🔵 Why The Quietus may still have its finest hours ahead of it

The music website that continues to endure as a beacon of great journalism, and which might finally be rewarded accordingly

I've been a fan of The Quietus for as long as I've been running Motive Unknown (ie. nearly 13 years now), which, I think, is only marginally longer than The Quietus itself has been in existence.

As a music website, The Quietus (henceforth abbreviated to 'tQ') has managed what few others have in the 13+ years since it launched: survival. I put most of that down to dogged perseverance on the part of the site's founders, Luke Turner and John Doran, who have stubbornly refused to give up and walk away when many others would have long since caved in.

Equally though, with a business hat on it is worth noting that another reason for the continued existence of tQ may well be that they never took major investment or sold out to larger corporate interests, who, in time, might have decided that the site was not profitable enough to continue running.

That's not to say that the website has not faced innumerable challenges along the way; frankly I remain somewhat amazed that it has continued to survive, like a kind of Keith Richards of modern music journalism. Times have been hard, and perhaps the most notable signpost to that is the fact that the the website itself remains rather outdated, design wise, and at points has felt like something running largely on life support, at points failing, at others just taking a good while to load at all.

Music websites have, for the most part, died out. Pitchfork’s merger into men’s mag GQ was arguably the final signpost of that, reflecting the death of a model wherein ad revenues were expected to keep the lights on. Certainly if you look at any peers of tQ when it first launched, most if not all have died out, or changed massively in between times.

The announcement this week then that tQ was about to launch an all-new website was a real moment of positivity amid arguably bleak times for the music ecosystem.

In some respects, The Quietus tracks a similar path to the Rough Trade shops, which managed to survive a near apocalypse of physical product through the 2010s and which is positively thriving in 2024, with more stores than ever in the UK, and a new European operation also now rolling out.

These are the glimmers of hope for the music ecosystem. Rough Trade shows how bricks and mortar stores can survive, and I sincerely feel The Quietus is shaping up the same way in the realm of music journalism.

Consider the age of tQ’s website, and the sheer volume of its archives. Whenever I discover a new artist, I often search its website and inevitably the artist has either been interviewed or reviewed in some manner. Cardiacs are a recent example, and - well, just look at how many articles there are. Also worth mentioning is that the quality of writing on tQ remains among the best out there. Two of its writers, JR Moores and Harry Sword, have respectively written two of my favourite books about music ever - and god knows, I read too many books about music.

My point is that tQ's website is a massive cultural archive of independent music writing in 2024, and finally the tides might be turning such that the site can really capitalise on that.

I wanted to spend some time just reflecting how a site/business like tQ might thrive in future, and as I’d argue those thoughts are applicable to any other music website too, I wanted to share them here.

Imagine putting AI to good use to crawl through tQ’s vast archive of articles and index them all, tagging them with things like the artist name and the album being written about. That would give you structured, useful data. Now imagine if DSPs like Apple Music or Spotify paid sites like tQ to have access to that data feed to further enrich their own site/app experiences.

Imagine looking up a band and finding not just merch and tour dates, but articles with small samples before providing a click out to learn more.

Monies (and traffic) could flow back to the websites in question. The on-site (or in-app) experience on DSPs could be all the greater, finally reuniting music with the stories and context around the albums and singles, providing more reasons to feel invested in and connected to the bands or artists in question.

Equally, a site like tQ could also release anthologies (as it has in the past) of its finest writing as books, or upsell those direct to readers as ebooks compatible with Kindle or other e-readers.

As Substack is proving too, subscriptions are always possible, and the best music writers are already benefitting accordingly from this approach. However on a per-writer basis, that has logical limitations. A music website as an aggregator of great journalism on the other hand, does not. This is something tQ has long realised however, and it does now offer an excellent subscription system with multiple tiers. If you are a label or business in music, why not take out a sub? As a business cost, it is small in the grand scheme, but these numbers all add up if you’re the website in question.

My point here is that there are ways in which music websites could generate revenues beyond simply running on-site ads. I’d invest in tQ, if I could, and that’s not a statement I make lightly. I honestly believe that it is a fertile business that now stands every chance of being more successful than ever, and without compromising anything along the way.

This is the music ecosystem we need; one where editorial thrives, as does the experiential side (e.g. small live venues) and the consumption side (i.e. via more than just streaming).

It might all sound naive or hopelessly romantic, but in truth, all signs show that people are now seeking more gatekeepers, more filters, more humanity and less algorithmic media to enjoy.

If that is right - and I believe it is - then The Quietus is surely due it’s finest era yet, and that gives me real hope for the future.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “Acidman” by Hudson’s Choice & Franc Spangler. A friend recommended this gem to me, and I’m glad he did. It’s a loping acid-infused groove of a track. Catchy as hell and perfect for a day like today (sunny, for once, here in London!). I gather the artist is an alias for Jimpster

📺 watching “Steve Albini On The Music Industry”. I was so sad to hear of Albini’s death yesterday; 61 is too soon to go. I don’t think I need to relate the long, LONG list of great things Albini did, but this clip always stuck with me as a blunt summary of the realities of the music business. The Quietus, unsurprisingly, has a terrific piece in memoriam.

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Stories from the Music Industry:

Universal Music Group sees a future where 1 in 5 streamers pays for a ‘super-premium’ tier (and 3 other things we learned from UMG’s Q1 earnings call)

Nash also said that UMG’s “research suggests that [it] could be in the range of 10% to 20% of the subscriber base [that] could be the target market for a higher-value, higher-priced subscription tier.” Commenting further on the superfan opportunity, Sir Lucian Grainge added: “The DNA of the company is product, product, product. Artists, talent rights. That’s where our investment is, in rights and products that will accelerate what our research is with the DSPs as partners.

