Introducing Opus
Opus is a streaming concept that is a better reflection of the current state as well as the trajectory of music consumption & creation today.
Opus is a streaming concept that is a better reflection of the current state as well as the trajectory of music consumption & creation today. It embraces the growing popularity of song alteration and iteration. It offers flexibility in artist compensation. It rethinks the standardized organization and interface of a streaming app. It encourages exploration and deeper engagement with music and artists.
Why Opus?
Opus is a term primarily used within music. An opus is usually a large scale work, often one out of a series of compositions. A magnum opus is usually an artist’s greatest work.
Upon researching the term further, I found out it was also used in alchemy. The ‘magnum opus’ or ‘great work’ refers to the process of creating the ‘philosopher’s stone’, a mythic material with the ability to turn base metals into precious metals. What attracted me to this definition in alchemy was its distinction of the magnum opus as a process as opposed to a finished work. That a term thats now used to hail great achievements of an artist actually originates from a process was a really interesting parallel to me. My desire to represent music as constantly working through and with itself, changing and appropriating–songs are shared, remixed, sped up, slowed down, quality is diminished, sampled, re-contextualized–it felt that this was a great basis for the platform.
What is the state of the consumer’s relationship with art and artists online?
The average person has grown accustomed to paying a negligible amount monthly for access to infinite streaming services. These unlimited models may allow for profit and eventual sustainability for platforms like Spotify, who have huge amounts of invested capital, but where does this leave the artists? Their songs must reach an absurd number of streams in order to turn any meaningful profit.
With Opus, I wanted to conceptualize a hybrid streaming platform, that allows for artists to choose what music they offer to freely stream on the platform, and what content they’d prefer to charge for individually.
How will Opus Pay its artists???
Opus is a subscription based platform. This is how artists are paid per-stream for the music they allow to be freely downloaded. How are artists able to make additional money? There are multiple ways, and a lot of freedom for artists to tweak access to their music:
Artists can restrict their entire catalogs to being accessed only by monthly payment (like Patreon). However, by paying an Opus subscription, users are allowed access to a certain amount of these paywalled artists. If a user wants to support more individual artists, they just need to pay the artist whatever that additional amount is.
They can make any or all of their music pay to own.
Merch, physical releases can all be accessed through Opus.
Standing apart from predecessors
Opus doesn’t seek to replace Spotify or Apple Music. Instead, it holds a position more akin to an independent platform like bandcamp or early Soundcloud. It won’t carry music from major labels, and all content on the platform will come from independent artists.
outside of the general payment model, Opus hopes to embody the constantly changing nature and contexts of songs on the internet.
The major mechanic within the app that allows for this embodiment is Mix Mode. In Mix Mode, users can alter songs with integrated reverb, delay, hi/lo pass, speed, and crossfading adjustments. These effects can be recorded into ‘mixed’ playlists and songs. Crossfading and effects can also be applied live–if your ever playing music at a party and want to skip a song without abruptly changing it, you can fade it out by pressing and holding the crossfade button. The hope is to contain the often scattered, hard to find, altered songs (slowed + reverb, sped up) onto an easily accessible, streaming, single platform.
Artist discovery + encouraging more meaningful engagement
On Opus, there is a ‘Discovery’ mode, where one can shuffle random tiles containing artists, albums, mixes, mixed songs, and articles. This random explorative means of finding new music is heavily inspired by Are.na’s anti-algorithmic approach to suggesting content. Artists can be read about, their profiles accessed, which they can customize with images, custom song order (their most listened to song doesn’t have to be at the top of their page), and more. This randomized approach relies further on the visual output of the artists, their actual music, and the supplemental editorial material that allows for a deeper understanding of their backgrounds and contexts.
Conclusion
If you’d like to try Opus, here’s a link to the prototype! Thanks!
