Grüv

Now you can show your support for your favorite artists so they can thrive on their own. Make taking the leap for your favorite creators a little easier with Grüv. Sign-Up to our newsletter to receive rare & wonderful gems, for the musically obsessed.

https://www.gruv.me/gems

As we have discussed, the current mode of music curation follows a linear and limited model in which one-dimensional playlists are tube-fed to listeners by streaming giants and their own vested, profit-driven interests.

There is no meaningful dialogue between users and these platforms, and no opportunity for users to engage and interact with one another. Kollektivs are a direct solution to this problem, and are where Grüv comes to life.

Create your own Kollektiv today - http://app.gruv.me/

Right now Grüv can be accessed only on your desktop, but we're working hard to give you the ability to use Grüv on your mobile web browser ASAP.

http://app.gruv.me/

1. Ad Free, Youtube Experience.
   Start indexing and engaging with all your favorite videos, music, podcasts, and links by building playlists. Create or import your Youtube playlists and share them with your friends.

2. Kollektivs -Next Generation of Communities
   Kollektivs are a unique take on the playlist format in that they completely reimagine the mode of curation by combining dynamic lists of music from multiple platforms, threaded discussions, digital marketing and sales, and social sharing.

3. Discuss. Blog. Curate
   Real-time feed of everything that's happening within the Grüv network internationally. Community is everything- up or down vote on community playlists, community posts, and general discussions.

1. Discovery is important, and “recommendation” algorithms aren’t cutting it - Consumer audiences (music listeners), are increasingly dissatisfied with the “discovery” content they’re being shown (like the playlists Spotify generates, maintains, and upsells). Spotify owns over 75% of the top 1,000 playlists on the web, the most popular of which have anywhere from 5 million to 25+ million “followers,” and are typically created by a single Spotify employee. Having a single song included in one of these playlists can net an artist a six-figure streaming royalty payout for the year. It isn’t a stretch to say that platforms like Spotify get to choose who “makes it” since they’re in control of “who sees what.”

2. Users value quality over quantity - 83% of consumers surveyed state that they’d rather be shown less content if it meant it was more engaging or personalized. Of that 83%, an overwhelming 90% feel that other people would be the best source for recommendations. Listeners would prefer to have communities of other humans suggesting and curating content for them, and even “casual” music listeners are strongly interested in exploring new, non-mainstream artists and music. They trust real fans more than they trust platforms and algorithms.

3. There’s too much content in too many places - Two thirds of those surveyed confirmed that they interact with at least 2 platforms in order to listen to - or learn about - new music, and 80% would prefer to use a single platform that includes or aggregates content and information from multiple platforms into a single place.

4. The “buying” experience isn’t fun (or easy) - Consumers have to wait in line (or wait online) to buy merchandise. Often, that merchandise either sells out or they never find out that it even went on sale (t-shirts, vinyl, limited releases, exclusive offers from artists, and especially concert tickets). 71% of consumers we surveyed said that they’d be more likely to buy tickets or merchandise if they could pre-pay and skip waiting.

5. Consumers would rather buy from artists - Buying merchandise, music, and concert tickets has traditionally taken place through 3rd parties, retailers, or resellers, and these experiences alienate and divide creators from their consumers (the fans and listeners). Direct patronage works: 82% of those surveyed stated that they’d prefer to buy directly from the artist.

Currently, artists are required to invest their time, resources, and money up-front when producing and selling merchandise and physical recordings, without the appropriate data to estimate sales. The same applies to booking performances or tours and selling tickets. Most venues in major music cities around the world are “pay to play.” That means that artists have to spend what little money they have, again up-front, to book their show with the venue, and are left with the burden of selling enough tickets to cover that booking cost. This is, by definition, gambling.

There are two primary economic factors at the heart of this problem:

Demand is unknown - Not only do artists lack useful data on their fragmented audiences, they also lack a platform where they can conveniently le verage that data to communicate or interact directly with their audiences (hence resorting to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and email).

There are no Price Discrimination mechanisms - If understanding demand answers the “how many people are willing to pay?” question, then price discrimination for artists answers the question of “how much are they willing to pay?” More than 80% of artists we’ve surveyed state that they don’t know how much their audience or fans would be willing to pay for a t-shirt, a vinyl press, or a concert ticket. When we asked them to explain how they go about setting their prices, the overwhelming response was: “I just kinda guess, and if I’m wrong, I usually lose money...which is most of the time.”

Artists function like any other business. They produce a product or service and sell it to their interested market. However, the gatekeeping of the music-industrial complex prevents non-mainstream artists from making sales or accessing relevant and actionable data, therefore upholding the vinyl ceiling and concentrating wealth at the top of the hierarchy. In the digital age, we have the power to leverage fragmented consumer bases to dismantle this system and make music a viable business for the most important stakeholders: the artists themselves.

Vinyl Ceiling — noun : A metaphor used to describe the barriers which keep independent and non-mainstream music artists from achieving success within the music-industrial complex’s dominating hierarchies. Includes barriers to sales, binding contracts, excessive middlemen and levels of bureaucracy, limited access to capital and information, exploitative streaming practices, etc.

Online streaming has become the primary discovery and distribution mechanism for musicians and artists. For listeners, it is the primary mode of music consumption. In 2019, streaming accounts for 80% of the music industry’s revenue, and is projected to generate $13 Billion by the end of this year. You would think that this is great news for artists since their music is making lots of money. Right?

We have spent over a year researching the music economy, markets and landscape to understand the problems faced by artists and listeners.

What we have gathered is a need to reorganize the music food chain, which follows an antiquated system of hierarchies, middlemen, contracts, labels, and other relics of a bygone era. While this is awesome for record companies and producers, most artists and listeners are left by the wayside, unable to penetrate the vinyl ceiling that prohibits discovery, sales, engagement, and other key factors of success.