The Future of Music 2019

First things first - I used to call these features ’The Future of Music Online’ but feel said moniker is a little bit old-fashioned and probably has been for a while. I’m really talking about Digital Music - and to break it down further could go as far as to say just digital music streaming and playback - or ’Spotify’. I actually used to be subscribed to Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal. I subscribed to the last one named to access Prince’s full catalogue back in the day when it was exclusive to that service - but nowadays apart from the occasional Beyoncé and Kanye/Ye exclusives there’s really not much to recommend Tidal.

I was able to upload all my native Playlist music up to Spotify over Christmas - so I again have a full musical collection of a few hundred playlists and albums which is fully portable and downloaded to my iPhone. Apple iTunes let me down badly in that regard - and chances are I will unsubscribe from Apple Music sooner or later too. I do most of my listening on the move - and Spotify just makes the most sense - it’s the best integrated and the easiest to use and allows me to incorporate my own music files too - getting around all those silly International licensing regulations where certain of my favourite albums and tracks just aren’t available on UK Spotify - the record labels really need to sort that out long-term. In any case Spotify is entirely my thing now - plus my iPhone XSM with maximum available memory. My headphones of choice are my Sony WH-1000XM3s, and when at my desk I use my Steelseries Arctis Pro Wireless. I really tend to do all my music listening on headphones nowadays - and as reported probably 95% of that is on the move - underground, overground and in the air - which is why it’s essential for me to have full access to my music library at all times.

When I reviewed the Best of Entertainment for 2018 I noted that everything was rather ’eclectic’ nowadays - much like Ed Sheeran likes to mix up the genres - pretty much everyone is doing the same - apart from Super-Hero films and Disney remakes in the movies and I guess Atlanta-inspired hip-hop to some degree, there really aren’t any major global patterns evident for 2019 - it’s a mishmash of all sorts. I think Dance Pop will continue to be big - as mastered by Clean Bandit, Dua Lipa and Rita Ora for instance - her latest album is really catchy too if you’ve yet to hear it. And we will continue to see a significant dance-hall music style influence. I don’t see much changing technology-wise - as noted - Spotify is still King for me - and headphone and smartphone tech has sort of plateaued. I had expected to see more Multi-Media albums - sort of Beyoncé-style Video-Albums or Björk-like Apps - but really there has been nothing of note lately.

In the UK the Vinyl industry may falter this year as HMV/Fopp sadly seem to be on the brink of disappearing into the annals of history - that’s what happens when you leave hedge-funders in charge - who funnel off all the profits and saddle their ’investment vehicles’ with insurmountable debt - much as happened to BHS really. I was always bemused that much of the vinyl revival was triggered by millennial ’Album Cover Sniffers’ who did not even possess a turntable but liked to have a physical memento/prop to accompany their digital playback of their favourite artists.

So for 2019 I don’t see any seismic shifts really - it will largely be more of the same with a few new artists in the mix. My top pick for breakthrough in 2019 is Icelandic Pop Princess Glowie, aka Sara Pétursdóttir who has 2 native hits to her name already - ’No Lie’ and ’Body’, and who with her new Columbia Records / RCA contract is destined for bigger things in 2019 as far as I’m concerned - more of that later...