Update | Would Stefanie Sun still be a pop superstar if she started out in today’s AI-driven music industry?
Machine learning programs serve up new playlists to China’s 520 million music app users, providing openings for unknown talent but disrupting the traditional system of superstars backed by major labels and distributors
Liu Guannan graduated from medical school in Chengdu but his dream was to become a full-time songwriter. So the 27-year-old lived with his parents for two years and faced criticism for being a “drop out” until NetEase Cloud Music, a Chinese music streaming app similar to Spotify, changed everything.
With no professional music training and no significant awards to his name, Liu now makes a decent living writing songs for his folk duo called Fine and enjoys the fame that comes with having more than 100,000 fans.
“I can’t figure out how our songs got that many followers. We didn’t have an agent, we didn’t have the money to promote ourselves and we didn’t have any connections in the music industry in China,” said Liu, whose band started off as a college student pastime but thanks to its online success had its first commercial live concert in early 2017.
“All we did was upload our songs on as many music streaming sites as possible. Then months later we magically become famous.”
Tencent fends off Spotify, Apple in China’s battle for streaming and music downloads
All we did was upload our songs on as many music streaming sites as possible. Then months later we magically become famous
Streaming music made global stars out of previously unknown performers such as Lorde and Zara Larsson, each with billions of streams on Spotify, and now the same phenomenon is set to change the music industry in China, where rampant piracy of online music is giving way to fans signing up for online streaming services that offer free songs. Although digital music revenues in China nearly quadrupled to US$195 million over the five years to 2016, with most of that coming from streaming, the business is still tiny compared with global music sales of US$7.8 billion, according to figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.