{"id":803701,"date":"2020-01-31T13:08:53","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T20:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=946192"},"modified":"2020-01-31T13:08:53","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T20:08:53","slug":"why-people-should-take-neil-youngs-subscription-success-more-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/why-people-should-take-neil-youngs-subscription-success-more-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Why People Should Take Neil Young\u2019s Subscription Success More Seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cIt\u2019s 2015, we\u2019re making music to the highest level; it sounds more amazing than ever before, in my opinion. And [yet] we\u2019re listening to it on this platform where it\u2019s compressed. I try to make music to the highest quality, and that\u2019s why this stood out. You tell people what they\u2019re getting, and they\u2019re going to hear the difference.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The story of Tidal<\/a> could \u2014 and maybe should<\/em> \u2014 have been very different. These were the words of superstar DJ\/producer Calvin Harris, introducing the full-length launch trailer for the Jay-Z-founded, artist-owned streaming platform<\/span> in March 2015<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Tidal, Harris\u2019 clarion message \u2014 that of higher-quality audio, for higher-quality music fans \u2014 soon became muddled by others central to the same campaign. A chorus of superstars began echoing a different narrative: that Tidal could help them wrest back control from the likes of Spotify. \u201cThey\u2019re the carrier \u2014 we\u2019re the artists,\u201d grumbled Madonna. \u201cSomehow things shifted; we went into the background and [now we] have to come forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, Tidal\u2019s elevator pitch was hijacked by multi-millionaires playing the poor-me card. Inevitably, they got ridiculed.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tidal has since wisely returned to a simple message of audio quality, billing itself as the home of \u201cHigh Fidelity Music Streaming<\/a>.\u201d So it\u2019s worth remembering that Neil Young<\/a> actually beat Tidal, not to mention Calvin Harris, to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following a crowdfunding campaign that<\/span> raised over $10 million<\/span><\/a>, Young\u2019s Pono music download platform (offering hi-res, 24-bit audio) and its complementary music hardware, PonoPlayer, launched in January 2015, two months before Tidal arrived (via a menagerie of megastars, from Kanye to Beyonc\u00e9 and Jason Aldean, publicly signing a laughably<\/span> po-faced \u201cDeclaration\u201d<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

PonoMusic was not a success. By summer 2015,<\/span> reports suggested<\/span><\/a> the venture was running out of money; at one point, Young even<\/span> asked a pre-presidential Donald Trump<\/span><\/a> for financial help. Pono effectively shut down in 2016, out of cash and getting it in the neck from critics. ArsTechnica called the $400 PonoPlayer:<\/span> \u201cA tall, refreshing drink of snake oil.\u201d<\/span><\/a> The Washington Post<\/span><\/em> one-upped that for cruelty<\/span><\/a>, asking: \u201cHas Neil Young finally managed to make something worse than <\/span>Trans<\/span><\/i>?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With half a decade in the rearview mirror since Pono\u2019s arrival, however, there may be another, more valuable take on its creator to consider. <\/span><\/p>\n

