As the busy music festival season descends upon New Orleans, the New Orleans Public Library is set to release its latest lineup of artists on Crescent City Sounds, a streaming music platform the library launched in October 2022. The platform exclusively features up-and-coming local New Orleans artists and works to preserve and create a curated collection of music available to stream commercial free for all members.
The project was the brainchild of New Orleans Public Library Associate Joshua Smith, who was inspired by a similar program launched in Texas.
“I found out about Rabble, the folks who build the software, while visiting a friend in Austin,” Smith said. “He had just set up Electric Ladybird at Austin Public Library and I thought that it was super cool, and that New Orleans of all places deserved its own collection. I just felt like I needed to do something for the community after years of seeing free shows.”
Crescent City Sounds currently has a collection of 30 artists in a wide range of genres including brass band, soul, hip hop, jazz, rock and more, with an additional 50 being added from this spring’s annual call for submissions. Each artist will be featured on the platform for five years and will be paid for their non-exclusive licensing rights, according to a library press release.
“Crescent City Sounds is a way for us to spur economic development for our city’s beloved and celebrated musicians while simultaneously providing a unique service to our patrons,” Executive Director and City Librarian Emily Painton said. “New Orleans is practically synonymous with music, and we’re thrilled to be launching a free, one-stop-shop to listen to and support local artists.”
Requirements for application are two-fold: artists must have recorded music and primarily perform locally, according to Smith. Applications will be open to all local musicians each spring. Fees for the platform and artist honorariums are included in the library’s yearly budget.
The music streaming platform Rabble, based in Wisconsin, works with libraries across the country and Canada to build similar streaming collections such as PlayBack in Seattle, Tracks Music Library in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, BoomBox in Nashville, and Stacks in Pittsburgh. According to their website, Rabble’s motto is “We are developers, innovators, and humanists who believe libraries are forces for good.” The company’s open-source code works to help libraries design software and platforms that work for each community’s needs.
Music streaming technology has become an increasingly popular way to reach library patrons and new members, with the number of online music subscribers increasing during the COVID-19 pandemic’s lockdown. Listeners transitioned from radio to online streaming as time spent at home increased and drive times decreased.
According to a December 2022 report, “Digital audio streaming has taken off in a big way in the past 10 years. According to Statista’s Digital Music Outlook, the music streaming market size increased to US$30.33 billion in 2022, reaching a total of 776.2 million users.”
Smith worked with a collaborative team of curators, including music journalist and WWOZ DJ Alison Fensterstock, Jazz Museum Curator David Kunian, music consultant and ethnomusicology expert Holly Hobbs, co-founder of New Orleans-based management company MidCitizen Entertainment Tavia Osbey, and award-winning local rapper Alfred Banks.
“It was great to meet new people. It was really cool to have everyone’s background influence their choices, the team had so many good takes,” Smith said.
For New Orleans Jazz Museum Curator David Kunian, working with Crescent City Sounds and the New Orleans Public Library was a great way to connect more of New Orleans with the music that comprises the soundtrack of the city.
“The New Orleans Public Library may be the best civic and city agency,” he said. “They bend over backwards to help people find books, music, and information. Helping them to recommend local music and musicians was really fun. It was great to hear new music and discover new music with the help of the other curators. Now we can hopefully expose library patrons to more of the great music and musicians here in New Orleans and maybe make those musicians some extra money.”
In addition to music, Crescent City Sounds has a unique collection of historic concert and gig posters from Jazz Fest 1969 (and more Jazz Fest years) to a St. Augustine High School annual concert in 1977, a 1983 gospel concert featuring the Rev. James Cleveland and many more.
“The poster collection is one of my favorite aspects of this project,” Smith said. “Our starting collection is scans from posters that we had in our archives. We will accept poster images from anyone that has them. I think the posters are valuable as a sort of alternative way to track the history of the music scene. Our collection of music is all very current, but the posters give us a way to look back at the past and see who was gigging around town. It is also a nice window into venues that no longer exist. I’d really love it if we could give a glimpse into forgotten scenes like the post-punk scene that happened in the ‘80s, mostly in uptown bars that no longer exist, like Jimmy’s Music Club and Jed’s University Inn. The posters really are a good way to feel a sense of time and place even if the time is over and the place is gone. All that being said, getting current posters is also super valuable because it gives us a chance to build a real time history while we are in the midst of it.”
For Smith, the experience of putting together Crescent City Sounds has been, and continues to be, a rewarding way to connect his own love of local artists while connecting library patrons with a unique listening and learning experience.
“I hope people walk away knowing that there is more to what makes the local scene than they may think,” he said. “We are trying our best to cast the net wide and get some attention to the less widely thought of corners of the local scene.”
According to MusicalPursuits.com:
Global music subscribers surged 26.4% to 523.9 million during the COVID pandemic.
Music streaming makes up 84% of the U.S. music industry revenue.
82.1 million Americans are paid subscribers to on-demand music streaming.
Americans stream on average 75 minutes of music per day.
Most popular purchased music streaming services, according to Statista, December 2022
1. Amazon Music – 45%
2. Spotify – 40%
3. Apple Music – 40%
4. YouTube Music – 39%
5. Pandora – 25%
*Number of respondents that had purchased music Oct. 2021-Sept. 2022
