Spotify - anyone heard of it?

he's kind of an outlier among classical musicians

There are occasional downsides to working at a company whose CEO gives unscripted interviews.

Although if you're going to get pissed at individual quotes, it's worth at least reading the whole thing.

https://musically.com/2020/07/30/spotify-ceo-talks-covid-19-artist-incomes-and-podcasting-interview/

tao's a good guy

Personally, I think there's a deep economic truth behind the unfortunate quantity-over-quality-implying comment about release frequency, which is that the shift from CD purchasing to streaming subscriptions is among many other things a populist shift in purchasing power. People (like me) who spent $1000s on CDs every year used to direct $1000s of music spending each, and most people directed more like $10s of spending. If you bought the first Telefon Tel Aviv album, I'm betting it was in a stack of CDs you carried to the register that week, like you did many weeks. Whereas if you were buying 2 CDs a year, the chances are really good that neither of them was Telefon Tel Aviv. Some artists and some whole scenes were thus basically supported by the highest spenders in a kind of patronage system. Those fans almost certainly didn't listen 100x as much, so the effective rate of $ earned per listen in 2000 was probably a ton higher for Telefon Tel Aviv than, say, Britney Spears.

With streaming subscriptions, the people who used to direct $1000s of spending now direct $120. Some of the people who used to direct $10s now direct $120, too, and the ones who use ad-supported Spotify still direct $10s. The gap is an order of magnitude smaller, and it's thus a lot hard to get by with a smaller number of higher-spending fans. Telefon Tel Aviv now gets the same amount per listen as Britney. (Actually, a tiny bit more, due to the way streaming royalties are pooled, but nothing like before.) Calling this unfair assumes that the previous disparity of spending was itself "fair", which seems like a moral stretch, or at least an oversimplification.

I don't direct Spotify business policies, but I do work on its algorithms and features, and I take Ek's comment as a correct statement of current fact. Streaming, in 2020, is probably generally better for the kinds of artists who are more inclined towards continuous fan engagement. If you're BTS, streaming is working fine for you. If you're Zola Jesus, you need more help than you're currently getting. But literally nobody thinks we're done. It's part of my job to try to figure out what that help could be, and in general what the future could be. Maybe it's as simple as adding higher-price tiers so people who are willing to spend more can.

higher price tiers that function like Patreon for your favorite acts, like you get some kind of perk if you are a top listener of a band, ticket discounts or band swag, etc.

piece of Gene Simmons's tongue

like we haven't all had too much of that already

four square but for listens, earn clout by being the top fan of a band

band sets its MySpace-esque Top 8

I would totally be pumped about being a top fan for my favorite bands

What is "continuous fan engagement" anyway? Is that about releasing music or something else? Talking to them on Instagram?

cardigans

cardigans

you have to sell cardigans to your fans. and you better start writing a song about cardigans to justify it.

predictably depressing thread

xp good points glenn

so has anyone heard of it or what

It's part of my job to try to figure out what that help could be, and in general what the future could be. Maybe it's as simple as adding higher-price tiers so people who are willing to spend more can.

I don't think the people who were buying stacks of cds were doing so because they particularly cared about how the artists were making a living, or liked spending money on music. They were just obsessed with music and wanted to hear it, and could afford to make it happen.

Patreon-like tiers for b-sides and merch drops would be gross, but sure, there's probably a small subset of music fans who would pay more if they knew that their streaming would directly give their favorite artists a lot more revenue per stream. It's hard to imagine streaming platforms highlighting the fact that their regular tier subscription doesn't do much for most artists though.

Play tax (wealth tax) your Britney Spearses for your Teflon Tel Avivs.

With streaming subscriptions, the people who used to direct $1000s of spending now direct $120. Some of the people who used to direct $10s now direct $120, too, and the ones who use ad-supported Spotify still direct $10s.

