The Industry Follows
My conversation with Scott Cohen, the Chief Innovation Officer of Warner Music Group, on algorithms, the role of majors in the streaming age and Web3
Today, I’m excited to share a conversation I had with Scott Cohen, the Chief Innovation Officer of Warner Music Group. In recent weeks I’ve engaged Scott on the themes of this newsletter. As we chatted, argued and explored some of my central arguments, I realized that Scott, as much as anyone else in the world, has been directly involved in the technological and musical developments that nag at me and compelled me to start this publication.
Scott is one of those rare people in the industry who has adapted, survived and even thrived at every moment of gargantuan technological change. As a co-founder of The Orchard, the world’s leading music distributor, he was there when digital downloads became the dominant format for listening to music via the iTunes store. And then he was there for the move to streaming, a shift that gave distributors an even more vital role. With so much music —from that of bedroom artists to stadium headliners—reaching the same few services, the conduit for how to reach those platforms, i.e. distributors, became even more important.
And now, Scott is working with Warner Music Group, where he helps hone the major label’s strategy surrounding emergent technologies and trends. The bulk of his work is in helping bring the major label into a new phase, the one that succeeds the streaming age — Web3, the metaverse, NFTs, etc.
A big theme for this conversation was the supposed neutrality of the industry and technology. The industry will always follow the dominant technologies of the day and invest accordingly. They will follow the sounds of the moment and pour gasoline on what’s driving culture. But the thing that Cohen and I disagree on is the extent to which entities — such as labels, technology companies, and platforms — have agency in shaping the aesthetic movements and modes of consumption of our day.
A question from Scott you will read throughout our conversation is “How is this different than before?” And maybe, in many ways, he’s right. There is a consistency in the ways in which labels and artists adapt to technologies and platforms — from singles to albums to radio to music videos to digital downloads to streaming. The shifts are, conceptually, similar. But streaming and the internet, I argue, is not just a continuation of perennial trends, but is different in kind. And maybe, if we have critiques of the ways in which culture is being so deeply shaped by the internet and streaming, more discordant interventions are necessary. At least that’s what I think, or am beginning to think through . . .
I left this conversation newly invigorated by the project of this newsletter, and eager for others to engage with questions of curation, access and value. While I would never expect an industry or firm to risk losing profit for some grand artistic ideal, there is a space for culture to push back and name dynamics that are becoming silently entrenched through the regular workings of business and technology. And maybe through that naming, we can change the behaviors of such entities. Because as Cohen alludes to, the industry follows; it follows us: the listeners, the audience. And in that sense, we have power to signal to them that we may want something different, maybe something (to use a scandalous word) . . . better. Something more thoughtful, more considered, that sees music as not just a means to a mood, but an art form in and of itself.
But that’s ultimately up to you, as a member of “us,” to decide.
My Conversation with Scott Cohen
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity
Tobias: Hey Scott, thanks so much for talking today! So the focus of this newsletter is the ways in which algorithms are shaping our taste in music. So that’s what I’d like to focus on for our conversation today and how you, as someone involved in technology with Warner, is approaching these questions of curation.
Scott Cohen: Got it, so you’re saying the algorithm is changing your music taste, or trying to, and that it does so . . . for the worst?
Tobias: I mean I think that Spotify, to use an example of a powerful recommendation algorithm, has a musical bias. They want their users to always be listening to music, so they privilege the background and mood-inducing. And that’s how a lot people listen to music. My opinion is that it’s getting too tilted in that direction and I want to write about that so people can become more aware of that.
Cohen: There’s a lot of ways to slice and dice it. There’s always been music in the background, because hearing is something we can do while also doing something else. I could be at the gym. I could be in my car. I could be doing lots of things while also listening to music. The technology to do that in the past was not easy. There was radio, CDs, cassettes. Today, we can tailor music to the environment you’re in, your personal taste, your mood, the weather. That being said, we have gone through this “slow food movement” as opposed to fast food. Because we know what fast food does to us. Everything from how you cook it, to how you grow it . . . we needed to slow things down. Maybe we need something similar in music. It’s not an either/or, but where can there more slowing down and absorbing?