👆🏻Hot take: a great article from MBW here. What’s interesting to me is the shift in language; Lucian Grainge refers to “product, product, product”, not “music, music, music”. A sign, if one was needed, of Universal’s wider ambitions here. Artists, beware.

Music fans share backlash as Apple destroys vintage instruments in "tone-deaf", "ugly and dystopian" new ad for iPad Pro

The advert was shared by company CEO Tim Cook and features vintage, guitars, pianos, trumpets, and metronomes, as well as turntables, speakers, and arcade games being crushed to a soundtrack of Sonny and Cher‘s ‘All I Need Is You’. Fans have flocked to social media to share their outrage at the advert. “Can’t recall the last time I saw a promo that so immediately and completely turned me against the product it was supposed to be selling,” one wrote.

👆🏻Hot take: a rare but howling mis-step here from Apple. This tweet says it better than I could: “The very existence of this ad⁠—all the hoops it had to go through in its creation before getting to the point where it was personally promoted by this CEO, all the people who thought 'yes, this is good'—says more than thousands of words could about how tech sees the world.”

Concord bows out of Hipgnosis bidding war, saying its $1.51bn offer is ‘final and will not be increased’

Concord did not disclose its reasons for stepping aside. Its final offer contained a clause that if it won the takeover battle, it would resell around 30% of HSF’s catalog within 24 months after the acquisition. The Hipgnosis Songs Fund board had earlier recommended Blackstone’s offer to its shareholders, while withdrawing its previous recommendation of Concord’s $1.25-per-share offer.

👆🏻Hot take: unsurprisingly, Blackstone wins. This tale will certainly be written about in future. On the one hand, you can only admire how this was all set up. On the other, it feels amazing to me that this isn’t in some manner outlawed, as it’s like the deck of cards was loaded from day one.

Live Nation says forcing it to sell Ticketmaster would not be ‘legally permissible,’ and 3 other things we learned on the company’s latest earnings call

For one thing, Berchtold said, the DoJ’s investigation isn’t about concerns that Live Nation (a concert promotion business) and Ticketmaster (a ticketing business) are part of the same company. Rather, they’re focused on what these businesses are doing, independent of each other. “As we’ve previously stated, the DOJ’s investigation appears to be focused on specific business practices, not the legality of Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger or our overall business structure,” Berchtold told analysts on the call.

👆🏻Hot take: a good attempt from Live Nation to control the narrative here, but I still feel the over-arching negative sentiment towards this Live Nation will ultimately see it forced to make major changes or divestments.

Spotify quietly locks lyrics behind paywall in bid to convert free users to paying subs

In another attempt seemingly aimed at pushing more users towards its Premium subscription service, Spotify has begun restricting access to song lyrics on its free tier. While Spotify hasn’t issued an official announcement, the company did confirm to TechCrunch that features can vary over time, between markets and across devices.

👆🏻Hot take: this just makes sense to me. Why not keep certain features back for premium users?

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Notable stories from the world of tech:

Amazon Prime Video ads are about to get more intrusive

On Tuesday, Amazon announced it will roll out three new ad formats for Prime Video later this year to tempt subscribers to purchase promoted items while watching content. Shoppable carousels will soon appear during ad breaks in shows and movies that present viewers with a “sliding lineup” of products they can buy on Amazon.

👆🏻Hot take: the enshittification continues. I’m noticing more ads in general on the Prime TV platform now, but I suspect Amazon know full well they could push a fair few more ads into homes before users consider quitting.

Meta, Spotify 'break' Apple's device fingerprinting rules

According to developers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk, several major app makers are simply ignoring Apple's requirements, and using tracker-happy APIs without sticking to the rules. Big Tech players like Google, Meta, and Spotify - the duo claim - are providing reasons for this API usage, collecting that data, and then not abiding by the requirement to keep that information on the device. In other words, Google, Meta, and Spotify are all collecting at least some info from these APIs and then sending that data off-device seemingly against Apple's rules, we're told.

👆🏻Hot take: if true, this is quite a shock. Consider how much Spotify is looking to build its ad business and the motivation for moves like this are clear. Not great, and something Apple should address IMO.

Jack Dorsey quits Bluesky board and urges users to stay on Elon Musk’s X

Dorsey was initially an active user and after Musk’s acquisition of Twitter a wave of users joined Bluesky. In September, Dorsey deleted his Bluesky account entirely. On Saturday, he announced a donation of $5m (£4m) to the crypto-adjacent social network Nostr, as part of a $21m donation from his #startsmall charity.

👆🏻Hot take: honestly I think if this proves anything it is that social networks are coming unstuck, and ultimately might fall apart. Dorsey hopping from X to Bluesky to, now, Nostr speaks volumes.

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Looking for something else to read? Here you go:

The Revenge of the Home Page

As social networks become less reliable distributors of the news, consumers of digital journalism are seeking out an older form of online real estate.

👆🏻Hot take: this is a fine companion read to my comments about The Quietus above. I think it’s debatable whether websites and home pages are making a comeback (did they ever go away?) but certainly the direct hits to them suggest their value is rising once more. Take note, artists!

I Read Everything Elon Musk Posted for a Week. Send Help.

If your media diet looked like his, you’d be red-pilled too.

👆🏻Hot take: good grief. If you want an insight into why Musk is now batshit crazy, look no further than this piece.

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