Surviving the pandemic has proven exceptionally difficult for the music industry. For most musicians, it meant their live performances were put on hold, and their earnings from sponsorships dwindled.
However, musicians are also a highly creative and resilient bunch that quickly found ways to support themselves. Virtual concerts, starting their own record labels, home recordings, streaming platforms, and modified venues are some of the ways they found to keep that music coming out and their fans happy.
Turning to streaming platforms
Streaming platforms grew extremely popular during the last year, both with indie producers and popular artists. Apps, like Spotify and Apple Music, saw huge increases in their paid subscribers.
TikTok sensation, Noam Sela is one example of a person who took the opportunity to reignite his passion for imitations and music during this past year. He recently said: “I had abandoned music over the last 20 years, throwing my efforts into growing my business and family. The pandemic shut down at least 80% of my business; I suddenly found myself with a whole lot of time on hand, and all this creativity bursting out of me.”
“My daughter introduced me to TikTok, and I decided to open an account. This was an opportunity to start playing music once again. I knew it was an immensely difficult period for musicians, but I looked at what others in the field were doing, and realized that I could follow their example.”
Independent record labels and home recordings
Stay at home restrictions didn’t stop the likes of John Legend and Ariana Grande from releasing new albums. Other artists started their own music labels at home, moving away from the traditional way of producing music.
Noam Sela chose to work with the Israeli music producer Idan Belinsky. Since the beginning of 2021, they have already released two singles, “Make It Rain” and “Win It All”. In “Win it All”, Dean Miroshnikov, the celebrated Israeli actor, stars in the video clip. Sela promises new releases with some equally exciting partnerships soon.
Presenting music to the public
Noam Sela understands the need for singers and their fans to attend live concerts. In the past, before entering the world of business, he was part of a successful band with songs featured on the radio and touring around the country.
With virtual concerts, artists quickly found a way to find a way to connect with even more audiences than ever before. This tactic has made music more accessible to even more people, and fundraising events also proved to have a greater reach. Noam mentions the example of the concert held on Instagram by DJ David Guetta last year.
Live concerts will once again become reality, hopefully soon, but for now, modified concert venues are all the rage. Venues are trying new ways of modifying the way to present artists. This all started with a social experiment in Amsterdam in March this year to measure the risk of infections and was followed by other countries. Results showed that those testing positive after these events were far fewer than half the rate of similar age groups in their cities.
Other event organizers are using modified venues that follow the distancing protocols. These concerts are more expensive to attend because far fewer people are allowed into venues. A recent example is a concert held by English singer/songwriter, Sam Fender.
About 3,000 people attended a venue that usually takes 30,000. Food and drinks were pre-ordered to avoid queues, and people were separated in enclosures of families or friends. Some enjoyed it immensely, while others said they missed moshing in the pit.
The music industry has proven it can do more than just survive, but can even thrive under difficult circumstances. The creators of melodies keep us going through good and bad times, and we love it when they keep creating tunes that we love. Audiences have also proven they love to explore the talents of new artists. This has raised the demand for indie labels, video apps, and music applications.
These music streaming services and video-sharing social networking platforms give new artists a stage from which they can share their work. Noam Sela puts it nicely: “Anyone can succeed on Spotify because no one can see your age or how good looking you are. My dream is to make it on their playlists.”
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