Continuing with Spotify?

This might be a dealbreaker:

https://www.nme.com/news/music/james-blunt-threatens-to-release-new-music-on-spotify-in-protest-against-joe-rogan-3149555

I bet the Eve 6 guy is pissed that he didn't think of that.

re this Rogan person -- I get the impression that he is very famous and listened-to in the US?

I don't think I know that many people in the UK who would even know who he is. And none at all that would listen to him for a minute.

Feel like it is quite a nationally specific matter (of the kind that, I often remark, strangely still exist despite everything supposedly being internationalised now).

he's very big in the region of my butthole

I always find these kind of comments odd. Like you don’t have dumbasses in the UK media?

he's famous because he was on newsradio with phil hartman. after that, he got into the business of describing people swallow weird shit for 15 minutes of fame. he parlayed that into a podcast career where he pumps iron and talks about newsradio, so americans trust him and kind of look for him to "set the tone" of the "national conversation"

I feel less guilty about using Spotify because I'm usually using it to listen to albums I already own physically and just don't know where they're at (many many moves). And usually anything else I listen to belongs to mega rich superstars.

But most of the bands I listen to sell like 10k albums so not buying them seems like a non-starter to me. Love Bandcamp

And none at all that would listen to him for a minute.

A minute sounds a bit generous

Island boys like Joe Rogan too
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/joe-rogan-podcast-jre-uk-b1997036.html

Also there's a UK knockoff called London Real that Trashfuture makes fun of that sounds even dumber than ol Joe.

Things that I wouldn't have predicted 20 years ago:

*A reality tv star would be President
*We'd have a pandemic that killed tens of millions globally and uproot lives for 3 years
*A shitty comedian becomes the self-appointed czar for said pandemic and gets paid $100 million doing it
*Dick Butkus joins Twitter just to troll Aaron Rodgers
*That there would be Twitter and a player named Aaron Rodgers

he's very big in the region of my butthole

― Karl Malone, Saturday, January 29, 2022 12:55 PM

i know we're not even in february yet, but post of the year. thx.

yeah already stolen

.@bellytheband appear to have changed their Spotify band photo. pic.twitter.com/njAi52XhIg

— Mark Yarm (@markyarm) January 29, 2022

It’s always a good idea to stream @NeilYoungNYA.https://t.co/g4232DaRkF pic.twitter.com/VdBP6AwceQ

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) January 25, 2022

controps, I know, but from a UK point of view Young's decision here has probably raised the profile of this guy beyond who the fuck is this

A test tone would probably have almost no dynamic range and be normalised to 0dBFS so that's mostly accountable for as Spoify reducing it to meet its -14 LUFS standard, I would think?

who is the british neil young

Richard Thompson

wow....yeah he totally is

qobuz need to hire a UI/UX designer

A slightly dumb and symbolic reason to pull from the bigger reasons--mainly that they're stealing from artists to line techbro pockets and fund military tech. But hey, if it tumbles a few dominos and starts a few conversations about Spotify and streaming being evil in general, cool.

Pull from Spotify compared to the biggee reasons, that is.

That James Blunt tweet is swell. I love that type of joke

It wasn't based on anything new Rogan or Spotify did, it was based on a gambit Young took that everybody knew would not result in him being dropped.

This has been linked to a few different times already, the letter from 270 scientists and medical folks:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/14/experts-confront-spotify-over-misinformation-in-joe-rogan-podcast.html

Yea I mentioned that upthread. But that didn't move the needle like Young did in terms of consumers

I’m not an expert on this but I come from an industry also beset by piracy, the death of physical media and failed attempts at monetising a switch to digital, and it looks to me like there just aren’t enough people willing to pay for subscriptions to make any of these models work. Spotify pays about 70% of music-derived revenue to rights-holders and has made a loss in 14 of the last 18 quarters. They clearly can’t double the amount of money provided per stream, with the model they have now, unless they also pretty much double revenue.

Where they differ from Tidal, Apple, etc, is having the free account option and ad revenue. About 170m people pay for an account and 210m don’t. You could try and force a switch to an all-Premium model but if you lost 80% of the people who don’t / can’t pay, you’d get to the penny-a-stream outcome from the other direction - losing half the streams, without generating any more money for artists.

Rogan and other exclusive podcasts they own the rights to, and that don’t cost incrementally more, the more listeners they attract, probably look like a much more solid basis for a long-term business.

I’d guess music streaming might go in the direction of films, where the finite number of people willing to pay, end up with multiple accounts for much more limited offers (Netflix, Amazon, MUBI, Shudder, etc) depending on their interests and a lot of content falls off the internet.

i think you're right quite frankly. But it's a golden age now!

I’d guess music streaming might go in the direction of films, where the finite number of people willing to pay, end up with multiple accounts for much more limited offers (Netflix, Amazon, MUBI, Shudder, etc) depending on their interests and a lot of content falls off the internet.

aaaaaand just like that we're back to CDs

What are those? Like physical NFTs?

Just saw Nils Lofgren is following suit.

Kinda wish we were increasing in terms of name recognition rather than the reverse, ha ha

https://i.imgflip.com/1zrkp.gif

holy cow that is an amazing gif

Spotify makes him hoppin’ mad!

Apparently related:

I will not be releasing any podcasts until further notice. To our #UnlockingUs and #DaretoLead communities, I’m sorry and I'll let you know if and when that changes.

Stay awkward, brave, and kind. ❤️👊🏼❤️

— Brené Brown (@BreneBrown) January 29, 2022

Get vaccinated Ian https://t.co/MKfrM0M4Yx

— Nils Lofgren (@nilslofgren) January 30, 2022

Lofgren is one of those musicians who'd have a fascinating autobiography.

running youth outreach programmes that teach the young people principles of piracy so I don't have to hear more Spotify news

— Stefan Bielik (@prstskrzkrk) January 29, 2022

Lofgren is one of those musicians who'd have a fascinating autobiography.

Nils famously wrote this jingle in return for lessons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7PEMGuA6tw

Supposedly anyone from DC/Maryland of a certain age knows it by heart.

Just saying though, Rogans deal was signed in 2020 and he began the worst of his COVID transgressions last April. Neil Young incident a weird line in the sand for me, personally. It wasn't based on anything new Rogan or Spotify did, it was based on a gambit Young took that everybody knew would not result in him being dropped.

Why care? If the cause is righteous it doesn't matter what sets it into motion, if it's not than it wouldn't have been at the time, either.

Also tbf there were people who were criticizing Spotify since the Rogan deal in 2020, greeted with "killjoy yells at cloud" energy if not ignored outright. Certainly played into my own decision to cancel last year.

Speaking of which – ILM poster sic has been silent(?) Big “my work here is done” energy!

Also tbf there were people who were criticizing Spotify since the Rogan deal in 2020, greeted with "killjoy yells at cloud" energy if not ignored outright.

as one of the killjoys I can confirm that this has long been the case here and on social media, and it has indeed been infuriating. But I'm sure glad Neil Young was finally able to galvanize so many activists

nice gesture by neil. this will ultimately mean though that we'll have left and right streaming services just cable news stations and acts will target their music to one or the other. won't fix anything.

just *like* cable news stations

In ten years in my state our homes will be individual sized planks of wood floating in an endless sea so ultimately I support whatever fuck yous the good guys have left before Waterworld begins

Framing it as an issue of politics, rather than Spotify’s funding of misinformation, misses the point IMO

i agree but subtleties like that get buried in the tribal war we are undergoing.

oh fuck off with that "both sides" bullshit

maybe things wouldn't be so "polarized" if a suicidal death cult wasn't trying to kill us all