• Latin Grammy Rosalía: "If a song with sexual content still creates conversation, it is that they have to continue making more songs like this"

  • Industria Dellafuente, Hoke, Beny Jr and the anti-marketing stars: succeed without going through the hoops of the music industry

Listening to more than 20 hours of music a week would be unthinkable just a decade ago, but it is now the average consumption in the world, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

And it is that

our relationship with music has strengthened, by far, in recent years

.

But it has also been changing and adapting to continue working.

And so it will, too, in the new year.

One year for stabilization

After two very difficult years, it seems that the music industry

will finally be able to take 2023, shake it up, and turn it into a cocktail

that, although it may not taste glorious, at least works.

Of course, many may not know how to make it.

"It is a year of transition, to be clear about the movements, trying to minimize the risks, and to work thinking about the future," says

Javier Arnáiz, director of Mad Cool

.

After the notorious setbacks experienced in 2022, many eyes will be precisely on the boom in the live music offer that is coming.

"There is going to be a great proliferation of festivals, which will also coexist with the formats that have arisen in the pandemic, such as cycles, which can lead to a possible saturation of offer," he says.

Tali Carreto, director of Monkey Week

.

Whether or not there will be enough public for such an event will be key, but not the only thing.

Professionalization and experience will define their survival, making 2023 the year of consecration or the final thrust of many of the national musical events.

Streaming, the rise of an increasingly personalized experience

The 'here and now' will once again mark the way we listen to music, with increasingly voracious and immediate consumption, which will make 'streaming' continue to be king,

even exceeding the 32% of music consumption it represents currently

, according to IFPI.

And everything indicates that it will continue to grow both in number of daily users and subscribers.

And that the latter already exceed 616 million people worldwide, with

Spotify leading the ranking on a global scale

.

Something that seems that, for the moment, it will not change, although its operation will.

"In 2023 we will see how personalization in the user experience will be key for both artists, fans and the industry. And one of our goals is to make it increasingly interactive",

emphasizes Melanie Parejo, Head of Music for the Southern Europe on Spotify

.

A trend to which is also added the growth of other types of consumption via streaming.

And it is that music and video will go hand in hand even more in 2023, promoting each other through long video streaming

, which already occupies the second position in music consumption, the rise of short video platforms such as Tiktok and the consumption of music on social networks

From 'hit' to 'hit', from 'playlist' to 'playlist'

Songs with a short life, but intense, await us, like many of the great stars that we continue to remember, although in this case the vast majority will not go beyond leaving a fleeting flash.

Short duration 'Hits'

(only 3 of the 10 most listened to on Spotify in 2022 are longer than 3 minutes)

that we will discover largely thanks to the 'playlists' and algorithm recommendations.

And it is that, as Carreto affirms, "the media are losing their prescriptive force in the face of the algorithm and people are stopping actively searching, leading to a much more passive musical criterion".

We gobble up what we're given, but we don't seem to care too much about this force-feeding.

A reality that next year will not only condition the way we discover or consume music, but also the way we compose and promote it.

And although the concept of a record as such will not die, everything points to the fact that "releasing singles will continue to be a trend, because it is also a way to retain the loyalty of a fan

who continues to seek this type of more immediate consumption," says Carlos Galán. , CEO and founder of Subterfuge Records.

Towards a more open sound, without norms or prejudices

And what will those 2023 hits sound like?

Fortunately, the genre police, accustomed to questioning the integrity of an artist based on absurd pre-established limits, will now be completely out of service

.

The combination of styles, the disappearance of its borders and sound experimentation will mark the sound of 2023

.

Will it be the year of the death of the 'gender3' concept as we have known it up to now?

The truth is that "we are moving towards a more open world, with artists and festivals without a clear genre, since this delimitation is increasingly obsolete," says

Luis Fernández, CEO of Sonido Muchacho and A&R Universal Music

.

A movement that could take us to a very rich period on an artistic level.

Of course, no one doubts that in 2023 the hips of half the world will continue to move to the rhythm of urban and Latin music.

A market in which Spanish artists seem to have a lot to say next year.

"This is going in cycles and now it's Spain's turn, with national artists, more exportable, who are in the eye of all of Latin America,"

says César Lores, director of ADA Iberia.

Musicians who will probably also flirt with different sounds and perhaps even with some of the sound trends that seem to grow in the coming year, such as electronic music and its hardest version: techno.

Sounds that will coexist with the return of great hits from bygone eras, a trend promoted by the record companies themselves, fiction and by platforms such as TikTok.

TikTok will set the pace in 2023

From observing her only out of the corner of her eye, and even with a certain mockery, to becoming the pretty girl in the sector.

If there is a platform that consumers, artists, managers and record companies will be looking at more than ever next year, it will be TikTok

, since it will not only grow faster than any other in number of users (it is expected to reach 2,000 million in 2024), but it could also completely change the rules of the game in the sector.

TiKtok is going to be the place to discover new music, as well as rediscover past hits.

And the little phrase "it's a thing for young people" will no longer be associated with the platform, since it will be more and more an intergenerational trend.

In addition,

it will position itself as the showcase chosen by a large majority of artists

to promote themselves, especially emerging ones.

"It will be the place to find new talent and that is something that many are already knowing how to take advantage of to have a career of growth, becoming a clear trend," says Lores.

In addition to its prescriptive force, "and being the place where more new things will happen, it will also be a platform where music is consumed and they will know how to monetize it"

, says Fernández, referring to this possible change in business model of TikTok that keeps the entire music industry attentive.

The metaverse will have to wait

Concerts yes, but in person.

Despite the fact that we already know many experiences in this virtual world, most experts agree that it will not yet be professionalized for next year, especially in the case of Spain.

It is soon, but it is clear to everyone that the real and massive leap into the metaverse will eventually arrive.

Whether or not those virtual concerts will remove us the same inside... is another story.

Because a concert, moreover, is not only what happens on stage, whose sensation will be very difficult to match, but also the joint live experience, in person.

Who knows if we might be surprised in the future, strange as it may seem, even missing the stifling heat of the crowd, the pogos and shoving left and right and even the breath on the neck of the first rows.

Could.

What is clear is that for the moment 2023 will be a year of development, of trial and error, towards the new experience of the future.

And it will not be the only virtual trend, since the NFT's market in the music industry

is also expected to continue to grow.

"They have been active for years now and will serve not only to generate business, but also to generate a fan community around the artist," adds Carreto.

One more proof of how the weight of the physical begins to blur, or to be repositioned, around the virtual world that is to come

.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • music