Spotify - anyone heard of it?

what's funny to me is that i'd usually argue album artists would benefit from putting singles on spotify, which is what artists like coldplay, black keys and beyonce have done, using the service like a jukebox/radio rather than a replacement for album sales. but in taylor's case she doesn't even need spotify as a promotional device - there's no debate that people will pay for it.

i mean, if you removed all but two-four songs from each album on spotify you'd still have an INSANE amount of music to play with, that's more than worth 5 dollars. only now record nerds and big fans would be forced to spend more than 5 dollars for the total package.

xpost:

Indeed, my ears always seem to be paying for it!

maybe taylor swift has an exclusive contract with beats?

that's definitely a potential outcome, esp considering taylor herself hasn't made any big political statement re all this, just big machine

good way to kill the competitors for the paymaster?

its so obvious why someone of her stature WOULD do this that it seems weird she'd ever consider putting her stuff on spotify at all

well as with metallica, rhcp, the john lennon estate, the advance might make it worth her while.

what's funny about any degree of backlash beyond "aw man my playlist went grey. rats." is i don't know why anyone would begrudge her maximizing her revenue from albums, as it's yet to be any worse than "you have to pay normal album price to get the album." it's just some people in 3 years decided they were entitled to all music ever for the monthly price of a happy meal.

also while it's still profitable to stick to cds and mp3s, if streaming becomes the standard eventually you won't have fans with mp3/cd players.

hold-outs like bob seger clearly control their rights contractually, i'm curious whether coldplay, the black keys, etc actually do or if their labels do the real weighing of the matter. like if peter buck was like "fuck spotify, pull rem albums off streaming" could warner bros be like "no, your used cds sell for a buck asshole, we'll take the pennies where we can?" with labels having equity in spotify they might be judicious about which acts get to be singles-only and which have their album sales sacrificed for the good of the eventual ipo.

david byrne has said he can't legally remove talking heads albums but he would if he could

what's funny about any degree of backlash beyond "aw man my playlist went grey. rats." is i don't know why anyone would begrudge her maximizing her revenue from albums, as it's yet to be any worse than "you have to pay normal album price to get the album." it's just some people in 3 years decided they were entitled to all music ever for the monthly price of a happy meal.

it's just some people in 330 years decided they were entitled tostuck paying $15-25 for all musican album

hope the apps don't go away

the Blue Note app is one of the most awesome thing's that's been done in digital distribution of music

it's just some people in 330 years decided they were entitled tostuck paying $15-25 for all musican album

― $0.00 Butter sauce only. No marinara. (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, November 3, 2014 3:04 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^this really isn't fair it's not as if they haven't been doing much lower price points on itunes, amazon, and google music. i've DL'd new releases for $2 or gotten old catalog stuff for $5 all the time

Yeah I mean if swift says her albums will now cost 25 bucks then yes I would say that sucks

the Blue Note app is one of the most awesome thing's that's been done in digital distribution of music

― There Goes Ryan's Scion (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, November 3, 2014 4:07 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

describe?

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/blue-note-records-spotify-app-streamlines-jazz-discovery-20120912

well that looks incredible.

What struck me was how innovative Jimmy Smith was

Spotify learnt me this too

im not sure how to install any of these apps?

oic never mind, took spotify a second to realize i had already downloaded the desktop client

genuine astonishment at this blue note app

yes but why do you hate it

im genuinely bummed that it looks like this after being open for 10 minutes lalready

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/366364/Screenshots/yxav.png

Daniel Ek feels put upon.

https://news.spotify.com/us/2014/11/11/2-billion-and-counting/

he talks like the alternative to spotify is 100% piracy

i don't understand why youtube isn't coming up in any of these discussions

tl;dr version

1. the music industry was corrupt long before we gave it 25% ownership of our company, don't blame us if you signed a shitty deal.
2. most tech companies exploiting the music industry don't give it anything, our deal is WAY better than The Pirate Bay.
3. if we don't sound good as a revenue replacement for music purchases, pretend we're just a revenue replacement for radio. That also replaces music purchases. Not that we do! I mean, we might when if we get to the projected user rate we use to suggest one can survive on the royalties we give. But we haven't yet! Also Pirate Bay.

Feel like that whole thing was a dog whistle for bigger artists to hit them up for some equity/advance before they go whining

It's difficult for me to feel I'm contributing to the evils of Spotify considering that I still buy upwards of 50 physical CDs a year

^^^ (buy vinyl for me)

*but

From what I have read a lot of the problem is really the deals the labels negotiate with Spotify (really, the big ones -- the smaller ones have less leverage to negotiate deals anyway), which, as I understand it, are basically designed to give the labels as large a cut and the artists as small a cut as possible (and guess what, the labels are also investors in Spotify, so they're getting paid on both ends). It has something to do with "up front" payments vs royalty payments and how they are split up, I think. I read this whole congressional testimony about it given by the Jagjaguwar dude and now I forget exactly what it said, but you can google that.

^^^ (buy vinyl for me)

I will not

(ignoring the correction in favor of the dumb joke)

Yeah IMO in a world where the music industry was a union of profit-sharing labels and a matching union of musicians (hey I can dream), spotify would be no more "evil" than any other tech-startup designed for a buyout/ipo. It's the collusive deal with the majors that's exceptional. If one wanted to vote on music industry ethics with their dollar, it would make more sense to boycott major labels than streaming services.

That said, spotify could stand to be a fuckton less disingenuous.

whoa has spotify just wildly increased their ads lately? i was just played 3 ads in a row after one song. played the next song and there was another 2 ads. one more song and another ad.

just pretend it's a sandwich and give it five bucks already

it's true

Pay $10/mo for the premium version, so worth it

When do I get my family plan option??

We actually pay for two subscriptions since we wind up using it at the same time a lot.

okay they are literally playing 2 or 3 ads now after almost every song. this is reaching pandora levels imo, that shit became so dumb (though i never really liked pandora anyways)

has spotify just wildly increased their ads lately? i was just played 3 ads in a row after one song. played the next song and there was another 2 ads. one more song and another ad.

I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify pockets more money from free users than they do from subscribers.

Xpost we have two subscriptions too. A few weeks ago Spotify announced that family plans were coming so we'd only have to pay 15 a month for two.

speaking of Youtube, has anyone else noticed that they started auto-generating music videos? as in, a shitty-looking picture of the album cover with the audio, and it says "Auto-generated by YouTube." sometimes it will be for the wrong band or just have a random clip of the song, sometimes full albums.

i just hope this googleplay is consensual

nope

i mean, i only noticed it because a bunch of videos for my music showed up the other day.

and you didn't give streaming rights to google otherwise? i'd think with their desire to make google play a legit thing they wouldn't just be making illegal streams for funsies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=495_732htoU

like this one has a link to google play at the bottom - i'd assume these videos are just an extension of whatever lets them have the song on google play