The discussion was led by Billboard’s SVP of content, Mike Bruno, and also featured singer-songwriter Bridgit Mendler, C3 founder Charles Attal and Latin artist Residente.
“Digital Revolution: A Look at Music’s New Frontier” may have been the name of the Wednesday's (March 15) SXSW panel moderated by Billboard’s SVP of content, Mike Bruno, but the actual conversation didn’t focus on digital strategy only.
The discussion was led by an an active panel of industry veterans in all arenas, from artists to management to festival bookers, with subjects weaving through many of the modern music industry's main themes and talking points. Those areas explored included releasing albums as songs or all at once, the changing culture of music festivals and whether pop and hip-hop music is dominating because of the era or if the era is defined by those genres, to name a few.
The biggest draw for the nearly full room was rapper A$AP Ferg, but by no means did he dominate the discussion: singer-songwriter Bridgit Mendler spoke at length about challenges she faces and strategy she employs, including creating online playlists based on her songs; C3 founder Charles Attal discussed how AR and VR are affecting festival culture, mentioning that artists who are directly involved with creative promotion often are the ones who get more attention from organizers like himself; The Chainsmokers manager Adam Alpert discussed breaking artists who aren’t ready for album-length statements by releasing songs once a month; and Latin artist Residente broke down radio-play strategy, bemoaning traditional promotion models as outdated and dishonest.
