The Next Music Industry Revolution Is Here

Starting with Edison’s cylinder, the evolution of music and technology have always marched in lockstep. Every time we see some kind of technological advance, the way we obtain and consume music is affected: cylinders to discs to tape to CDs to digital.

After a few years of experimenting with mobile, apps are the next great frontier.  Getting into geek-speak, everything is becoming about APIs, application programming interfaces, the source code that allows different pieces of software (and thus hardware) to talk to each other.

Put another way, the music industry is finally jumping deep into developing apps as not only a way of distributing content but to harvest data and to monetize the sale of music.  

Consumers love apps, too, because they allow fans to communicate more directly with their favourite artists and with other fans.

Best example of where we might be headed?  Bjrok’s Biophilia project.  But things don’t have to be that complex.  

Weezer, Depeche Mode, Adele, Snow Patrol and dozens of others have already made some interesting forays into the app arena.  

And these apps don’t have to cost that much.  Prices for building one start at around $3,000.  At that price, just about any indie band could afford one.

And with 50% of us owning smart phones already–a number that’s only going to climb–it’s a no-brainer that acts will want to jump on this bandwagon.

I’m calling it now.  The music app revolution has begun and it’s going to take music, musicians and fans in all kinds of unexpected directions.