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Colorado artist Laura Brehm, whose music was streamed tens of millions of times in 2020, is for the first time making a living solely from streaming revenues. (Provided by Outerloop Group)
Laura Brehm strummed an acoustic guitar as a singer-songwriter before finding success as a featured vocalist on electronic dance-music tracks a gig that has brought her international work and tens of millions of plays on services such as Spotify and YouTube Music.
But even as music-streaming revenues are projected to hit $23 billion this year an increase of 50% over 2020, or $3.3 billion, according to a Statista survey the Colorado musician will see only a fraction of the money that her work generates.
New tech that allows artists to interact with superfans and turn their data into dollars promises to open long-term revenue streams
Jessie Reyez loves to text, especially with fans. Using a phone number assigned through the celebrity text-messaging startup Community and shared on her social media accounts, the singer-songwriter makes time nearly every day to have one-on-one conversations with her most dedicated supporters where they share memes and talk about their lives.
“Some really kind fans send me heartfelt messages, and we have exchanges regularly now that I have them in my favorites,” says Reyez. “Distance between humans seems to be getting larger and larger. However, being able to get directly into [fans’] text messages has been a step in making a fan more than a fan.”