that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking recently … we are all just realizing the democratization of music and its distribution … absolutely everyone can produce music these days in a quality that has never been achieved before … unfortunately, too many musicians still believe in a kind of rock star dream … but hardly anyone is still interested in your music … lol … the moral of the story: … disappointment remains one of the strongest philosophical principles …
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What do people think of Spotify’s “tip jar” for artists? I read they started this during the pandemic and it might just be a temporary thing. Also, from what I read, it’s labelled something like “Covid Relief” which is a bit confusing.
If they labelled an always-visible button “Tip the Artist” and made it permanent, would this be good or bad? A step in the right direction?
Of course it would be best to pay artists more for their streams, but is this better than nothing in the meantime?
But the universe is getting cooler… 
This is so fucked. What an American way of fixing a broken system.
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It’s insulting. It says “We, Spotify, have no interest in the livelyhood of the people who make our service possible. We will continue to devalue music as low as we can. Anyone who feels differently can take matters into their own hands.”
EDIT: after I wrote that, I began to wonder if it’s more like an A-B test to assess if they can raise prices further, which might actually be a good thing for musicians.
Aren’t Spotify a Swedish company?
exactly.
the main thing changed by streaming platforms is that nowadays no one is forced to buy filler tracks just because they coexist with good ones on the same medium.
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This is a really good point. I had forgotten that crap compilations often topped the charts.
This is exactly, word by word, what every single generation has said about the past ones.
We all suffer from survivorship biases, we look at these times with rose-tinted glasses because we don’t remember all the shit at the time, just what has lasted. It’s hindsight, there is as much new music being created now as ever, the commercial sides of it definitely took over (as anything where capitalism/consumerism installs itself) but we are living in a different world, where access to content is almost unlimited. We are suffering from the novelty of this access, where we don’t know what to focus on and getting lost in the noise.
Commercial and mainstream music will always exist and will progressively be more extractivist, just due to nature of markets, look at K-Pop and all the pop industry in general. It’s mostly fabricated since forever. What we have now are avenues around the mainstream, we don’t depend anymore on radios and MTVs showing us new and interesting music. We don’t depend on knowing a friend who is in the local music scene to show us new cool bands. We have access to all of it, we haven’t learned how to sift through it.
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Uh, not really the case regarding popular culture. Its all so young. First case of pop music recycling was when english bands started playing the blues in the 60s.
wat ?
Pop culture. Movies, recorded music. Both around 100 years. Video games half that.
So that’s 4 - 5 generations.
We cycle the 70s, the 80s, the 90s
It’s all related to technology anyway.
I think its more related to capitalism. Now everything is a product first and its a lot easier to sell nostalgia. Not sensible to take any chances with your product if you dont have to. Business is not an artform.
I think there is an important difference between being inspired by and being a derivative of:
Frank Ocean - inspired by Stevie Wonder
(current) The Weeknd - derivative of 80s pop
Both have always existed but only one takes us somewhere new.
Sure, if you want to split hairs. Frank Ocean certainly has more grace and style, but still they’re both clearly derivative.
20 characters of Uh. No.
Interesting discussion.
My primary issue with Spotify and other streaming services is the business model - as others have said, the artists create the most value in the value chain but capture the least of it. Considering that the major labels hold a good share of stock in Spotify, the issue is in a way amplified, as major labels double down on capital gains while artists get paid a fraction of a penny per play.
I sort of like the “all the music always available” promise of streaming services, but rarely actually take advantage of the diversity and also find it difficult to engage in a discovery process on Spotify itself. Most of what the algos push my way I don’t like (it’s often like Amazon, just more of the same) and I don’t like their UI at all.
In regard to its impact on the music industry and the economics of releases, Spotify editors are the new king/queenmakers which shifts the focus of any marketing efforts to relationship-based models. A good distributor with strong relationships at the desired streaming platform and a real interest in your music is worth their weight in gold here more than any of the modern pay-for-placement options (eg plenty of people and companies actually sell inclusion in their playlists for a lot of money, which i think sucks big time for those that trust the alleged curators of these playlists).
Our label releases our artists primarily on streaming platforms, and the rule of thumb is that an artist wants to release a lead single every 2-3 months. Reason being that Spotify will push only one track per artist through their playlist & recommendation system in that time period. Any more releases will be unsupported, in other words either people find them on their artist profile or some independent playlist picks them up —or they go unheard. On the other hand, if you release less frequently, Spotify’s system will just not weigh / consider your release for playlist placement, so a certain regularity is key. A bit like building a social media presence — frequency and regularity matter more than quality.
Also track length is an important factor. Last I spoke to my team, sub 3min tracks have a better chance of being pushed by Spotify than longer tracks. Nuts.
Another interesting finding for us has been that PR expenditure is great to raise an artist’s profile and excite booking agents but it really does not translate to more streams AT ALL (at least it hasn’t done so for us thus far). Case in point: our latest album release of Irish folk rapper Strange Boy’s “Holy/Unholy” — the press and Irish music outlets LOVE the album and it’s received very positive press across the board in Ireland and beyond, but the plays on Spotify are in the low thousands…crazy in a way. (Also: it’s an album release without a specific lead track as per request of the artist, so no playlist optimisation by Spotify for this one). The album has more plays on YouTube than Spotify or Apple Music.
I think down the line we will hopefully see a decentralised streaming platform that cuts out the fat middle men (Spotify, advertisers, playlist sellers etc) and redistributes value more fairly towards the artists. In platform businesses, supply is often the real challenge, so where the artists go, consumers will ultimately follow.
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A comment on this, this is exactly the same business model the music industry has had ever since the dawn music as business in the early 20th century. It’s now perhaps more unequal, perhaps not but the record labels have ALWAYS taken most of the money from record sales while artists have made theirs from touring, a means of getting money directly from their fans.
I mean even SST and Factory, two of the most well known indie labels basically stole money from the artists to finance the label.
In a way I see what you mean, but it’s not quite the same.
You are right of course, master rights traditionally sit with the label. If a major deal for an established artist splits master rights 20/80 artist/label, that’s an AMAZING deal (it’s usually much lower than that).
Indies are more typically 50/50.
BUT: Spotify doesn’t compete with label deals on master rights, it competes with record sales. If you are signed to a label and released on Spotify the contractual split still applies. So in other words, if you’re on an indie label, the whopping ≈0.0007ct/play a tune earns you per play then gets split in half before it reaches you.
At least labels in the 90s had an incentive to keep prices for your record high and push sales through marketing efforts, anti-bootlegging efforts etc. today there’s really no value in a record’s master rights unless we’re talking eg a track by Drake.
Streaming only makes meaningful money to a catalogue owner (ie LOTS of tracks from LOTS of artists that each make a little bit on streaming platforms which then adds up), for the artists themselves it’s mostly negligible.
But given how the value of master rights have deteriorated due to streaming platforms, guess what labels do now? That’s right, they take bigger shares in live revenues and publishing revenues to make it worth their while.
It’s really not a good situation for most artists at all and I say this as somebody who is implicated in the system.