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YouTube first came to our screens in February 2005, founded in California in the United States. The site is known as the world’s most popular online video platform, with millions of people using the site to upload their own content as well as enjoying the features on offer. The platform allows musicians to distribute their music and therefore gain exposure and popularity in the music world. With 300 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute and approximately 1.3 billion users, there is definitely a lot to talk about.

Personally, I use YouTube to watch new music videos from my favourite artists, to listen to songs that are not available on other streaming sites and to watch vlog channels such as The Nasey Family.As YouTube offers so much content in one place, you can find a new artist or vlog channel almost every day, its a never ending cycle as there is always something to watch. Through a poll conducted on the Sounds Like Streaming Twitter page, 50% of those involved said that they mainly use YouTube to watch vlog channels and 25% said that they use the site to watch music videos. As streaming sites are available free of charge as well, people are more likely to use these sites on the go, for example I use Spotify at the gym and have a gym playlist as I would not really watch music videos in the gym. However I do use fitness tutorial videos from YouTube channels, a benefit of YouTube as it offers not only music based content. Streaming services and YouTube can work together hand in hand and both be used for different purposes.

A Positive Platform

The site has been used by aspiring stars to post videos of themselves singing in order to share their talent with the world. We’ve all heard of Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes and The Weeknd, right? They are household names and extremely popular in the music industry. They all had to start somewhere and where did they begin their journey? YouTube. Through the power of the internet and streaming, these small, unknown artists were able to gain significant popularity.

Unlike most streaming services covered in recent weeks such as Spotify, many artists share music videos via YouTube to accompany new releases. This element can be exciting and enables fans to interact with their favourite artists in an interesting and diverse way, creating a strong fanbase. Every popular artist has a YouTube channel and would not really think about releasing new music without the site being involved in the release in some way, whether this be through a music video or campaign. Fans can interact with each other through the content shared on YouTube and voice their opinions and feelings.

YouTube is not only a video sharing platform, but also offers users a streaming service format with YouTube Music. The app, launched in November 2015, offers both a free of charge and a paid for premium service. The introduction of a YouTube based music streaming platform was inevitable really and was always going to happen. Streaming is the present and the future of the music sharing industry whether we like it or not.

 

Success story or a slump?

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Is YouTube really all it seems to be? Well, there are definite downsides of the digitalisation of all aspects of the present music industry and YouTube clearly contributes to this. There seems to be a constant ‘war’ between the platform and the music industry as record labels have become unsatisfied with the ‘relatively small’ fees that YouTube pay for music videos, compared to that of streaming services. Money is a huge issue that is always being spoken about in the music world and it probably won’t ever not be an issue. In 2016 it was revealed that artists had earned more from vinyl sales than payments from music video viewings via YouTube. This suggests that YouTube are taking advantage of artists and not sharing a fair profit from the advertising used around music videos.

 

So… has YouTube changed the music industry and how we stream videos/listen to music? 

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Of course YouTube has definitely changed the music industry and has given our generation a new platform to share and stream videos, a site with endless possibilities. But we can’t forget that although we benefit from the free accessibility of the site, artists who use the site to distribute their music may not be treated or paid fairly which is an underlying issue. Really we have a lot to owe to YouTube, 20 years ago we would never have been able to switch our phones or laptops on and open a platform with millions of videos on offer for our entertainment, music videos only being a small part of the never ending possibilities of the service. Whether it be a trending music video promoting a new album or a video explaining how to set up your new Xbox, there is no doubt that YouTube really does have it all.

I really hope you enjoyed this weeks blog, the penultimate week! Next weeks blog post will be something a little different, come back next week to find out more! Don’t forget to keep up to date with all things Sounds Like Streaming via Twitter and Instagram.