Late last year Billboard magazine revamped its genre-specific charts (Hot Country Songs, Rap Songs, Hot Rock Songs) by applying the same Internet-friendly methods for determining a song’s popularity that it had been using for its Hot 100 and On-Demand Songs charts since March: the data used in rankings was expanded to include digital streams or downloads alongside radio plays or record sales. It was a timely if not overdue move from the curators of the charts that set the industry standard for judging a record’s success—traditional metrics haven’t accurately reflected real-world music consumption for a while, and right now YouTube views are just as important as spins on terrestrial radio.
What they all have in common is that they don’t cost anything to stream or even download. Users with accounts at DatPiff or LiveMixtapes can download mixtapes more efficiently than those without, but getting an account doesn’t cost any money. And if you don’t have one, the highest price you’ll pay for even the biggest releases is to share the fact that you’re downloading them with your Twitter or Facebook networks through a widget that the site provides.
And when labels do knock, some artists don’t answer. Benros points to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as an example—after building a massive fan base online, they contracted with a subsidiary of Warner Brothers (the Alternative Distribution Alliance) to distribute and promote their album The Heist, but otherwise kept the record and its profits to themselves. Benros thinks that the mixtape could eventually replace label deals altogether “if artists are smart enough.” As record sales become increasingly irrelevant to a musician’s bottom line, it’s starting to make more sense to dispense with selling records altogether.