Tobias: To zoom out for a moment, the reason that so many people are listening to music in the background is because of mobile technology and digital downloads and then of course, streaming. So I’m curious, as someone who has been here for these evolutions. Why did we need to graduate from downloads to streaming? Why was this shift necessary from the perspective of the industry?
Cohen: I mean music was scarce. I don’t know if that’s good for listeners and for people. The notion that you can play any song that has ever been released when you want on any device at any price point is now completely obvious; you can do it for free with an ad on Youtube or for 10 dollars a month with streaming. The fact that the entire history of recorded music is available at your finger tips is an amazing opportunity. That’s why we had to do it that way. I’m a big believer that music is priceless. Music is special. We got into this world of “let’s assign a value to music.” So what should it be? 99 cents! It’s like, “You mean like a pack of chewing gum?” I think having music as a commodity that we sell is bad for artists and society. I think the notion that it’s not a commodity and that music is priceless and if you give us 10 bucks a month you can have access to all of it is a good thing. That’s why we needed to get there, to give everyone access to music. And now everyone that’s connected has unlimited access to music at any price point.
Tobias: But it does have a price, there’s just not an exchange between a consumer and a label or artist. It’s just an amorphous price.
Cohen: Yeah, but let’s think about being an artist today vrs. an artist in the past. In the past, a consumer had to pick and choose between mine and somebody else’s music; they chose if they bought my album at the record store or they bought someone else’s. It was expensive. Whether it was a single or an album, they had a limited amount of money to spend on that. And now the consumer doesn’t have to make a choice, they can listen to all of it. And the ones that they prefer they can listen to more. I think this provides more opportunities for listeners and artists.
Tobias: I think this gets to the core of my critique. In the record store days, I had to convince you to buy my album because you heard it on the radio, or you read about me in a magazine, so you buy it for 10 dollars. Now you can access to it all at once. So to make money as an artist or a label, it’s about number of streams. The exchange is continuous rather than singular. So in terms of its effect on music, when it becomes about volume we get “streaming music,” which sounds different than before.
Cohen: Music is and has always been a popularity contest. Whatever was popular in its day, made money. You could argue that when you bought an individual product, it’s just dead revenue. Someone paid you once, and that’s the end of it. You had a transaction and you never made another penny. Now, we’re unlocking the power of music. Look at what’s happening with Kate Bush right now. It’s great for her. If she was in “Stranger Things” and you had to go to the store to buy a CD, she wouldn’t be having this success. But because it’s there and people like it, it’s like magic. It’s good for her. Remember, you don’t get paid by streams. You get paid as a pro-rata share of the streams. There’s a pool of money and whoever is listened to the most gets the largest share of the pool. All the way to the bottom. How is that different than the past in that sense? Except that more music is listened to today than ever before.
Tobias: I think that if the incentive is to impress someone enough to get them to pay a certain dollar-amount for the music though, it becomes “this is an amazing experience/product you have to buy right now.” Today, the biggest song is “As It Was” by Harry Styles which is engineered for background, for TikTok, for vibe. So it just shifts the incentive away from impressing someone and towards making something that is repeatable in multiple contexts.
Cohen: How is that different than the CD era? You made something to force them to buy an album. Remember the album concept is artificial. Because of the technology of the time, people were writing songs and releasing songs: singles. And then someone was able to expand the time you could get on a product. The beauty of that — if you think of the single vrs. the album — is that the manufacturing costs between both is about the same. The marketing cost is identical. But the profit difference — between 99 cents and 9.99, that was massive — so people started writing albums. Not because it was an art form, but that’s what the format dictated. Lot’s of artists did really well. Some artists said, “This is the technology, I’m gonna write to it.” You get Pink Floyd and Dark Side of the Moon. You get concept artists that are making albums and thinking about it. That was dictated by the technology of the time. Is it better or worse?
