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Legendary ECM Records Enters The Streaming Space

On the 14th, a short announcement went up on the ECM Records website news page, breaking the long pattern of reviews and new releases. In three succinct paragraphs, the prestigious record label announced that they would be on all major streaming platforms by the end of the month, a move that many thought would never come.

The german label, founded in 1969, has been a driving force in the advancement of jazz and classical music. As Richard Brody points out in his article on the subject, even from the beginning the ECM releases have been at the forefront of musical progression, and has managed to garner quite the collection of talented musicians such as Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, and Vijay Iyer.

But even beyond jazz, Steve Reich's classical work "Music For 18 Musicians" is widely considered one of the best modern pieces of classical music, and has garnered great following since its release. Additionally the label has a history of rerecording works from the middle ages to the mid twentieth century and releasing them at the best possible quality.

ECM Records has long been a rather exclusive platform that has taken a firm stance on digital music, preferring to publish all releases on lossless formats like records and CDs, however it appears that the times have finally caught up to them. The cited motivation for making the switch to digital is piracy, and a feeling that "It was important to make the catalogue accessible within a framework where copyrights are respected."

This evolve or die mindset is extremely real, and it has hurt many companies in recent years. Many historic labels have been forced to close their doors or evolve. EMI records died after their largest band OK GO left due to the label refusing to digital. Virgin Records UK closed in 2013, despite their history of top 20 hits and legendary releases such as Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" and "The Foust Tapes" by Foust. In the case of a label like ECM, who outputs non-mainstream music, it is extremely hard to survive, only able to rely on their dedicated fanbase.

If you are interested in their now available releases, I would recommend checking out this New Yorker article which gives some great album recommendations.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 30, 2017 at 10:18 AM

    This is interesting. Companies need to evolve to survive instead of holding the industry back. Comcast should do that with streaming instead of pushing for a Net Neutrality repeal.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DustinNovember 30, 2017 at 6:03 PM

    I had never even heard of ECM before today. From what I read, it seems like this company might become more popular in the years to come. I found the evolve or die mindset that you brought up to be pretty interesting. It is too bad that this mindset kicks out historic labels. I am interested to see where this goes. Nice job, Sam!

    ReplyDelete

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