A New Zealand music app that asks people to buy albums and keep them, rather than rent an endless catalogue by the month, goes live today on both the Apple and Google app stores.
Lume launches on 17 July with a pitch that runs against almost everything the streaming era has taught listeners. Instead of paying a monthly fee for access to tens of millions of songs, users buy individual albums, reported by RNZ at around $24.99 each, and own them for good, the way people once bought a record, a cassette or a download. The company describes itself as both a digital collection and a digital store, and it has set aside 80 percent of net revenue for artists and their partners.
The venture is led by Duncan Greive, who founded media site The Spinoff and has stepped back from his editorial job to build it. Writing on The Spinoff, Greive said his co-founders include Justin Warren, a former head of strategy at Universal Music who now runs artist relations, alongside Tim Harper and Sacha Judd. The list of backers reads like a roll call of New Zealand media and technology names. Pop star Lorde has invested, as have Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie, Letterboxd co-founder Karl von Randow, marketing figure James Hurman and former Sky television boss John Fellet.
The idea grew out of Greive’s frustration with how the big streaming services pay the people who make the music. He has argued that platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube reward scale rather than genuine attachment, paying an artist the same tiny amount for a song played once in the background as for a song someone treasures. Greive put it plainly, saying the rate was the same “whether you were listening to the algorithm’s choices at the gym” or in the best moment of the week. On streaming, in other words, a casual half listen and a lifelong favourite are worth exactly the same.
Lume tries to fix that by borrowing a model from books and video games, where people still pay once for a title and keep it. Each purchase is tied to an album rather than a monthly pass, which means an artist earns real money the moment a fan decides an album is worth owning. The eight in ten split of net revenue is far more generous than the fractions of a cent that streaming services hand over for each play, and the founders are betting that enough listeners want to support musicians directly to make the numbers work.
The product is built to feel less like a utility and more like a collector’s shelf. According to The Music Network, each release can carry boxed set style extras such as demos, live takes, instrumentals, extra artwork, lyrics and behind the scenes video. Judd, who has spent years studying how fans connect with the things they love, described that archive of material as a “holy grail” for devoted listeners, the sort of context that a bare streaming file strips away. It is a deliberate throwback to the days when opening a new album meant liner notes, a gatefold sleeve and hidden details to pore over.
The launch catalogue leans heavily on local music. The Music Network reported that Lume opens with 39 new or recent releases and five reissues from New Zealand acts, a line up that takes in Bic Runga, Erny Belle, Fazerdaze, Troy Kingi, Vera Ellen, Womb and Dick Move, among others. Classic records from Fur Patrol, Die! Die! Die!, The Phoenix Foundation and Tiki Taane have also been secured, giving older fans a reason to look as well. The company has lined up chart eligibility through Recorded Music New Zealand, publishing arrangements with APRA AMCOS, and deals with independent labels including Flying Nun and Lil’ Chief Records, which suggests the industry is willing to give the experiment a hearing.
The timing is not accidental. Lume is arriving as a growing number of people complain about subscription fatigue, the creeping sense that every service now wants a monthly fee and that the total quietly adds up to more than anyone intended. A one off purchase that never renews is an easy idea to understand for anyone tired of watching direct debits leave their account. The reaction in the local media has been curious rather than dismissive, with plenty of interest in whether a small Kiwi outfit can carve out a niche the giants have ignored.
None of that guarantees success. Lume is trying to change a habit that hundreds of millions of people have settled into over more than a decade, and convenience is a powerful pull. Streaming gives listeners near unlimited choice for the price of a couple of coffees a month, and asking someone to pay about twenty five dollars for a single album is a big shift in expectation, however good the extras are. The company is not trying to replace Spotify outright, more to sit alongside it as a place for the albums people care about most, in the way a keen reader still buys physical books despite having a library card.
What Lume does have is a clear argument and a well connected group of founders and backers who know both the music and the media worlds. If even a modest slice of New Zealand listeners decide they would rather own a handful of albums and pay the artists properly than rent everything and pay them almost nothing, the model could hold. The next few months, as the first sales figures come in, will show whether buy to own music has a future beyond nostalgia.
Would you pay to own your favourite albums again, or has streaming won for good? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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