Trapital - the new definition of success

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the new definition of success

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Hey! This newsletter will now be sent out on Mondays and Thursdays moving forward. New episodes of the podcast will be out on Thursdays too.

But first, we gotta talk about Future selling his catalog. Billboard estimates that his catalog is worth $65 - 75 million and that his share generates $4.4 million annually.

Some think that estimate is high for a relatively newer artist. Others think that “March Madness” alone should be worth a billion.

It’s a reminder that catalog valuations are both science and art. Newer artists are less proven, but their music is more likely to resonate with younger generations (who will eventually become the older generations).

Plus, Future has some hits with good sync potential. I can easily see “Mask Off” in the next season of Succession. That could be Kendall Roy’s pump-up song before for his next (unsuccessful) hostile takeover attempt!

Today’s memo is about artists redefining what success looks like. I had a great chat about it on the podcast with Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research, who does great work on this topic. Here are some highlights from our chat.

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navigating an oversaturated landscape

It’s never been easier for artists to release music and find their audience. But it’s never been harder for artists to break through the noise. The Internet and streaming services have created a double-edged sword for rising artists.

Tati recently wrote a research piece that argues that today’s artists are not competing in the same lane as the artists who came before. She highlights three groups of artists:

• Group 1: artists who reached prominence pre-streaming in a less cluttered marketplace (e.g. Beyonce, AC/DC)
• Group 2: artists who rose in parallel with the proliferation of streaming. (e.g. Drake and Taylor Swift)
• Group 3: newer artists who try to cultivate audiences in today’s hyper-competitive landscape against the other two groups (e.g. Travis Scott, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo)

There’s likely even a fourth level. An artist like Dua Lipa, who broke out in 2017, came up in a very different era of streaming than Olivia Rodrigo did in 2021.

superstar artists losing their grip

In BPI’s annual report All About The Music. The top 100 tracks in the UK last year accounted for 4.4% of all streams market-wide — compared to 10.3% in 2016.

The biggest reasons for the change are on-demand music via streaming, oversaturation, and social media algorithms tailoring feeds for niche interests.

But while consumption for household-name superstars is on the decline, there’s a rise for top-tier artists who are stars on a particular platform or for a specific niche. NBA YoungBoy on YouTube is a perfect example. For his fans, he seems like the biggest star in the world. But he’s not a household name. Similarly, BTS is larger than life for K-pop fans, but many others may not know much about them.

redefining success

Music has always been a hits business. Record labels still want to drive culture and create mainstream moments. But these metrics have become more intangible given the fragmented measures of success.

The record music industry still measures success based on album sales. But every few months, we see more evidence that it’s a harder benchmark to rely on.

In January, Gunna outsold The Weeknd when both of their albums debuted the same week. But no one would say that Gunna is more “successful” than The Weeknd, who is selling out stadiums on his Dawn FM tour.

Artists are ahead of execs in how they view success. In MIDiA’s recent surveys with artists, fame is the last thing they want to prioritize. Their priorities are sustainable earnings and achieving recognition within their scene, not necessarily the mainstream.

platforms still have power over creators

I don’t need to remind you about TikTok’s reach and discovery. We broke it down recently. But there are plenty of downsides. The platform’s users tend to have more loyalty to platforms and not enough to the creators on those platforms.

TikTok’s ‘For You Page’ is a passive user experience. It’s easy to get seen, but harder to translate those views, likes, or follows into fans and customers who follow you off the platforms. This is an issue for the music industry since TikTok has become its top of funnel.

“If the fandom, the culture, and the consumption is happening on TikTok, you’re leaving that on the table when you’re pushing people to Spotify. We should start thinking about these platforms as their own consumption platforms.”

The issue stems from misaligned objectives. Platforms need scale to monetize all the combined audiences of individual creators. Meanwhile, creators want to grow an engaged fanbase. This is a problem that many web3 startups want to address, but it’s still an ongoing challenge for the platforms that most artists rely on.

Listen to our full conversation here:

money moves

• U.S. music revenue grows 9% to $7.7B in first half of 2022​
• VC-backed Stan announces the music industry’s first fandom conference. Grab tickets for StanCon NYC on October 5 here​
• ​Spotify launches audiobook store with 300k titles
• 50 Cent parts ways with STARZ. Plans to take Power elsewhere
• ​The state of vinyl (from someone who works at a pressing plant)
• ​Sway had the answers all along!

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coming soon from Trapital

Podcast: Hannibal Buress! This is his second appearance on the podcast. This time, we talked about his shift to focusing on music under the name, Eshu Tune. Drops next Thursday!