6 Music - Music News

2011 has been a big year for Music Technology, from social networks promoting new bands to Bjork's innovative album app.

Smartphones have become even more popular in the past year, meaning more and more music fans are using them as a way of sharing and discovering new music.

Also, HMV announced they had seen like for like sales of their technology products go up by 51% over Christmas.

So, while people might still be unsure about how much they should pay for content, what we listen to music on and through, still seems to be something we are willing to invest in.

With this in mind we've been investigating what new technologies we can expect to see in 2012.

Stuart Dredge, technology journalist for the Guardian believes artists could lead the way when it comes to developing more products:

"I think we're going to see more and more artists following in Bjork's footsteps and releasing their albums as apps. 

They might not spend quite as much money on it as Bjork because it's very ambitious but i think they will do things along the same lines." 

"Spotify has just announced it's apps platform and I think a lot of people will be building stuff on top of Spotify that will make it more interesting." Dredge continued. 

 "I think a lot of other music services will have the same thing happening.

Like, you have Facebook applications for social games, you'll have the same thing happening for streaming music."

"There are a lot of artists who have grown up with technology are now not just using it as a gimick but part of their artistic work."

At HMV they've seen trends emerging in consumer habits, leading their head of publicity, Genarro Castaldo to believe a priority for music fans is the quality of sound:

"The really big seller is headphones. There are some very major premium brands now, not least Beats by Dr Dre.

We've had the likes of Marley from the Bob Marley estate release a range recently," he explained.

"I think we've all recognised that in the digital world we live in, if we're going to have digital music then we want to enjoy in the studio quality it was intended and not some tinny little headphones."

Genaro Castaldo also told us that he believes technology will become more and more connected to the way the public consume music:  

"I think looking into the future, we can see a lot of content being built into products because the other thing we're selling a great deal of are tablets, speaker docks.

"It's that whole family of digital products and they sell really well with HMV because we've still got music film and games, he told 6 Music."

"It's not that we're trying to become a technology store it's about entertainment in all it's forms."

Musician James Blake is looking forward to the development of new plug-ins and sound effects to enhance his music:

"The thing that's exciting me most, are little effects that come out.

"They can be the sound of a new track.

"The song 'Not Long Now', started with an effects plug-in. It was this wierd accoustic feedback plug-in, which emulates accoustic feedback but to me it sounds like a whale."