Just as the music industry has changed rapidly in recent times, so too has its audience. The modern music fan is presented with more choice than ever, inundated with music from all directions by the new guard of social media platforms and music streaming services that have – for better or worse – completely changed the way people consume and interact with music forever.

It’s a fascinating time, as music listening habits become increasingly dominated by endless tailored playlists available with a single click, and the festival scene shifts towards similarly-segmented niches catering to every taste imaginable – music is becoming personalised and curated in entirely new ways.

We’ve spoken with two record label owners heavily involved in this year’s Melbourne Music Week festival from November 11 – 19 about how music lovers have changed and diversified in recent times, what has caused these shifts, and how bands, labels and events like MMW can go about catering to increasingly niche audiences.

Huw Nolan is co-director of Melbourne-based record label, music management and events company Good Manners, which will be playing a major role once again at this year’s Melbourne Music Week.

Good Manners will be hosting the huge closing party for MMW’s Hub venue at the State Library of Victoria, featuring a range of incredible acts like HVOB, Seekae and LUCIANBLOMKAMP.

Josh Delaney owns and operates Smooch Records, while also playing in all sorts of acts across Melbourne like Rat & Co and SMILE, and running his own recording studio.

Smooch are collaborating with fellow local companies Paradise, Waving At Trains and Aarght Records on another big night of music at MMW, hosting the likes of Severed Heads, Harvey Sutherland & Bermuda, and Young Magic.


MMW works with partners like Good Manners and Smooch to deliver an array of unique events each year

Music Fans Are Changing

While niche audiences have always existed, do label owners like Huw and Josh find that music fans now expecting increasingly-curated music listening experiences?

“Absolutely,” says Josh. “I think the media and playlist curation definitely has led to an increasingly personalised audience; fans engage with the artists and labels that they are drawn to, and that then affects what they see in their day to day. In this new age of smart phones and social media, we are being sold the idea that everyone is individual, and that you can’t be the same as someone else.
As this new desire for personalised content has extended into the music industry, Josh argues that it’s almost done its job too well.

“If you relate that back to the music industry, you are force-fed content with the tagline “you may like this” or “suggested for you”, but it’s all just a digital algorithm of what other people have listened to after the current artist you are listening to finishes. There are no crazy coincidences, you are being fed what they think you want to hear – and most of the time its spot on. I think that’s kinda scary as one of my greatest enjoyments relating to music is the dig or hunt for those rare diamonds in the rough of your local op shop or record store. That mentality feels like it is dying out.

“People have become much harder to please; there are far more niche markets, and audiences can access the music that they want to more easily. The way people consume music now is far more rapid and the rise of streaming and digital media has been one of the main causes for the move from long play and full length albums to one minute thirty pop bangers made to brainwash you as quickly as possible.”

In Huw’s mind, music delivery is just following the new norm being seen in the media in general, the behind-the-scenes application of the all-seeing algorithm.

“Social media set the trend. Facebook is the most prominent example of a platform built off of what now runs what we see and what we don’t see, algorithms. So what we are seeing is algorithms taking things that we like, things that we opt out of and what our friends like, and creating a curated feed of content that we may be interested in. Spotify took this approach and applied it to music listening. Effectively, these services are using us as our own curators building off of our interests and offering us something similar.

In response to this, modern music consumers are becoming less engaged in the music consumption process, and Huw has witnessed a huge change during his time working in the industry.

“I think perhaps listeners have become more complacent. Before the online world, music discovery was a pastime. Something you sunk time and energy into. It was a passion. When vinyl was prevalent, it was crate digging. Hours spent in record stores.

“The listening method was more personal too; putting a record on, listening to one side from start to finish, flipping it over and doing it all again. When cassettes came in, music fans listened to their favourite radio stations and curators and recorded their shows, played it back and found their new favourite band.

“With the introduction to the internet, music discovery took a different form in blogs. You would follow your favourite website, journalist or reviewer and listen to the music and find a way to download it. Now, through Apple music and Spotify, your new favourite band is curated for you based upon bands you already like. Whilst this service is absolutely brilliant, it really takes the fun out of finding new music in a store, on a radio show or through your favourite blog.

“What is the point of following your favourite curators and digging for the gem if you get provided a list of songs that is probably close enough? Close enough is good enough, especially when most people are getting increasingly time poor. Convenience is ideal, but are we going to see the end of the curators?”

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Good Manners will be closing out MMW at the Hub with a meticulously-curated lineup

Even in the realm of digital streaming platforms, Huw has noticed a continuous shift away from piecemeal music discovery, and towards a one-click style of music curation.

“I got my start in electronic music around five years ago, and at that time (and for some years to come), the main platform for promotion and music discovery was Soundcloud, via music blogs. Soundcloud was the main player for blogs to use to share new music, but due to Soundcloud’s new contractual arrangements with major labels, the platform has turned them into a paid subscription service like Spotify or Apple Music.

“Subsequently, we are seeing the death of what once was the most influential streaming platform for music discovery. I remember one campaign in particular we received 300,000 plays in 3 days by hosting the song on Soundcloud, with countless blogs sharing it. For an emerging act, these numbers are unfathomable in this day and age, and much more difficult to come by. Streaming is changing the whole music and publicity game, and in turn changing music discovery for the audience – what we once knew is effectively rendered useless.”

Labels like Good Manners have had to adapt quickly, and repeatedly, in an effort to keep up. “Our marketing spend through social media increased by 9900% from 2014 to 2015,” Huw tells us. “In one year!”

