Last year was another eventful one in the history of music. And that was no surprise.

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Streaming music is also breaking free from the confines of our smartphones and laptops. Thanks to the rise of smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Sonos, and Google Home, more listening is happening at home, making the prospect of treating music like a monthly utility an even more sensible one. Cheaper family subscription plans don’t hurt, either. At Least One Music Service Will Disappear We’ve seen five new music subscription services arrive in the last two years (and one more coming from Pandora early next year), but that doesn’t mean music streaming has become a lucrative successful business. Quite the opposite: None of these services has made an enduring profit, although Spotify is working aggressively toward that goal as it gets ready to go public next year. Big tech companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon can afford to run their music services at a loss indefinitely. This landscape makes it tricky for smaller players like Tidal, SoundCloud, Deezer, and Napster (formerly Rhapsody). Both Tidal and SoundCloud were the subject of acquisition rumors in 2016, and rumors continue to swirl around the prospect of Pandora selling itself off. Bandcamp would make a very attractive acquisition for Pandora or Spotify, but the artist-centric music and merch marketplace is well positioned to stay independent if it prefers: The company has been profitable since 2012 and its cultural influence is only growing. The bottom line: Expect to see fewer music services this time next year. At least one of these companies is bound to get acquired or go under altogether. Streaming eExclusives Won’t Die Frank Ocean may have put a damper on the industry’s enthusiasm about platform-exclusive album releases, but don’t expect to see the trend die off just yet. Universal (owner of Def Jam) may have sworn them off, but the other major labels have remained silent on the issue. Besides, in an age when many artists have an unprecedented capacity to chart their own course, does it really matter what the labels think? Apple and Tidal are apparently willing to shell out a ton of money for these exclusive deals. And as long as they remain an effective tool for driving subscriptions amid intensifying competition, the streaming platforms aren’t likely to stop offering them. Despite some controversy, the exclusivity approach seems to work for most artists: Drake was the most-streamed artist on Spotify this year, despite Views only being available on Apple Music when it debuted. Like Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Ocean’s Blond, Drake’s latest album was a massive success overall. That said, we should expect to see fewer of these deals next year. Streaming platforms, labels, and artists will use the tactic much more selectively to minimize fallout while still extracting whatever competitive value they can.

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Musicians Will Squirm As AI Gets Better At Making Music Have you ever seen a computer write a song? It’s nuts. Give IBM’s Watson a simple melody and define a mood, and the multi-talented artificial intelligence platform will churn out an original song that sounds like it was made by a person—albeit not an especially talented one. But it’s now possible to teach machines enough about the rules of music theory to let them compose their own music, complete with multiple instrumental layers and changes in key and tempo. The result isn’t something you’ll want to listen to on your daily commute, but it’s still early in the quest to teach computers how to make art. And it’s not just IBM that’s focused on this. Google’s Magenta project, announced in April 2016, is in the beginning stages of stretching the limits of machine learning to help computers understand—and eventually mimic—creative thinking. Like Watson, Magenta has already produced a rudimentary song of its own. Machines aren’t about to put artists out of work, but advances in artificial intelligence could make certain types of music easier and cheaper to create—video-game soundtracks or background music for a retail store, for instance—that would not require licensing or paying royalties. AI could also augment the creative process for flesh-and-blood songwriters. An artist stuck on writing the chorus of a song could tap into tools based on Watson or Magenta to auto-generate a few ideas. Next year, expect the technology to improve slightly and for more artists to catch wind of it. Some will see an exciting new creative opportunity. Others will cringe at the mere idea of it. New Answers (And Dollar Signs) For Artists The brief history of streaming’s rise has been accompanied by an often awkward question: How will artists fare? It’s a natural concern given the minuscule per-stream royalty rates offered under a model that’s still scaling to its full potential. There won’t be a silver bullet in 2017, but artists will see more reasons to be hopeful about the future because catering to artists has increasingly become a priority for streaming services. Apple Music and Tidal have famously made artist-friendliness a key tenet of their offerings—or at least of their marketing. In June 2016, Spotify hired former Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter to oversee its expanding artist relations initiatives. Middle-class artists might not be getting huge checks from Spotify, but many are finding new promotional value in landing on the service’s most popular playlists, whether they be hand-curated in-house or data-powered. Discover Weekly alone drove more than half of all listening for 8,000 artists in less than a year. Spotify is also building out more tools and services for artists and finding ways to tap into the passion—and disposable income—of super-fans. Meanwhile, Pandora is busy reshaping itself into a service that caters more directly to artists’ needs, be it with data, marketing tools for artists, or the ability to sell concert tickets directly to fans from within the app. Spotify’s Discover Weekly Has 40 Million Listeners—More Than Apple Music And Tidal

Not even a year after launch, the playlist is boasting some big, impressive numbers. For now, record labels still reap the lion’s share of revenue, but that balance of power is poised to shift. Between the platforms’ investment in artist relations and the growing slice of revenue being generated by streaming, musicians are bound to see new benefits. And streaming services, labels, and artists will all have to renegotiate their relationships with one another. Artists may soon be in a better position to demand more from their labels or, following Frank Ocean’s lead, sidestep the middlemen altogether—a prospect that could become easier for less-than-household names as the streaming industry’s artist-facing services mature.

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There are already signs that VR will yield exciting developments for fans and the music industry. Immersive live streams of concerts, for instance, could evolve into a real source of revenue beyond the standard catalogs of recorded music. Music videos, music documentaries, and music-oriented video games can also take on new life in a world where virtual reality headsets are common. There are also interactive music visualizers, which turn songs—or even your own voice—into responsive animations that unfold in front of you. Then there’s the audio itself. For the best experience, immersive music environments will require engineers to mix songs in more spatially complex manners than standard stereo or even surround sound, which could pave the way for innovations in the way music is composed and produced. There could also be money in VR. It’s still early enough that artists and labels can start crafting business models around a simple but familiar logic: Give fans something meaningful and entertaining that they can’t get anywhere else (or easily pirate) and they just might give you their money. Sounds crazy, I know.