Music and social media

Listen to Jordan talking about music and how social media has changed the way we discover new bands.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

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Transcript

Interviewer: Hi, Jordan.

Jordan: Hi.

Interviewer: Thanks for talking to me today. Erm. What would you like to talk about?

Jordan: Today I was going to talk about music and, erm, how it's changed in terms of distribution and influence on social media in today's generation.

Interviewer: Great.

Jordan: Erm, so, I'm a big fan of music. I grew up listening to it on the radio and my mum's old CDs in the car. And, erm, it's funny how growing up you see how in today's digital age and generation, how music is distributed and shared. Erm, when I was young and my parents were young, you'd only ever hear music on the radio or on television on Top of the Pops. But nowadays, music gets shared around all the time on YouTube and Twitter and Instagram. As an artist myself, I found it really interesting how, erm, songs are going viral and acts are breaking not from a prime slot on a television show but just by, erm, music gaining heat online, getting shared around and numbers exponentially growing. Er, it's also made things very difficult because the pool's so much bigger now – everybody's doing it. Er, but, equally, you could have a hit in your bedroom as some, many people, many artists are. They have one song that goes online, a DJ ends up playing it in a club and, er, it goes viral overnight. And it's a great, and a lot of people are making a career that way, erm, which I just find really interesting. As a musician myself, I'm making a lot more of my music from a home studio because it's more accessible for a lot more people now.

Interviewer: Do you think the changes are for the better or for the worse?

Jordan: Er, I'm interested to see how it goes. I think in many ways it's a good thing because it opens lots of doors to many people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford studio time and being able to get their creativity in the best possible format it can be. But, equally, I think there are negatives to it because the opportunities are getting less and less, and people's interests and hopes for instant gratification are having a detrimental effect on the ability of making new music. Erm, there's not much time given to be able to really make your craft and sonically engage in an audience 'cause you don't have long enough, you don't have their attention long enough, for them to really listen and invest in your development.

Interviewer: Right. And what, which is your favourite platform for putting your music out?

Jordan: My favourite platform is YouTube because, erm, that's where most of my subscribers are, and what I do is every week on my channel I put out covers of my most favourite songs and the most famous artists of the songs that are doing really well. So that's how I'm able to garner more fans and subscribers over to my channel, so they can hear more of my music and through that they are able to hear my original music as well.

Interviewer: Uh huh. Do you want to mention the name of your channel in case our listeners want to subscribe?

Jordan: Sure. My channel's called JordanClarke500 [note from the LearnEnglish Team: Jordan's channel has changed to JJ Clarke], erm …

Interviewer: Clarke with an 'e'?

Jordan: Yes, it's JordanClarke (with an e) 500.

Interviewer: Ha ha.

Jordan: You'll find covers and some original material on there. And you can find out more about me. So, yeah, please check it out!

Interviewer: Great. Thanks so much, Jordan.

Jordan: Thank you.

Note from the LearnEnglish Team: since this interview was recorded, Jordan's YouTube channel has changed to JJ Clarke.

Task 1

Audio zone: Music and social media – 1

Task 2

Audio zone: Music and social media – 2

Discussion

What do you think? What are the positive and negative effects of social media on music?

Download

Worksheet96.66 KB

Language level

B2 - Upper intermediate

Topics

social media

entertainment

Although social media is an extremely fast way to distribute music songs, I assume that it has had some negative consequences. On the one hand, once a music song gets viral other music songs aren't able to reach audiences. It is because people always and only pay attention to the got viral song. On the one hand, through this phenomenon, commonly only popular music songs would be introduced. However, some social media platforms such as Instagram have specific sophisticated algorithms for providing content to their users in which people are able to receive content relating to the subjects and the categories they like.

I do agree with Jordan that social media has quite a large influence on music and its future as today's audience are quick to change their tastes what more with new artistes popping out from nowhere with new styles and music genres. The social media has almost made it affordable for almost anyone to become an instant success without having to spend mega budget on marketing and advertising thus those with low or no budget at all but with deep understanding of social media marketing could make it big if they learn how to turn a single song viral.

I think there are more positive effect than negative effect. I remember when I was teenage listening to music is luxury because buying a tape was very expensive.But now the music is everyplace inthe world. For exempler on the street, at school, at gym, at home... I like this situation.

In my view there are more positive effects than negative, before artists used to earn money by concerts, selling discs, radio and publicity. now there is a new way all the social media, people before used to record songs from the radio or download pirate music from platforms like ares or any other page on internet, now it is not necessary, you can listen "free music" on YouTube or Spotify with ads, also it is good for new artist cause they can post their songs and become viral in few hours, likewise, for people that enjoy listen and discover new music like me it is good, in few clicks I can listen top list from every part of the world.

Nowadays, social media platforms become dominant in many fields. Music is one of the areas that undergone many changes with the appearance of social media platforms. Music becomes more shared than before, Also these platforms opened the doors for many people to show their talent and then achieve fame. on the other side, the changes have some negative effects too; a lot of non-talented persons became famous and their music goes viral, therefore, this could create a loss of musical flair in the general public

I think that there are few negative points of music on social media, one of them is that there is a lot of unconstructive criticism and that makes many artists stop doing what they like. The positive is that it is easier to reach people with your music.

Jordanclarke500, is it correct?

Hello loveiseverything,

The singer's channel has changed. Please look at the transcript of the audio and you'll see that we have added a link which you can follow.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

I think that the effects caused by social media such as Instagram or youtube have of both sides, advantages and disadvantages, first one because artists at the beginning have the possibility to show their work regarding they do it and on the other hand the music industry can get more clients easier than before when people bought CDs for listening music. Finally, an enormous problem is most people don't have awareness what is the damage they caused when downloading music from sites without permission instead of buying music directly on the artist site or company that represents the artist.

I believe the social media contributes hugely on the music. Many of them are positive effective according to me. Firstly, someone may calculate whether his or her songs are successful or not. And thus he can gain more advertising budgets. In addition this, someone's coming across as a musician, all people have approximately equal conditions. I mean, if a people want to release a song album, he can easily make this. No extra cost, no studio, no agent or no Any acquinantance. As long as a good work has been done. Doesn't it have any negative features? Yes of course it has. For example, it is hard decision to select correct and quality songs for audience due to of huge numbers of 'new musicians'. You need to take a offering.