TOPLINE
PANORAMA: COURTESY OF GOLDENVOICE/NIKKI JAHANFOROUZ. RENDERINGS (2): COURTESY OF OPIATS. BRYAN: JOHN SHEARER/GETTY IMAGES.Is Virtual Reality DOA?
T
HE PHONE IN MY HOTEL
room rang. It was 3:30 a.m.
“Hello?” “Drake wants to do
more VR.”
Hours prior, the artist had entered
virtual reality for the first time. Now,
curious and captivated, he was back for
more. For several
hours, we traveled
realms ranging
from an animated,
robot-infested
urban dystopia to a
Hollywood stage,
watching whales
breach and shooting
threes, all from a
London hotel suite.
During my year
on the front line of
VR leading music-
vertical development
for Facebook’s
Oculus VR, I met with dozens of artist
camps eager to explore the technology.
Samsung released its first mobile-
phone-enabled Gear VR goggles
for less than $100 in late 2015, and
investors poured $2.3 billion into VR/
AR in 2016, according to Digi-Capital.
The music industry was abuzz with the
possibilities: Was VR the revenue stream
that could lift a reanimated music
business to new heights? But a number
of hurdles quickly emerged that have
stalled the anticipated VR revolution the
industry had envisioned.Perhaps the greatest challenge has
been the value proposition. For artists
looking to reach the most fans, VR’s
audience — roughly 8 million mobile
and tethered PC headsets — is dwarfed
by more mature channels, and quick
payoff isn’t a sure thing. And artists,
sometimes seen as
unreliable by other
industries, have
had a difficult time
convincing business
partners to get, and
stay, onboard.
Still, there’s hope.
Jaunt VR’s first
Paul McCartney
experiences, which
project the viewer
onstage and in
the studio with
him, are among
its most popular.
Gorillaz’s Saturnz Barz (Spirit House)
propels fans through an intergalactic
cartoonscape with talking pizzas and
psychedelic Reptilia, and is Google’s
most-watched 360 video ever. Live
Nation and Hulu’s ON STAGE with Lil
Wayne and Major Lazer is Hulu’s
most-viewed VR series to date.
Despite the delay, the opportunity to
create great content and serve the artists
and audiences of tomorrow is real today.
Take the call in the middle of the night
so that we might see the sun rise on our
new, most potent medium.BY CHRIS MCGARRY
Oculus’ former music strategist on the long-awaited revolution
In a streaming world, one of the industry’s most
traditionally dominant genres struggles to keep upDuring the last week of August, Sony Nashville chairman/
CEO Randy Goodman and executive vp/COO Ken Robold will visit
Amazon’s, Spotify’s and Apple’s U.S. headquarters to tout the
label’s fourth-quarter release slate. Also on the agenda: how
to convert lagging country consumers to streaming.
Though country music accounted for 11.5 percent of all
albums and track-equivalent albums sold in the United States
during the first half of 2017, it made up only 5.6 percent
of total on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music. On
Nielsen’s top streaming artist tally for 2016, the highest-
ranking country act was Luke Bryan, at No. 35 with 894 million
streams — less than one-seventh of No. 1 Drake’s 6.8 billion.
“We have to far outpace the growth of the industry to get
our numbers up there,” says Robold. “Every marketing plan
has some element of, ‘How do we educate the consumer on
streaming?’ We’re maniacally focused on it.”
That urgency has increased of late. In 2016, streaming
totaled 51 percent of recorded-music revenue, according to
the RIAA, marking the first time streaming had surpassed
combined digital and physical sales. But country listeners
have not kept pace with their pop and hip-hop counterparts,
because they skew older and traditionally have been resistant
to switching to new delivery systems, say label executives.
Universal Music Group Nashville chairman/CEO Mike Dungan
is confident that country fans will eventually catch up, but
he also fears that “it’s going to be tough in the short term.
I worry that for one or two years [the genre] could be caught
with not enough money coming in from streaming and the loss of
money from the physical and [download] side.”
Meanwhile, newcomers like Kane Brown, already one of
Sony Nashville’s most-streamed artists despite releasing
only three singles, have helped boost the format to almost
40 percent of the label’s revenue, says Robold.
Labels are looking at myriad ways to bolster the numbers.
With so many country fans already using Amazon Prime, Robold
says Amazon Music is a likely growth area. “We’ve been
focused on making country fans feel at home on Amazon Music,
whether it’s having the exclusive rights to Garth Brooks’
catalog, promoting up-and-coming country artists like Levon
or sponsoring the CMA Music Fest,” says Amazon Music vice
president Steve Boom. The results are
beginning to show: For the week ending
Aug. 14, 27 country songs were among
Amazon’s overall top 50 tracks.
Many, too, herald Spotify’s Hot
Country playlist, curated by head of
country music John Marks, as a driver
in attracting new listeners. With almost
4 million followers, it is Spotify’s
fifth-largest playlist worldwide,
says Marks. And Pandora, like
Apple, Spotify and Amazon, has
offices in Nashville.
Streaming services are
also wooing country offline:
Spotify ran a TV commercial
featuring Tim McGraw and
Faith Hill in the spring,
while Apple Music debuted a
Brantley Gilbert ad in July.
“More and more people are
going to get smartphones
and realize they can have
all the Kenny Chesney music
they want for $10 a month,”
says Robold, referencing
country’s older fans.
“We’re not giving up
on them.”BY MELINDA NEWMAN
Renderings of Drake’s unreleased VR
mansion experience, Drizzy Manor.COUNTRY MUSIC TRIES
TO CLOSE THE GAPBryanMicrodose’s VR
at Goldenvoice’s
Panorama
Festival in July.20 BILLBOARD | SEPTEMBER 2, 2017