![]() Instead, Kanye and other artists might consider offering fan experiences at various price tiers. This is fandom backlash: by industrialising fandom, the music industry risks harming the very essence of it. Ironically, some artists who are Kanye fans pointed out that they cannot buy the Stem because they are victims of the same music industry systems that he claims to be protesting. Kanye’s announcement was met with criticism on social media from fans who cannot afford to purchase the Stem, or they felt tricked into purchasing a product that they do not want – or need – in order to listen to the album. The full dataset is published alongside this report with quarterly data from Q4 2015 to Q2 2019 for 23 streaming.Įven so, in an age when it feels like our every move is monetisable, the music industry must be careful not to make fans feel exploited. This report presents key figures from MIDiA’s global music subscriber market shares model. We might look back at Kanye as being one of the pioneers for digital-windowing strategies (albeit with chaotic rollouts). The superfans pay a premium for early access (or are rewarded for having purchased the Stem Player already), while the rest of Kanye’s audience is monetised once the album arrives across DSPs. This time, Kanye is windowing an album within his own hardware product. ![]() Kanye is no stranger to the strategy either, and has arguably, added a dimension to it with multiple listening events, including an Apple Music-exclusive livestream ahead of the DSP release. Artists like Jay-Z and Beyoncé have often taken this approach by releasing exclusively to their owned platform, TIDAL. This usually means releasing music exclusively to one streaming platform (or to a paid tier only) for a period of time before it becomes available on all DSPs, with the streaming service getting the biggest benefit. If so, Donda 2 will also represent an experiment with windowing. The album may still hit streaming services in the end (remember, Kanye promised The Life of Pablo would be a permanent TIDAL exclusive, and then he released it on all DSPs soon after). If Kanye made $2 million from Stem Player sales, that equates to roughly 10,000 units sold – a relatively small number of fans, but a huge financial impact. It does not matter that these fans represent only a small segment of Kanye’s total listener base their purchases add up to make Kanye more money than streaming royalties would probably generate – and faster. The biggest Kanye fans are willing to buy the $200 player, not just for access to the album, but as a keepsake - evidence that “I was there” for this specific Kanye era (this is why even superfans who are not music makers themselves will probably still purchase the player). But perhaps the most clear-cut way to analyse the release right now is as a real-time experiment in superfan targeting, which doubles as a hardware play.īy making his album exclusive to Stem owners, Kanye is going straight to his superfans, who represent his most valuable fan cohort both culturally and financially. The artist claimed, in a since-deleted Instagram post, that he has generated more than $2 million in Stem Player sales since the announcement.Īs is often the case with Kanye, his album promo antics have given us a lot to talk about. Instead, he will release it exclusively on the Stem Player (a handheld speaker allowing creators to remix any recording that he launched in August 2021). ![]() Never one to follow tradition, Kanye West has announced that his next album, Donda 2, will not be available on streaming services.
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