Photo Courtesy of Vishnu Nair via Unsplash
The music industry has faced a number of challenges due to the pandemic, and some of these may have long term effects. 2020’s catastrophic events have led to live streaming concerts online, promoting music on TikTok and an increase in music streaming services. It’s safe to say that the world of music may be a little different this year as well.
One opportunity the pandemic has provided for the music industry is more artist collaborations. Although social distancing and travel restrictions are still in place, artists can create music at home. This allows them to work with others without having to physically meet up with people. As a result, songwriters from opposite sides of the world can even work with each other. This idea has been around long before the pandemic, but is becoming more popular and useful now.
Another prediction for 2021 is that many people will continue to use and pay for music streaming services. In September 2020, over 400 million people were paying for subscriptions for streamed music, which was almost 100 million more than that in 2019. Services like YouTube, Vevo and Spotify have seen great numbers in revenue the past year and may continue to prosper this year too.
While TikTok is blowing up itself, it also blows up music as well. Since many videos on TikTok include songs, it becomes a great place for people to discover new music. With just a couple seconds of a song put into a video, it can go viral. Many artists find this to be a good way to promote their music, since even the smallest, unknown artists can be discovered on TikTok. In fact, many users on this app have tried starting their own musical career in hopes that their audience can make themselves and their music famous overnight.
A downside of last year was that concerts were cancelled or postponed, and it appears that many of this year’s concerts cannot be held either. Instead, live events were forced to go virtual. For instance, artists like Dua Lipa, Lewis Capaldi and BTS have provided their fans with amazing online performances. With virtual events and concerts, people from all over the world can watch a show, which may change this form of entertainment forever. Before, artists had to travel all over the world, holding multiple shows for different locations. Now, they can reach their fans anywhere through an online show. This may lead to more virtual concerts and less in-person events in the future.
However, not everyone likes the idea of having online concerts. For some artists, organizing a live event may be too costly. As for the fans, some find that online shows do not replace the real concert experience. In-person performances do have their advantages, but they may not be the safest just yet.
However, some artists do have in-person concerts and tours planned for this year. For example, 5 Seconds of Summer postponed their No Shame tour to early April, JoJo Siwa’s D.R.E.A.M. concerts were rescheduled for June 2021 and Celine Dion’s performances for her Courage World Tour were pushed back to March of this year.
The pandemic has sprouted lots of new opportunities and changed many aspects of the music industry that will continue in 2021. Nobody knows exactly what this year has in store for us, but some things in the field of music may never be the same again.