With concerts either cancelled or postponed, where are music lovers supposed to go? Has the music stopped? The music industry is not staying quiet during the pandemic, but it is changing during this pandemic.
According to Econsultancy, streaming music service Spotify’s Top 200 chart has dropped 11% to about 226 million plays in the week beginning March 13. Spotify started a COVID-19 relief project for people to tune into playlists and news podcasts to stay informed about the pandemic.
Artists have turned to Instagram live to share their music.
Rapper Swae Lee held an Instagram live which featured him performing his hits from a recording studio.
Taylor Swift’s Instagram concert saw 150,000 people tuning in live. That number of viewers set a record for the platform live streaming service.
The record would not last long.
Rapper Tory Lanes hosted his own Instagram live which reached 307,000 viewers. Lanez played hit songs by other artists and invited other performers to join his live stream. He called it “Quarantine Radio.”
In the same vein as Live Aid and Farm Aid, recording artists went online for a concert to raise money for the World Health Organization and its fight against Covid-19. This event included big names like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, John Legend, and Paul McCartney.
Christian recording artists held their own fundraiser online, called Hope Rising. The event raised money for the charity Samaritan’s Purse. It featured acts such as Newsboys, Danny Gokey, Unspoken and actor Kirk Cameron.