Nir Furman

Kylee C. Pastore

Composition 110

14 March 2022

 

The Effects of COVID-19 on the music industry

            This paper is going to help us understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music industry and the ways of how the new world adjusts to the changes. As a musician, I was always interested in the music industry and tried to understand how things are working “from the inside”. The following sources helped me to understand how the music industry work, especially in the post-pandemic era.

            the news article “How Covid Is ‘Creating a New Genre’ for Live Music.” BBC News, by Alex Taylor, gives us few examples of how the pandemic made the shows and the music industry to change and create new ideas and creative ways to connect the performer and the audience. Alex Taylor, providing examples of different people in the music industry that explain him how the pandemic created a new way of thinking when it comes to live shows and concerts. One of the examples that we can see in the article is the Biffy Clyro’s livestreamed gig without audience, while the band is performing from a glass box, isolated even from the camera men. “inside the cube the band could see nothing but their own reflection, whilst in the ‘in person’ audience [the camera operators] were kept at a distance by a glass” (Oscar Sansom).

            The author is credible because he is a BBC entertainment reporter. This article was published in the BBC news website. The authors audience are people who interested in the music industry in general, but more specifically, the audience might be music producers who want to understand how the pandemic affected the industry and maybe got idea of what they can do in the future. Also, the audience can be people that love to go to live shows and now need to adjust the new reality. The tone of the article is very simple and direct. Alex Taylor chooses to give a lot of examples of how the pandemic changed the music industry and talking right to the point. He uses a lot of references and shows the facts from the point of view of the music industry people that were affected by the pandemic.

The purpose of the article is to give a better view on how the music industry producers and artist adjust to the hitting of the pandemic and show us new ways of connecting the audience and the performer. It also shows us that the changes that happened because of Covid will bring a completely new genre of the industry which will stay even after the pandemic is over.

The genre is a news article, and the features are quotes, pictures, videos etc. the medium is an online journal. We can see that there is a Facebook and Twitter page.

By the time that the article was written, we were in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is the reason why the article was written. The topic of the article is something that happened because of the pandemic and there was already enough information to show a bigger result of how the pandemic affected the music industry. The piece was published online which makes it be a global issue that people all over the world talking about.

Alex Taylor’s stance about this topic is unclear. Because he is a reporter, he was representing the facts, told by other people that he probably interviewed. He does not make an opinion about the topic, but just telling the situation as it is.

            Already at the beginning of the pandemic, people and analysts tried to predict how the music industry will change over COVID-19. “Because of COVID-19, the music business will be forced to shift…” says Adam Aziz, the author of the newsletter “10 Ways the Coronavirus Will Change the Music Industry.” Okayplayer. Since the pandemic hit, issues like social distance affected the way of how live shows were look like and all the experience changed. The pandemic brought us to the situation where the music industry people need to rethink the ways of connecting the audience and the performers, “This pandemic will be another time of innovation and presents a great opportunity for the music business.” (Aziz). Here are some of the ways that will help us understand how the music industry changed: as the quarantine started, more and more musician met through the social media, collaborated and continued to perform on different Instagram lives. It brought us to the understanding the “The internet will run the industry” (Aziz). Another thing that the music industry realized, is that now the venues will be able to charge more money for less audience due to the social distance issues. “The Sound of Music Will Change” (Aziz) – while the world was getting into lockdowns, rappers still used to make songs about money and “street life” (Aziz) regardless to the reality. Eventually, there will be a change in the live show experience. One of the examples that we can already see is the drive-in concerts, where the audience “drove-in to assign parking spaces for drive-in concert” (Aziz). Adam Aziz is a credible author, as he is a music consultant and writer that worked for ESPN, Complex and others.

The audience of this article are people who hollow the Okayplayer magazine and people who are interested in the music industry at all. The genre is a newsletter, and it is posted in the social media. The tone of this article is easy to access, and it written in a simple language. Adam Aziz’s stance seems to be very positive, and he finds the advantages of the pandemic’s affect on the music industry. The purpose of this article is to bring to the audience the most current information about changes that happened in the music industry that affect a big group of people as artists, fans and people who involved in the music industry. The article was written by the time when things where changing and seems like the information was updated to the time that the article was published at.

An interesting way to understand the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music Industry is to realize that the isolation and the social distancing actually brought people more together technologically and not necessarily crated bad situation. In the journal article, “Our Rebirth: Reshaping the Music Discipline after the Covid-19 Pandemic.” College Music Symposium, vol. 60, no. 1, College Music Society, by Lisa Urkevich, we are given an explanation about to positives effects of the pandemic. “Music has increasingly experienced on an intimate, personal level, performed in homes…challenging one’s intellect and ability.” (Urkevich). The fact that people recorded themselves while isolated and created a synchronized videos, made professionals to get closer. Even the performances that shared on the internet and the social media were no made “…to make money, but simply express creativity” (Urkevich). The technology is important for connecting people and make the person in the front, especially in pandemic time when the human voices needed more than the auto tune or the electronic ways to create music. The article also talks about how the music education is changing due to the pandemic and the author gives an example of a situation when the professor and instructors will become more familiar with technology and will have to adjust to the changes in the world.

The audience of this article are mostly students of music arts, production, business. Since the article was published by the “Music College Society” we can understand that Lisa Urkevich is a credible author. The genre of the article is a academic journal article and published on a website. The purpose of the paper is to show how technology and the COVID-19 pandemic can actually create a different way of making, marketing and distributing music. The technology is a part of today’s life and the music industry need to adjust more and more. The tone of the article is official and written in high language. It is an academic paper which digs into the topic. The author’s stance is very positive. She is providing the information due to facts but making it clear to understand that those things that happening are good.

As we can see, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects in life and especially in the music industry. All the sources that I was using to write this paper were talking about how the music industry has to adjust the new changes and deal with social distancing, connection between the artists and the fans and eventually find new and creative ways to keep the music industry work. Even though the genres of the sources are different (newsletter, news article and academic journal) we can see that they are talking about the same issues and trying to provide similar solutions to the music industry issues after the pandemic. The authors approach the topic in their own way but use different information to be based on. the combination of the information provided by all of the sources, makes the picture about post pandemic music industry clearer and we can see how different people in the industry can get used to the new situation by creating new ideas. Each of the authors are credible due to the information they are providing and the bodies they are working for. All the information provided on the social media, and the general audience are people who interested or involved in the music industry. The academic journal seems to be more for people who are might be studying music or music business. The authors of the sources provided above, have a positive stance about the music industry topic and believe that the changes can only help to the people involved become more creative with the options of the “new world”.