Not that it absolves Spotify of anything, but there were obviously two sides in these negotiations. Record labels, who supposedly represent their artists, didn't seem to be up to the task of fighting on their behalf for better terms.

CEO should just admit he doesn't like Tom Scholz and be done with it

Anyone with the disposable income to do otherwise (i.e. actually buy music) who instead now only listens to music via Spotify et al, does not actually care about music, whatever they tell themselves. They don't care about artists, they don't care about sustaining cultures, they don't have a "connection" to music--it's just a lifestyle accoutrements, audio flare in lieu of a personality.

If music ever meant anything to them before, it doesn't, now--and they're happy to let it become another commodity, another industry that has only a wealthy few at the top and a bunch of hobbyists doing their best to create art only when jobbing hasn't run them so tired physically, mentally and emotionally that they can't anymore. Particularly during a global pandemic that has cut off the few avenues for earning money from music that Spotify et al allowed to continued.

If you're on ILM and you "love music" and it's "central to your identity" and you still have a job but music is another subscription on the pile, I hope you'll take a long hard look at whether you really care about music and musicians at all.

is anybody on ILM actually doing that

Spotify essentially has streamlined "album sales" with "radio promotion", but it doesn't pay musicians enough. Apple Music pays artists double what Spotify does. TIDAL pays triple-- and costs the same as Spotify for a monthly subscription.

Daniel Ek can say "Zola Jesus needs to start doing 18-month album cycles" but it's deflection. Spotify need to start paying artists fairly-- they have a near-hegemony on the market. I know it's dopey but I just keep telling people to use TIDAL for streaming, it's a better service in every way and I'd rather see Mr. Carter get rich than this Swedish pancake

I don't think it should be incumbent upon consumers to "care about music" enough to pay more. The model needs to compensate artists fairly. Spotify is exploitative and needs to be forced to change, or it needs to be destroyed.

the "bands need to release albums more frequently" is just furthering the treatment of music as a commodity, and it's fuckin' dumb.

as far as Spotify, I only use it to play albums that I previously purchased on cd where I can't locate the cd, or random 80s power ballad playlists. but there are definitely many people I know who use it in lieu of purchasing music.

really no excuse not to buy albums in 2020.

Apple Music pays artists double what Spotify does. TIDAL pays triple

How about YouTube Music? (that’s the one I use)

really no excuse not to buy albums in 2020.

I disagree. Streaming is amazing, efficient, consumer-friendly, artist-friendly, there is nothing wrong with the model. It's just they don't pay artists enough, and they can afford to.

It was told to me once, but in conspiratorial tones-- that apparently the reason why labels won't stand up to Spotify's shitty model is that there is some extremely-profitable reason why they ought not to that involves "the fact that a vast majority of streamed music is the work of legacy acts that the labels themselves own". I don't remember the details, but I think the issue is that the major labels are making out just fine with this exploitive model, so there's no pressure to adjust to support artists themselves

https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians

This is a calculator for how much each streaming service pays-per-play. I don't know if Youtube Music is any different from just "listening to music on Youtube" but Youtube is famously the stingiest

xp i have to assume that's true or else the model wouldn't stand!

Is it obscure information that all of the streaming services--Spotify, Apple, Tidal, shit, Napster--pay literal micro-pennies? That artists can have hundreds of thousands of streams and get paid the equivalent of dozens or maybe hundreds of album purchases?

Like to say one is paying triple another--it's understood that the "best" of them is paying a tiny fraction of what artists--even small-time, independent artists--could've made when people bought music? That even if they redistributed the money they're making more equitably, it wouldn't come close to adding up to a sustainable market where there's room for anything between mega-stars and hobbyists?

Do people not know that the subscription fees they pay (what, $10/month?) don't go to the artists they themselves listen to (which would still be a trivial amount compared to say digital album sales through Bandcamp)?

In July I listened to 2600 tracks. Let's say 2000 of them I'd never heard before or hadn't already paid for in the past in some way.

