Nokia today announces the debut of its free music streaming service Nokia Music in the US. It’s a service exclusively available to Nokia Lumia handsets that provides playlists curated by Nokia’s ‘musicologists’.
Interestingly later today there will be further announcements associated with the launch that will reveal details about Nokia Music, AT&T and the band Green Day. The tie in also marks the release of Green Day’s new album trilogy Uno (the three albums being titled Uno! Dos! Tré!).
Green Day are veterans of the music scene now. Probably quite rightly a younger member of the TNW team asked, “Are Green Day still that popular?” The answer in mainstream chart popularity is probably not, though there are bound to be older fans as well as new ones. Green Day’s high times in the 90s are going to be hard to replicate in a time of music downloads and faster moving chart successes.
The music industry is still experiencing waves of upheaval through copyright battles and new options for promotion and release, but this is where Green Day appears to be working in a curious manner to get their music in front of more people through new channels.
You may remember that the band teamed up with Rovio last month to create a musical edition of Angry Birds. Good for the game, great for the band. With new cultural icons and standards arriving through digital means, this is a smart move to get tracks into the heads of game players. Those who had forgotten Green Day may be reminded of their hey-days and kids might catch on to an older band and start looking for the albums.
A partnership with a handset maker and mobile provider adds grist to the promotional mill to push the band’s presence further and get them heard in even more places.
While other acts are spending time worried about a digital revolution, it’s good to see a band taking the changes in its stride and trying to experiment with what might work for future distribution. The evolution of the music industry gets interesting when artistes move forward rather than trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Streamed tunes and no adverts
Nokia users in the US can choose from a suite of 150 exclusive playlists spanning musical genres from Detroit house to classical movements from the New York Philharmonic. Other artistes such as Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Lana del Rey are also included in the offering.
The streaming is ad free with no registration or subscription required and users can also listen to their favourite playlists offline anywhere. The offline consumption of content appears to be finally appearing on more platforms. It’s certainly appealing to users who are not always connected and we are already seeing other products offering some offline action as seen this morning with the new download service from the BBC iPlayer in the UK.
Another feature of the service is the Nokia Music ‘Gig Finder’. In a similar way to Songkick, this feature points to gigs and concerts based on user interaction with playlists and the Nokia mp3 store. It also makes use of GPS to pinpoint the location of listeners to provide performances that are not too far away.
Consumers who already own a Nokia Lumia 900 or Nokia Lumia 710 can download the Nokia Music app for free from Marketplace.
So with new methods of getting music to fans consolidating, will artistes be able to focus more on their songwriting than where best to spread their work? The market still appears to be incredibly fragmented, but each step along the way may help to find a standard for music promotion. Just have to hope that the albums are appealing enough to warrant promotion on our mobile devices.
Image Credit: Edvill
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