Are Apple And Soundcloud Now Upping The Ante?
Lets face it over the past two weeks it’s been all about Dre and Apple Music and there really hasn’t been much going on over at Spotify thats been worth reporting on – so how are Apples recent strides going to come off for the future of Spotify?
Compton which is exclusively available on Apple Music and iTunes only for 2 weeks, had 25 million streams around the world in its first week on Apple Music and added nearly half a million download sales through Apple’s iTunes store, according to reports from Apple executives on Sunday. This is the first album that Apple have released exclusively in an effort to establish their place in the streaming market and it managed to pulled rank above the competition with the release of Compton.
Apple are now getting their sleeves up and readying for an advertising avalanche ahead of the MTV music awards, a worldwide TV and billboard campaign is taking hold and posters have started showning up over the last week in various cities like San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. Although the service launched officially on the 30th of June, it is now apparent this was just a warm up and the real business starts now. Apple also launched a new, interactive Apple Music poster campaign in conjunction with the Shazam iOS app to link iPhone users directly to a featured artist’s page in Apple Music.
A new TV spot has appeared with the 60 second ‘Discovery’ ads featuring Leon Bridges, Ibeyi, James Bay and Flying Lotus amongst others.
Its now time for SoundCloud to get serious, get legit or face oblivion and they’ve already closed licensing deals with three major music rights-holding organisations – Merlin, NMPA and Warner Music and are also now close to closing a deal with Universal according to rumours. In exchange the major labels are negotiating an equity stake into SoundCloud just as they did with Spotify and so the net is widening. SoundCloud is now preparing to launch its own subscription service alongside an ad supported free service.
We’re watching a significant shift in the music industry taking place and ultimately its the music fans who will decide what service they choose to run with in the longer term. Right now it’s still all for the taking.
If you want to compare how Compton’s 25 million exclusive streams on Apple Music fared against other top streaming albums – then look no further than Drake’s “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late,” which was released in February, and had 48 million streams in one week, and Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” which had nearly 39 million in March – just remember both albums were available across the board and not exclusively with one service. For Dr Dre this is all good news as Compton could unleash another wave of streaming frenzy as it begins to appear on other streaming services from Friday.
Watch out for the knock on effect of ‘Straight Outta Compton’ as it begins its international rollout into European cinemas from the 28th of August.