What is the right way to pay for that kind of service in such a way that would reward the hundreds of artists I listened to last month?

I usually end up buying the stuff I've listened to more than a handful of times. I'm also willing to purchase releases without actually downloading them (but then you're already more into a model like Patreon) and just streaming a remote version as before.

xpost lot of people justify it with "well buying albums only helps the record companies, they make way more selling merch at shows". which whether that's true or not, doesn't help a lot right now eitehr way.

I disagree. Streaming is amazing, efficient, consumer-friendly, artist-friendly, there is nothing wrong with the model.

In what possible ways is it "artist-friendly"?

I mean, you can want to feel that to be true, so that you can feel good about streaming and put the responsibility for the fact that it's made most artists' work almost literally worthless--but you need to understand it's not true and be willing to be OK with that.

it really doesn't seem worth the effort to rail against streaming as a product--it's out there, there's no unringing that bell.

Let's try a little experiment.

Looked on Bandcamp, which always keeps a tally of how much has been spent by music buyers there in the last 30 days. Right now, says $13 million (it's been as high as $20 million in recent months, in part due to the fact they're doing a day a month where they don't take their usual 10%-15% cut).

Per the calculator tool someone shared above--which seems to round up a bit on the micro-fractional per-stream values I've seen elsewhere--it takes 3,000,000,000 (THREE BILLION) streams to theoretically pay out $13 million.

But gotcha! Not all of that $13 mil. went to artists! Ok, so Let's say after the Bandcamp 10% to 15% cut, that leaves roughly $11 million. Let's say since most artists on Bandcamp are wholly independent or are with small independent labels that presumably treat their artists OK, that really only half of that is actually going to artists, so $5.5 million.

That's still 1,250,000,000--1.25 BILLION--streams to pay artists what Bandcamp has paid in 30 days. Divided by say 12 tracks per "album" equivalent, that's 104,166,167 albums. I'm pretty damn sure Bandcamp didn't sell 100 million albums to pay artists what they've paid in the last 30 days.

How is it justifiable to not buy albums and pay artists in 2020, if you have any ability financially to do otherwise?

https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians

This is a calculator for how much each streaming service pays-per-play. I don't know if Youtube Music is any different from just "listening to music on Youtube" but Youtube is famously the stingiest

Thanks for this. It probably falls under Google Play Music, which is the service Google is discontinuing in favor of YTM

It was told to me once, but in conspiratorial tones-- that apparently the reason why labels won't stand up to Spotify's shitty model is that there is some extremely-profitable reason why they ought not to that involves "the fact that a vast majority of streamed music is the work of legacy acts that the labels themselves own". I don't remember the details, but I think the issue is that the major labels are making out just fine with this exploitive model, so there's no pressure to adjust to support artists themselves

― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, August 3, 2020 10:56 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

major labels own a significant minority stake in spotify. sony sold about 50% of its share in spotify for $750m+ in 2018 (they claimed they would share the gains from the sale with artists and labels affiliated with sony, but idk if this actually happened).

https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/sony-has-sold-half-of-its-spotify-shares-1202794230/

@ Soundslike

There is no point in comparing "album sales" with "revenue from digital streaming". They are not comparable. They are different things.

Spotify is a streamlining of radio and album sales. Radio never paid shit-- it always got a pass because it was seen as "promotion for album sales". Spotify effectively replaces both the need for radio and album sales.

And that rules. Except: there needs to be a sustainable economic model in place (i.e. one that pays artists fairly) if it's going to work.

Streaming services fucking rule. I love TIDAL (it's the only one I use). I love playlists, I love having everything ever recorded at my fingertips. I loved selling all my CDs, I loved storing the gigabytes of music that I had in my iTunes folder on a hard drive and freeing up all that space. It is consumer friendly. It is also artist friendly-- provided it pays artists fairly, which it doesn't.

I also love my turntable and buying albums that I love enough to want a physical copy of.

*I'm just saying "Spotify" to denote all streaming services.

