2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：音乐产业

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　The music industry

　　音乐产业

　　Beliebing in streaming

　　高举丁日的旗帜

　　Record bosses now hope that online streamingcould become a big enough business to arrest theirindustry's long decline

　　唱片公司老板们正希望线上流媒体能成为一盘足够大的生意，以阻止他们产业的长期衰退

　　AT THE headquarters of Pandora, an online-radio firm, in Oakland,

　　位于奥克兰市的Pandora总部中，

　　about a dozen headphone-clad analysts fill in a long questionnaire as they listen.

　　约有12名头戴耳机的分析员听着歌曲信息，完成着一份很长的调查清单。

　　They rank whether a song's mood is joyful or hostile, the vocalist breathy or gravelly.

　　他们会将一首歌的基调做出分类，如欢快或狂暴;同时也会对歌唱家进行分类，如气息流派或声线沙哑型。

　　They note whether they can hear electric guitars, lutes or bagpipes.

　　他们会记录一首歌曲当中是否有电吉他、琉特琴或风笛等等的乐器演奏。

　　Their ratings help to shape algorithms that push music to the service's 76m users.

　　他们的分类评级，是构成一款拥有760万名用户音乐服务的关键程序之一。

　　Pandora is in the vanguard of a revolution in which ever more consumers are streamingmusic over the internet to their smartphones or computers,

　　如今Pandora正是这样一场革命的先锋，消费者们正以前所未有的数量进入到音乐流媒体的世界当中，通过互联网这一渠道，他们不再收藏音乐，

　　instead of owning collections of songs.

　　而是直接通过自己的智能手机和电脑收听音乐。

　　For the first time since Apple popularised the paid download in 2003,

　　这是自2003年苹果公司普及付费下载模式以来，

　　the record business is changing key again.

　　唱片行业的又一次巨变。

　　From wax cylinders via vinyl, cassettes and CDs to MP3s,

　　从乙烯树脂制成的黑胶唱片，发展到了卡带和CD唱片，再到了MP3，

　　it is undergoing another format shift—maybe,

　　此行业又将面临一次音乐制式转换。

　　some in the business muse, its last.

　　而有些人沉思道，或许这是唱片行业的最后一次变革。

　　Streaming services give music-lovers access to millions of songs,

　　流媒体服务能够让音乐爱好者们接触成千上万的歌曲，

　　but the services are not all alike.

　　但这些服务类型都不尽相同。

　　Online-radio versions, including Pandora and Apple's iTunes Radio, choose what consumershear,

　　包括Pandora和苹果音乐电台在内的线上电台模式，能够为消费者们提供他们想听的音乐，

　　and the firms make their revenues through advertising.

　　并且服务商将通过广告业务实现盈利。

　　Others, such as Spotify and Deezer, let customers select songs from a catalogue of 20m-30m,charging premium subscribers a monthly fee.

　　另一方面，如声破天和Deezer的服务商，则让消费者们从200万至300万的曲目中挑选歌曲，并对高级会员收取月费。

　　Free services that stream music videos, such as YouTube, also get plenty of play.

　　一些免费的音乐录影带流媒体服务，如YouTube公司，也在市场中分到了一杯羹。

　　All the variants pay the record labels some fraction of a penny each time someone clicks ona song.

　　以上各类的音乐服务的每一次点播，都意味着需要给予唱片公司一定的报酬。

　　Streaming's rise makes music bosses as giddy as a bunch of teenage Beliebers queuing to seeJustin Bieber.

　　流媒体业务的迅猛发展，让唱片公司老板们都处于轻佻浮躁的状态当中，就像一群排队等着见丁日的丁日粉一样。

　　Yet at first glance a report on March 18th by IFPI, a record-industry group, suggests thatthings are still getting worse.

　　然而，在最初看到唱片业组织IFPI在3月18日发布的报告之时，形势不容乐观。

　　Music labels' worldwide revenues fell by 4% last year to 15 billion, a reversal of 2012'sslight rise.

　　与2012年的轻微上升截然相反，去年唱片公司全球收入为150亿美元，较往年下降了4%。

　　But much of the fall was due to Japanese consumers finally giving up on CDs, as much as therest of the world had already done.

　　但这很大程度上要归因于日本消费者的转变。他们终于放弃了对光碟产品的购买，跟上了世界其余国家早已达到了的市场态势。

　　A closer look shows that streaming services are starting to bring the business back into profitin countries that have suffered steady declines, such as Italy.

　　而进一步细究可知，在一些音乐产业持续衰退的国家，比方说意大利，流媒体服务已经开始将这一行重新带入盈利当中。

　　Streaming now has around 28m paying subscribers, and several times as many who use freeversions.

　　如今，流媒体服务的付费用户约为280万人，免费用户则是前者的数倍之多。

　　Last year subscription-based versions like Spotify had combined revenues of more than 1billion, up more than 50% from 2012.

　　就像Spotify之类的以付费订阅为基础的服务商们，去年获得了超过10亿美元的总收入，与2012年相比业绩上涨超过了50%。

　　That figure does not include online-radio firms, which last year had revenues of 590m inAmerica alone,

　　这一数字并不包括线上电台模式的公司。仅以美国当地来计算，去年线上电台模式的公司获得了5亿9千万美元的收入，

　　a rise of 28% from the year before.

