next level.”

3. The album isn’t dead

With all this talk of singles, streams and playlists, where does the album fit in? Well, it’s not dead, according to Mandel-Dallal and FastForward Founder and CEO of Media Insight Consulting, Chris Carey.

High level of consumption across a select number of tracks within an album is probably something that’s been happening for many years, if not always, Mandel-Dallal pointed out. “But because we only had data for a one off album purchase, we didn’t actually understand which of those tracks people were listening to. I think that level of understanding will hopefully enable more creativity and more ways to innovate on the album concept, because we can feed the information back to artists and artists can feed that into their creative process.”

“The album still has a massive role to play,” Carey added. “Even if all it achieves is that once you’re hooked in by the single, the often four of 12 tracks from an album that get played on a streaming service that pays out based on number of plays and sharable attention, still have value.”

“So we suddenly have people that have never paid for music before paying £10 a month for access to music via streaming services. They are doing it for convenience’s sake, like valet parking.” – Merck Mercuriadis

4. So what defines success?

In a multi-faceted world of sales, streams, views, likes and followers, what defines success when launching a new artist?

In the UK, major labels have historically used 100k sales of a debut album to classify it ‘broken’ – but with straightforward sales dwindling, a new barometer must exist. Still, first week sales do count, said McComb, who added that high chart positions can result in strategic promotional positions in online and physical stores.

“That garners further sales because there are some people that want to see what is popular,” she explained. “You get more media attention as well if you’re in the charts, so even in the digital age, that still really matters.”

However, for acts like Run The Jewels, paid album sales are not representative of the whole story because they give their releases away for free. “For them, success isn’t defined by how much album sales or streams they’ve got, it’s more about what kind of connection they’ve got with their fans and what stages they are on at festivals.”

5. The best days of the music industry are yet to come

So after over a decade of turmoil, what’s next for the global music industry? Keynote interviewee Merck Mercuriadis has lived through the best and worst days of the business across a 30-year career. He previously led former indie label Sanctuary as CEO, and has worked with acts including Elton John, Iron Maiden, Guns N’ Roses, Beyoncé, Morrissey and Diane Warren. Songwriting and publishing is where he’s next hedging his bets in what he envisions to be the greatest days the music business has ever seen.

“We’ve had fifteen years of tech disruption in the music business that allowed people to be able to consume music for free. As a result of that, songs are available at attractive prices,” he told the audience at FastForward. “At the same time, we have streaming which has made it much more convenient for people to consume music legally and the income coming in to our business is the strongest it’s been in many years.”

“I’m incredibly envious of someone who is 21 years old and wants to be in the music business because I think they will see the greatest days we have ever seen,” he continued. “That’s thanks to streaming making it possible for people to consume music legally, which is, for the first time ever, bringing the passive consumer into the economic model of music. So we suddenly have people that have never paid for music before paying £10 a month for access to music via streaming services. They are doing it for convenience’s sake, like valet parking.”

Mercuriadis aims to capitalise on that with his own firm, Hipgnosis Songs, which is set up to buy publishing catalogues – the value of which he expects to increase dramatically over the next seven years. You heard it here first!