Inside Lume: The new platform giving artists more control and more revenue

If you're somewhat involved with music in Aotearoa, you may have heard about a new digital album-like product hitting the market in the not too distant future. You may have also heard it pitched as a shift for artists, opening fresh ways to earn in an industry that is becoming more and more challenging. Maybe you read that it has backing from Lorde, likely our biggest music success story, and Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie to name but a few.

I mean, this all sounds pretty great. But once you cut the mustard, the big question is - what is it, and why should artists care?

Cue Duncan Greive. Best known as the founder of The Spinoff, he’s now deep in the build of Lume, the platform behind all this noise. We put our questions to him to get a better sense of what Lume is trying to do, where it fits, and if it can really shift the way artists release music.

Please tell us in simple terms, what exactly is a Lume?

A Lume is essentially a digital version of a box set or deluxe edition. So you get the core album, but you get other exclusive material too. That could be demos, acoustic versions, voice notes or behind-the-scenes video and photography. You access it through a beautifully designed app which retains a lot of the functionality of streaming – but (and this is crucial) it's not a subscription paradigm. It's a "buy it once, own it forever" approach – which aims to revive the notion of a collection as something which represents you and your favourite albums. And because 80% of net revenue goes to artists and their partners, the audience knows that as an individual they're meaningfully supporting the artist in a way streaming never can.

I have many fond memories flipping through lyric sheets and pull outs from CD's and vinyl releases over the years. Do you envision a Lume being able to provide that same type of fan to artist connection?

This is exactly the feeling we're looking to recreate. Expanded artwork, handwritten lyrics, contextual material which could be interviews or podcast appearances. Anything the artist has rights to and thinks helps reveal the "world of an album".

Beyond providing another platform for artist content, it seems Lume has the potential to enable artists to monetise their work outside of traditional revenue sources. Is this a key driver in what you're doing?

Honestly this is the biggest motivator for us. We want artists and audiences to have a way of engaging that is built around the album cycle cadence, and allows audiences to support artists that they care about, and in return get access to music and other material in an environment which has a really different cultural dynamic than the hyper-competitive, algorithm-optimised world of social and streaming. 

Why is now the right time for this?

Because the general feeling towards big tech, social and streaming (let alone AI) has never been more hostile, particularly amongst serious music fans. Most people want less time on their phones, and the rise of the Brick and revival of physical media and iPods shows that culturally people are trying to find a different way to engage with music. We're betting that what we've built more closely resembles the way many people want to engage with music through their phones, and that the sense of meaningful support for artists will make people feel very different about engaging with an artist through Lume vs through streaming platforms.

For artists looking to create a Lume in future, what should they be thinking about in terms of capturing content as they're writing, recording, performing etc?

Great question! We think that capturing and filing demos or voice notes is a great place to start. Setting up a phone to video the first takes of a song, or making sure to hang on to handwritten lyrics. Basically, as you're working, think about what your fans (specifically) would find fascinating about the process. And remember that it goes to a private, paywalled audience of true believers, rather than onto the public social web.

How does Lume support artists with the execution of their content? Eg, pulling all the snippets together into a cohesive form...

As of now, we take delivery through G Drive or Dropbox, and we put a Lume together, with artists then approving a draft. In future we will launch a standalone artist / label / distributor-facing app which will allow those entities to create their own Lumes. Some will be small and very deliberate, others more of a deep well to trawl through. It's about creating an open world which artists can make their own.

Is a Lume something that could sit alongside a release in a DSP in future, or will it always be a standalone thing?

We defer to artists on this. Most will continue to use DSPs, and in future you might even be able to listen to Lumes through a DSP. But some others will view DSPs as a place for singles, and reserve their albums for Lume. Essentially it's each to their own – artists, labels and distributors are best-placed to figure out how Lume works.

Looking ahead - what would you like to achieve with Lume?

We would love to think that Lume represents the beginning of a revival in relevance for the album. Not as a promotional hook for a tour or singles, but as a profound piece of work in its own right. And that in 5 or 10 years far more artists will be able to live and work based on their recorded music, and that will be because their audiences make this possible.

Check it out here.