Tobias: I think what it does effect though — when music becomes more about volume and background — is that it effects whether music drives culture or rather conforms to culture. I think creating culture-changing stars is more difficult today. So to take an example, GAYLE, who’s signed to Warner, had the biggest song in the world for a period of time with “abcdefu”. You would think that GAYLE would be more culture-driving, similar to Alanis Morisette with Jagged Little Pill, than she currently is.
Cohen: My personal belief is that I wish more artists would push culture a little further. And some are. You certainly see it now with artists like Gunna, who is sitting in jail and the evidence they’re using is the lyrics of his songs. Is the government going to look at lyrics about drugs and crime and arrest you because you wrote a song? In that sense, culture and artists are clashing. But I’ll also say, we don’t orchestrate that. We don’t tell artists what to do. We support them with their vision and their dream. If their dream is not to change the world, we’re not gonna say “No, we need you to be political.” Our job is to help them make the best music and reach audiences. It’s not what a record company does. If we need to tell you what to do, we wouldn’t sign you in the first place.
Tobias: I think though it’s hard because artists are all so beholden to platforms, that they become on the same status as any influencer. It feels impossible to truly drive culture in that environment.
Cohen: That’s an interesting point, because if it’s just the radio, there’s a DJ and other artists and that’s it. That’s the environment. But if you’re on Instagram, it’s the artist plus every other thing you can ever imagine that you’re competing with, all on the same platform. And you get thrown into that and it’s like “oh yeah, you too.”
Tobias: And when artists are really good at these dynamics, and do differentiate themselves, they still have to conform to the way that Twitter or TikTok prefers conversations to happen.
Cohen: But how is this different than when Elvis Presley went on TV and they didn’t want him to wiggle his hips? People are always using media — it’s TV, radio, MTV. Great artists have a way of grabbing it and owning it and twisting it to their own needs.
Tobias: I guess what I would love is to have an artist who takes us out of the attention economy. That’s what I’m looking for. Everything feels beholden to that dynamic. Maybe the only artist who can do that now, because he’s such a figure, is Kanye. He can break through culture to the extent that people will actually buy a little physical device not on the internet, just because of him.
Cohen: I get that. It’s odd. If you go to a gig of any size — club or stadium — everyone is on their phone. They’re live tweeting and posting selfies, rather than being in the moment. But if they’re not doing that, everyone is like “the show music be terrible.” We probably need some etiquette around music. Not just live concerts. So I see what you say about the attention economy and music in the background. It’s like, “Hey, put your phone down, listen to the song.” People pour their hearts out into their music and people are just going on a jog. I get it, but in many ways it’s soul crushing. But you know, we’ve always optimized for certain things. If it’s album sales, we had to optimize around top 40 radio to get it to the top of the charts so that when the album drops people run to the stores. It even meant you have to change your songs to get on the radio. Was that good or bad? Regardless, that’s what we do, we optimize. So today, we’re optimizing for where people are.
Tobias: Just to close, I want to talk a bit about the Web3 stuff, which is a lot of what you’re doing. I’m just curious for you to lay out the vision for Web3 and music.
Cohen: Look, we go where the audiences are. The audiences move and shift over time. And wherever they are, we’re going. They’re moving into the metaverse and it’s coming. And we want to make sure we’re there. It’s early days, but there are early examples of it — like Roblox — and if people are there, how can we be there natively? What’s native to TikTok is not “I’m gonna put an MTV-style music video there.” That doesn’t feel right. But then you go into Roblox, now it’s “I have to become an avatar,” because that’s native. So however the music will change, the formats, the pricing, that’s where we’ll go. You just move to where the people are and certain artists take to it. There’s gonna be all these ways of doing things and we’re gonna be there. Certain artists will not embrace it, so they’re not of the moment. But then new artists will see it for something new that was never envisioned. And then that’s the way to do it now.