Is Deezer Good For Local Music?
Two weeks ago I wrote a post detailing 5 reasons why you should download Deezer. The post was written from the perspective of a consumer of music explaining why you should download Deezer if you enjoy listening to music. This week I’m flipping the script and looking at Deezer from the perspective of a local musician.
To start off I’ll deal with the elephant in the room and what is probably the first thought as a musician: The money. Taylor Swift cited the royalties in her well publicized decision to remove her music from streaming services. Her main argument was that the royalties she received from streaming did not amount to the amount she would receive if all those streaming her music actually bought her music. Mathematically, she was correct, however not everyone who listens to your music wants to own it and she never considered the effect music streaming has on live performance ticket sales. Had her music not been streamed as much as it was (regardless of album sales) she may have not been as widely known as she is which may have had an effect on the ticket sales on her world tour. The pool people who stream music is much bigger than the pool of people who buy music.
Regardless of the above, Taylor Swift is in a unique position, and any local artist or independent artist who thinks that the best model for them to make money is exclusively through album sales is going to have a difficult time. In my perspective you need to use all the resources available to you to get your music discovered and then make the majority of your money through performances, merchandise sales, and endorsements. Every single album PHFat has created is available for free download yet the rap group is still around and they even recently toured Australia. Even AKA who is currently one of the highest selling local musicians has a part time job with Supersport.
Having your music on Deezer is not about the money you’ll be making but rather the potential for listeners to discover your music. When you make your music available on Deezer you are making your music available to over 60 millions users in 180 countries. The potential for discovery was realised in my experience when I was using Flow on Deezer and I stumbled upon a french nu-disco artist named Sauvage. The independent group have less than 2000 likes on Facebook and even less followers on Twitter so I would have never discovered them had it not been for Deezer. Now I’ve taken it upon myself to convince Broaden A New Sound to bring them to South Africa before they explode.
Besides for helping local artists have their music available to listeners all over the world, Deezer is very invested the local scene. This was made apparent to me by the appointment of Tecla Ciolfi as the local manager of Deezer. Tecla is known as a big contributor to the local music scene through her Texx And The City blog which had an influence on me starting The Fuss. Since her appointment the streaming service has seen a great increase in the amount of local music available on the Deezer catalogue. As Tecla stated in her recent piece in Texx And The City “Deezer doesn’t only cover the formative music of your youth, oh no, they place a huge emphasis on up-and-comers and tracks that they think are bound to break the charts”. Deezer has also announced a recent partnership with See You Next Wednesday for their events hosted at The Assembly and we hope to see more partnerships with local brands all in the name of music.
Thank you for all the #VCDeezer love! We have so many exciting things coming your way and we can’t wait to share them with you! CC @Vodacom
— Deezer South Africa (@DeezerZA) June 11, 2015
It’s clear that it’s only going to get better. In the meantime, take advantage of this great promotion by subscribing to Deezer. Vodacom will take care of the first two months subscriptions fees if you are one of their customers.
Once you’re subscribed check out this OpenroomTV playlist featuring some of the songs I’ve featured on their SA Top 5 chart in recent months.