Anyone with the disposable income to do otherwise (i.e. actually buy music) who instead now only listens to music via Spotify et al, does not actually care about music, whatever they tell themselves.

okay?

@ Soundslike

There is no point in comparing "album sales" with "revenue from digital streaming". They are not comparable. They are different things.

Spotify is a streamlining of radio and album sales. Radio never paid shit-- it always got a pass because it was seen as "promotion for album sales". Spotify effectively replaces both the need for radio and album sales.

And that rules. Except: there needs to be a sustainable economic model in place (i.e. one that pays artists fairly) if it's going to work.

Streaming services fucking rule. I love TIDAL (it's the only one I use). I love playlists, I love having everything ever recorded at my fingertips. I loved selling all my CDs, I loved storing the gigabytes of music that I had in my iTunes folder on a hard drive and freeing up all that space. It is consumer friendly. It is also artist friendly-- provided it pays artists fairly, which it doesn't.

I also love my turntable and buying albums that I love enough to want a physical copy of.

*I'm just saying "Spotify" to denote all streaming services.

It's cool that you love all that, but given the reality of what Spotify et al *ARE* rather than what they would be if they paid artists fairly--which is to say, the opposite of what they actually are--then what you don't love or respect is music or artists.

Again, how is what *is* artist friendly? Saying "SUVs are great for bicyclists and pedestrians and the environment, if they just treated them fairly" isn't helpful--the thing is systemically designed from the ground up to hurt artists.

bonus benchmark streaming payments specific to artists above and beyond royalties at specific spin numbers seems entirely appropriate

the thing is systemically designed from the ground up to hurt artists.

@ Soundslike, your analogies are nonsensical. Artists want their music to be heard, they want for their music to be paid for. "Ownership" is stupid, it's a blip. You don't "own" an MP3 (any more than you can "own" data on a CD).

My view is this, which might be seen as pessimistic as a professional purveyor of recorded music: "recorded music = a saleable product" is a blip. It's only been the case for 100 years, and it is no longer the case. You cannot sell recorded music any more-- it is a dead resource.

I can bang on on here about how "Spotify needs to pay artists better" but it's just not gonna happen. TIDAL will collapse in five years. People will stop buying albums off Bandcamp once they realize that "digital ownership" is less preferable than a streaming subscription.

We are speeding toward a future where musicians just won't be making money off recorded music the way they once were... other solutions on this thread include Patreons and so forth. My long-standing argument is that the music industry (prior to the advent of recorded music) was always state and patron sponsored, and, in the classical music world, this is still the case. We just need for governments to start heavily subsidizing musicians to create their recorded work. In Canada it's working pretty well, most professional musicians get enough from the government to eke out a living, and this subsidization constitutes an infinitesimal amount of the overall budget-- why not double that budget?

I treat Spotify like it's Soulseek or something, an accessible form of piracy.

(I use both but spend a bunch of dough on records and, formerly, shows.)

If Ek et al. were to actually reform their pay structure that'd be pretty cool. I'm gonna keep screaming for it to happen. I don't think it will happen.

Funny to say "buying music just doesn't exist" and "streaming is the only reality" when Bandcamp has majorly increased the amount of money it pays out year on year. Particularly when I made clear--based not on "owning music" but on PAYING ARTISTS via mechanisms which aren't designed to do the opposite, which is the actual point--that "blip" sized Bandcamp pays artists via tens of thousands of sales the equivalent of BILLIONS of streams.

Meaning, the genie doesn't have to be put back in the bottle--just a relatively few people who care enough to not let music become meaningless "content" that only enriches the already rich can make a SERIOUS impact. TODAY, and tomorrow, by their personal choices. Saying "oh, the zeitgeist, it is what it is, I can't but do what it says I must" is a total fucking cop-out.

You may be interested in this thread: Stop Thinking of Yourself as a Good Person: The Ethics and Economics of Music Streaming