Neil Young\u2019s insistence that hardcore music fans would be willing to pay extra for a high-definition digital music experience looks less outmoded in 2020 than it did in 2015, now that Amazon has put an HD-quality up-sell at the center of its multi-tiered<\/span> music streaming offering<\/span><\/a>. Particularly so because Amazon Music, according to Midia Research, now<\/span> looks set to overtake Apple Music in global subscriber volume terms<\/span><\/a> this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Squaring the circle, Neil Young was quoted in an Amazon press release last year announcing the arrival of its HD music tier. The legendary Canadian songwriter noted \u2014 with just a wisp of hyperbole \u2014 that, via Amazon\u2019s hi-res music introduction,<\/span> \u201cEarth will be changed forever.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Titter all you want; it\u2019s no wonder Young was beating his chest. His long-held belief in HD music had just been vindicated by one of the biggest (some would say rapaciously expansive) companies on the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Allow me, then, to lead you toward an alternate retrospective tale; one which vanquishes any suggestion of Neil Young as a myopic fuddy-duddy, scrabbling to deal with the realities of the Spotify age \u2014 and instead views him as someone provably ahead of the curve of music-technological trends (albeit not always with the most rip-roaring tech at his disposal).<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s through this lens that I\u2019d now like you to consider Young\u2019s own online subscription service \u2014 the<\/span> Neil Young Archives<\/span><\/a>. This portal not only allows his own super-fans access to his complete catalog<\/a> of music (in a hi-res format, naturally), but also to view digitized relics from his career, including exclusive videos \u2014 and even live streams of his modern tours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Access to Young\u2019s Archive sets you back a mere $1.99 a month and,<\/span> according to Wired<\/em><\/span><\/a>, had already attracted 25,000 subscribers by the end of October last year, with a goal of 40,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some startling math: Those 25,000 Neil Young super-fans are paying him<\/span> a total of $600,000 per year for the privilege of a premium, direct-from-the-artist experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of these subscribers might devour every piece of content Young posts within his online receptacle; others might like the idea of \u2018tipping\u2019 their favourite superstar a relatively teeny bit of their paycheck each month; some might simply enjoy the feeling of being part of a club.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever their reasons for signing up, that $600,000 \u2014 per year, remember \u2014 is roughly equivalent (going off a<\/span> reported $0.0037 blended per-stream average<\/span><\/a>) to the payment an artist could expect from 162 million streams on Spotify. Neil Young\u2019s biggest all-time track on Spotify is <\/span>Heart of Gold<\/span><\/i>\u2026 with 132 million <\/span>lifetime<\/span> streams.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, to the future. I recently wrote about<\/span> multi-industry subscription experts<\/span><\/a> who believe the music streaming business must now innovate on Spotify\u2019s one-size-fits-all, 50 million-tracks-for-everyone model, if it\u2019s to achieve optimum revenues in the future. One oft-suggested way to achieve this is via <\/span>segmentation<\/span><\/i> which, judging by numerous chats with influential industry types in Grammy Week earlier this month, is in serious contention to become <\/span>the<\/span> music biz buzzword of 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are various schools of thought on what segmentation should look like \u2014 whether it should be focused on genre, or classic catalogs (think Blue Note, Motown, etc.), or individual artists. But broadly speaking, the idea is always the same: give super-fans of a certain strand of music history the opportunity to \u201cdeep dive\u201d beyond the standard streaming experience their $9.99-a-month is currently delivering, for an additional \u201ctop up\u201d fee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neil Young, it appears, is once again ahead of the game here. According to SimilarWeb, NeilYoungArchives.com <\/span>received fewer than 60,000 \u201cvisits\u201d in December<\/span><\/a> \u2014 many of them likely duplicates from the same fans \u2014 despite boasting those 25,000 subscribers. Now <\/span>that\u2019s<\/span><\/i> a committed audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over on Spotify, Neil Young has over 5 million monthly listeners and over 1.6 million followers (i.e. people who have clicked a button to make sure they stay up-to-date with all Young-related activity on the service). How many of these fans might be willing to pay a couple of bucks more on their monthly Spotify bill to unlock access to Young\u2019s archive \u2014 via the service they have already chosen for music consumption?<\/span><\/p>\n

Granted, not the same percentage of those who actively visit NeilYoungArchives.com. But if just 1% of Young\u2019s 5 million monthly Spotify listeners could be upsold to pay $2 extra each month, it would generate another $1.2 million annually \u2014 money that the industry is currently (foolishly?) leaving on the table.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have to wonder how many other artists could benefit from this kind of premium\/fan-club segmentation, and how much money could be made on a macro level as a result \u2014 especially if such a subscription also unlocked access to historical rare recordings, demos or even early access to ticket on-sales.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few artist subscription app platforms have launched \u2014 and a few have failed \u2014 in the past, although the likes of<\/span> Disciple Media<\/span><\/a> (Rolling Stones, Luke Bryan) continue to ply their trade and win business. If anything, Neil Young\u2019s quiet success with his Archive suggests there could be a lucrative future in artist-focused premium upsells on streaming services. It also suggests that Young may soon deserve reappraisal as a visionary of the modern music business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, still on his high horse about hi-def audio \u2014 and still not caring what you think \u2014 Young blasted <\/span>Apple and its Macbook Pro for peddling \u201cFisher Price audio quality\u201d<\/span><\/a>, adding that the laptop model\u2019s \u201cDAC is no good\u201d for those artists who take recording seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years back, with piles of PonoPlayers set for the landfill, one might have understandably raised a smirk at such an outburst. Now, with new evidence to consider, Tim Cook might want to open his ears.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim Ingham is the founder and publisher of <\/em>Music Business Worldwide,<\/a> which has serviced the global industry with news, analysis and jobs since 2015. He writes a weekly column for \u201cRolling Stone.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s 2015, we\u2019re making music to the highest level; it sounds more amazing than ever before, in my opinion. And [yet] we\u2019re listening to it on this platform where it\u2019s compressed. I try to make music to the highest quality, and that\u2019s why this stood out. You tell people what they\u2019re getting, and they\u2019re going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 01:48:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}