Streaming music services used to be few and far between, but there are loads of options these days and each services is doing what they can to differentiate themselves. In YouTube’s case, this means strengthening their relationships with music artists, and it’s doing that by bringing on music industry veteran Lyor Cohen as the Global Head of Music for YouTube. The new position for Cohen at YouTube may end up coming with its challenges, but he aims to do as much as possible to better the standing of the relationship between tech companies and services such as YouTube Music, and the music industry that creates the content that consumers are accessing through these services, as he mentions that he is confident that he and YouTube can “bridge the worlds of technology and music that can benefit everyone.”
YouTube Music, which initially launched at the end of last year, will be a primary focus for Cohen as he tries to strengthen relationships between YouTube and the music industry artists that can be found on the platform. While there has been difficulty between streaming music services and artists in the past, according to Cohen much of that comes from a combination of misunderstanding and distrust, which is the first thing he plans to correct in his new role, stating that he will be working to help the music industry “embrace” the technological changes that are happening in music. By doing this, Cohen is confident that the distrust will disappear and that any confusion about the relationship between the two technologies will disappear along with it.
In addition to getting music artists to embrace the technology shift, Cohen also states that he’ll be helping YouTube to continue introducing new artists and songs to listeners, which should help to keep the large number of YouTube users engaged by being able to enjoy more new content. Additionally, he also plans to work towards getting the music industry to collaborate more. All of these things should help to improve the overall state of YouTube music but also in the streaming music service as a whole, which will only end up improving these services in the long run. Before coming on at YouTube, Cohen has previously worked with artists like Jay-Z, and had been a part of running Def Jam Records followed by leading Warner Music Group.