　　较往年相比涨幅为28%。

　　In America, the largest music market, 21% of the industry's 2013 revenues came fromstreaming, whose growth more than offset declines in CD sales.

　　在全球最大的音乐消费市场美国，2013年唱片行业21%的收入来源于流媒体，而该项业务的增长效益超过了相抵之下光碟销售的下滑。

　　Streaming services have taken off thanks to wider smartphone adoption, faster internetconnections and the spread of cheap online cloud storage for music files.

　　流媒体服务的成功发展归功于以下几点原因：更广泛的智能手机应用，更快的网络连接，以及音乐文件的廉价线上云储存服务。

　　Even so, only 4-5% of music consumers in America and Britain have so far signed up forsubscription streaming,

　　即便在这样的市场环境下，目前美国和英国的音乐消费者当中，仅4-5%订购了流媒体服务。

　　says Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Consulting.

　　MIDiA咨询公司的马克·穆里根表示。

　　But if just 10% of the people in rich countries were to subscribe, the industry's fortunes wouldbe transformed,

　　但只要富裕国家中有10%的人选择订购，那么整个唱片行业的命运将会转变。

　　says Claudio Aspesi of Sanford C. Bernstein, another research outfit.

　　伯恩斯坦分析师克劳迪奥·阿斯佩西这样认为。

　　YouTube, Google's popular online video service,

　　谷歌公司旗下最热门的线上视频网站YouTube，

　　is expected to launch a paid-for music-streaming service in the coming months, which shouldhelp boost the numbers.

　　有望在未来数月中实施对音乐流媒体服务的收费，而这将令付费的用户数量激增。

　　So might bundling music with a mobile-phone subscription, as AT&T is doing with Beats,

　　将音乐与手机服务捆绑销售也能达到同样的促进效果，而这正是美国电话电报与魔音的合作项目。

　　a seller of headphones that has branched into subscription music.

　　魔音公司是一家跻身进入付费音乐领域的耳机销售商。

　　Arms around the world

　　着眼全球

　　Having previously fought losing battles against technological change, record executives havebeen quicker to embrace streaming's surge.

　　在输掉了前面几场科学技术战役后，唱片公司的老总们正迫不及待地依靠流媒体业务的快速增长打一个翻身仗。

　　Until recently Apple's iTunes was the sole king reigning over the digital-music realm;

　　直到最近为止，苹果音乐一直是唯一一位统治着数字音乐世界的霸者;

　　now there are dozens of princelings.

　　而如今，则进入到了群雄并立的时期。

　　This gives more negotiating power to the surviving three major record labels, down from six15 years ago.

　　这能让仅存的唱片巨头从15年前的6家缩减至目前的3家，拥有更多的谈判优势。

　　I see myself as an arms dealer selling to everyone who will buy, says a gleeful recordexecutive.

　　一位心情愉悦的唱片公司老总说：我把自己当成一位军火商，只要有人买，我就卖。

　　Streaming is also good news for independent labels, some of which are enjoying double themarket share they had on CDs.

　　流媒体的发展对于独立唱片公司来说，也是个极好的消息，其中一些公司将市场份额扩大到了光碟时期的两倍。

　　It is also making it easier for music to travel beyond national boundaries.

　　与此同时，跨国界的音乐传播也因此变得更为便利。

　　We are getting revenue from markets where we never had a presence in the physical world,such as Brazil,

　　现在，我们正从以前没有进入过的实体唱片市场当中取得收入。

　　says Fredrik Ekander, the boss of Cosmos, a Swedish label.

　　瑞典唱片公司Cosmos的老板Fredrik Ekander表示。

　　Charles Caldas of Merlin, a licensing agency for independent labels, says streaming alsohelps monetise the nostalgia market.

　　查尔斯·卡尔达斯是全球性版权许可机构Merlin的CEO，而他认为流媒体同样能让怀旧之情转换成利润流入。

　　In the physical world more than two-thirds of sales are for new releases;

　　在实体唱片市场当中，超过三分之二的音乐销售额是由新发行的歌曲构成的;

　　on Deezer only a third of songs streamed are new.

　　而在Deezer，只有三分之一的流媒体点播是新歌。

　　To distinguish themselves from rivals and help users navigate their vast catalogues,streaming firms are offering curated playlists,

　　为了胜过同行的服务以及为了更好地帮助用户管理曲目，流媒体公司们提供了精选的播放列表，

　　compiled by algorithms, celebrities and consumers themselves.

　　而这份列表是由系统算法、歌手和消费者自身共同编制而成的。

　　Users can also see what their friends on social networks are playing, and share tracks andplaylists,

　　用户们不仅仅可以看到他们在社交网站上的朋友所听的歌曲，还能对外分享歌曲和播放列表，

　　which helps new acts take off.

　　同时这也促进了新歌手的成长。

　　Avicii, a Swedish DJ, has become the most streamed artist on Spotify.

　　在声破天网站上，一位瑞典DJ艾维奇成为了最多点播量的艺人。

　　Streaming is forcing a creative but undisciplined industry to pay more attention to data.

　　流媒体的发展令一个从前具有创造性但管理模式混乱的行业，变得更加注重数据处理。