“Due to the changing landscape of social media, social media platforms became more of a marketing platform than a branding one for our company. While the initial success was huge, we are finding that we neglected our investment in developing the potential for organic discovery through live shows and, most importantly, collaboration.

“These social media marketing spends aren’t quite achieving what they used to, and perhaps we need to revert to brand awareness through poster campaigns and word of mouth. Due to the saturation of marketing in fans social media feeds, I feel as though audiences once again need to be reached in new and interesting ways outside of this new world.”

Catering To New Niches

So, with music discovery methods turned on their head in recent years, how do grass-roots labels look to find and engage with new music fans, and build a loyal fanbase? Huw looks first and foremost to existing audiences.

“We market our records to people that might like a certain type of music in the hope that they will start following what we are offering them, tapping into existing personalised audiences. We also talk to streaming services quite a lot, attempting to get our artists into playlists that would be suitable for their genre of music.

“The key for me is trying to tap into personalised audiences in a more organic method, which has been happening for a long time. Our artists supporting bands whose fanbase might like their music or collaborations with likeminded musicians, for example. If someone happens across a band and takes a liking to them, this fan is the most loyal. They feel like they have discovered something for themselves – not through a curator or a streaming service. I find the advertising route is much less effective, as the process isn’t one of organic and honest discovery.”

Smooch records, meanwhile, stick to tried-and-true methods of building a fanbase from the ground up, and don’t actively pursue a particular niche.

“Our target market ranges from zero years of age to sixty plus,” Josh tells us. “We’re inclusive of all genders, ages and nationalities, and we are not genre specific. We are here to be as diverse and inclusive as possible, and to try to bring you a range of beautiful music that you might not of expected to ever hear. We have artists that are folk, electronic, rock, neo-classical… we’ve have quite an eclectic bunch

“We mostly stick by the classic techniques of record labels long passed. Lots of merchandise around hyped bands, we hope to create a feeling of inclusion of fans to feel like they have some ownership over the label’s content, and a lot of freebies to keep people coming back.”


Good Manners and Smooch are just two of many local companies involved in MMW 2016

Huw has also looked outside of the box when it comes to other label and branding partnerships, achieving particularly impressive results with electronic R&B/pop artist and singer Banoffee and rising electronic duo Kllo.

“We work with a number of visual artists, graphic designers and other record labels to help on a collaborative front. For example, we have release Kllo’s new EP with the help of Ghostly International is the US and PIAS in Europe. For us, being aligned with a label with such a strong cult following like Ghostly adds a lot to our brand, and helps grow our audience because we do work in a similar field of music.

“Banoffee collaborated with [media outlet] i-D and [fashion brand] Pageant this year in making a unique clothing line, which was launched at Melbourne Fashion Week and created cross-promotion between herself and those aforementioned brands. Their followers are extremely loyal and active consumers and we saw some cross over of people following the Banoffee project that were originally followers of the brands we collaborated with.

“Once again, this is an honest and organic form of discovery for these new fans, and this process often creates a more loyal fan for years to come.”

Live Collaboration Is Key

For Good Manners, live performance remains one of the most vital methods of engaging with new fans, and unique partnerships and collaborative events like MMW offer new ways for fans to connect with an array of artists, labels and genres at once.
“Live shows are definitely one of the best ways of catering to a niche audience,” Huw says. “If you don’t play live and don’t give people the chance to see you play in the live setting, it is much harder for new fans to discover you. With certain acts, we try to implement something new with the show, something that we feel a specific niche audience will connect with.
“With one of our acts, Lucianblomkamp, we developed a whole audio/visual show in collaboration with visual artist Brendan Harwood. These sort of collaborations hopefully will bring in followers of Brendan’s, but will also create a strong niche audience that will continue to come back to Lucianblomkamp shows and build a strong community culture around the music that he creates.

“We have thrown quite a large number of shows this year, and all of the artists we’ve had play at Good Manners events really have helped build our brand awareness through collaboration. More and more people are following our company, as these artists they support are essentially endorsing our brand by playing our events. Live activations are key for us in this area.

Similarly, Josh sees Melbourne Music Week as an ideal means of sharing audiences with other local artists and music companies.

“We collaborate with a number of different promoters,” Josh says, “and these promoters have their own existing niche audiences, and they help bring new and exciting talent into the MMW program. MMW has really done well in this field, by enlisting an incredible number of different, eclectic labels and promoters, who all have varying music genres and niches that they cater to.”

“I think we have managed to weave a lineup together that is fairly concise across four different Melbourne music houses,” he continues, referring to his partnership this year with Waving At Trains, Paradise Music Festival and Aarght Records.

“We’ve each brought our own artists into the mix, which is a great way to showcase talent. MMW chooses from a bunch of applicants to curate what is a great MMW program – I’ll be going to Signal, The Drones + MY DISCO, and the Good Manners MMW Closing Party.”

“That collaboration is a perfect example,” Huw says, heaping praise on the event Josh is running this year. “They’re tapping into four unique audiences and therefore growing their awareness and infiltrating new niche audiences.

“These labels and promoters also have quite a lot of musical crossover, and as such the audiences that are invested in each company may well be interested in what the others are doing – it’s the perfect partnership for them to grow. All of the partners work in electronic music, and this line-up is one that I am particularly excited about.”

Indeed, there’s a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks, as Melbourne Music Week brings together hundreds of artists, both local and international, to curate enough unique live music experiences to provide something for any modern music fan – no matter how niche.

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