2007 Pop Conference Bios/AbstractsTim QuirkTim Quirk is the Vice President of Music Content and Programming for RealNetworks, where he oversees the team that secures, ingests, publishes and promotes music content across all of Real''s music properties, including Rhapsody, Real''s online music subscription service. Prior to this role, Tim spent more than 10 years as the singer and lyricist for the punk-pop band Too Much Joy, then politely eased his way into music journalism. Tim is also one half of an electro-pop outfit called Wonderlick.
Panel(s):Pazz & Jop Live!Saturday, April 21, 2007, 9:00 - 10:45
Moderator:IconographyFriday, April 20, 2007, 2:15 - 4:00
Abstract:"
Good News for Yo La Tengo: In The Future, Everyone Will Be A Music Geek"
For more than half a century, the music business has relied upon two types of charts: airplay charts, which track the most popular songs being broadcast to people, and sales charts, which track the songs those people are then willing to part with hard-earned cash to own. Rising to the tops of these charts and lingering there as long as one can manage has generally been considered the best measure of a musician''s commercial success.
But not for long.
The 21st century has brought a new type of chart: usage charts from services such as Last.fm and Rhapsody make it possible to track exactly what songs people actually listen to over and over again, after (or instead of) buying new records. Moreover, those services and others like them are giving listeners cheap and easy access to an unprecedented amount of music.
So what happens when all it costs you to listen to something new is your time? How do listening patterns change? And if record companies get paid not just once, when you buy a disc, but every single time you hit the play button, how will they pivot to take advantage of such behavior? What might all of this mean for the type of music that gets played the most, and therefore made the most, in the future?
This paper will posit some answers, which it will bolster with numerous graphs and statistics based on five years'' worth of listening history in the Rhapsody subscription service.
It is basically very good news for Yo La Tengo.
