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Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

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Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#31

Post by geden »

billmalarky wrote: post #11

Platforms like Spotify, YouTube, etc, are a marketing channel - not a revenue channel. They can be used effectively to develop an audience, but not to monetize it. For example see Pusheen the cat. Started off as a tumblr web comic/character and now generates millions in merchandising revenue: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/how-an-internet-cat-craze-be...

Not true for Spotify, if you are regularly racking up millions of plays ie you are hitting editorial playlists, then Spotify is very lucrative. Good Spotify stats also signals to promoters that you are a good to book, so it boosts live income.

I'd agree on YouTube however, artists I work with see very little income from YouTube, which is quite sickening and problematic for artists given how much of the younger demographic use YouTube as a primary source of music.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#32

Post by ninth_ant »

wwweston wrote: post #22

If something hasn't "necessarily" saved musicians, then there's not much of a defense of whatever else it's done for the industry. And any idea that services like Spotify were just the only way forward to revenue is one that thoroughly ignores the growth of digital recording sales that took place independent of it (not to mention what they may well have been like if it'd never happened). Buffet streaming services mar…

> Buffet streaming services marry the worst of piracy and the old-school middleman capture.

You have an interesting perspective... as a consumer for me Spotify marries the best of those two worlds. I get the music I want and discoverability, quality, and ease of use is extremely good.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#33

Post by rhizome »

thegayngler wrote: post #27

I would argue that most musicians should be salaried employees making 80-150k. The label would then handle everything else. The musicians only need to focus on creation and performing. I have always been interested in the problem Spotify is trying to solve for. However, I think they've only solved half the problem. The other half of the problem is solved by putting long tail musicians on a salary and then they can gr…

This is essentially the pre-Beatles model we saw in Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building. Carole King's biggest hits were written for like $75/week. It declined as musicians started writing and recording their own songs and being self-contained creative acts, not to mention the, shall we say, "unfair equity strategies" the record labels used. That is, it's all well and good until the bosses take all the big money.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#34

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

kilroy123 wrote: post #24
shmerl wrote: post #18

I prefer to buy, not rent music. Luckily we have enough DRM-free music stores around that simply sell you music files. FLAC is the best option.

Like what stores?

Beatport and Bandcamp, at least.

Though obligatory fuck Beatport, they only give you 24 hours to download what you buy and then the only way to download again is to rebuy, or beg. Even a FLAC is only ~30MB, there's no need to be this cheap.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#35

Post by wwweston »

zwkrt wrote: post #3

It seems to me like musicians have always been in a precarious relation to the economy, same as all other artists. The only difference is that for a brief time in the 20th century the average person was willing to spend money on music, unlike every other time in human history. Nothing will ever stop people from making music, and 99% of working musicians are making a meager living doing what they enjoy, just like alwa…

> Nothing will ever stop people from making music

The funny thing is how true this statement is, and yet how often it's deployed as if that means nobody needs to further consider or negotiate the present economics.

How would one establish the idea that average person wasn't willing to spend money on music before the 20th century? Because I'd expect as long as there's been instruments and money, there's been some form of economic participation.

But let's say it's true -- does that really direct a normative discussion on current economics? Because a hell of a lot of things about human society after industrialization have only been true for a brief time in human history, and that's no clear indicator of whether or not they have value.

Here's a better standard: how well does what we're doing support people who are in a position to make musical contributions that people value?

Recording sales fared pretty well by that standard, although there was the problem of predatory middlemen. Streaming revenues seem to have the same problem, and don't fare anywhere near as well.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#36

Post by ry-n »

kilroy123 wrote: post #24
shmerl wrote: post #18

I prefer to buy, not rent music. Luckily we have enough DRM-free music stores around that simply sell you music files. FLAC is the best option.

Like what stores?

https://bandcamp.com/ is really wonderful if you're asking about music in general and not artists hitting the billboard charts. However, as it supports free listening there isn't a barrier to searching around and discovering new things.

If you want some good coding music for the day I'd suggest starting with https://wanderband.bandcamp.com/

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#37

Post by wallacoloo »

kilroy123 wrote: post #24
shmerl wrote: post #18

I prefer to buy, not rent music. Luckily we have enough DRM-free music stores around that simply sell you music files. FLAC is the best option.

Like what stores?

Bandcamp, for one. CDBaby used to offer flac downloads for 1.5x the cost of lossy, IIRC. Not sure what their role here is anymore.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#38

Post by tangental »

kilroy123 wrote: post #24
shmerl wrote: post #18

I prefer to buy, not rent music. Luckily we have enough DRM-free music stores around that simply sell you music files. FLAC is the best option.

Like what stores?

As someone who (happily) pays for music and needs it in a high quality format, I really like Bandcamp. After buying say 10 tracks I notice on my credit card statement 3 or 4 transactions, one for each of the labels the tracks belong to, so I know the artist should end up with a fair cut.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#39

Post by matthoiland »

criddell wrote: post #12
matthoiland wrote: post #7

As an amateur musician I still make most of my monthly sales from iTunes. Streaming pays so little, unless you're a big name – which incentivizes the big labels while squeezing the smaller artists. Early platform like Lala (bought by Apple) had a cool model – $0.10 per song, but you can only stream it. Ownership was still there, and artists were paid equally per sale. Nevertheless, getting your music distributed is e…

> Streaming pays so little, unless you're a big name Are you saying big acts get more per stream? Also, I'd love to hear what you think about how the incentives from Spotify et al are changing music itself. From what I understand, a play isn't registered until a certain portion of the song has been played. This hurts songs that have a slow build and so hooks are being pushed right up front. Do you think it's homogeni…

I don't think Spotify (streaming services) are influencing the composition of new music – listening habits are mostly unchanged since popular music in the 50's. The 3-minute song with the initial hook is a product of 50's AM radio. Whereas Radiohead/Sigur Ros/Slowdive artists with long builds do so intentionally, and their listeners enjoy that about them.

But.... what has changed is the frequency in which artists need to release content in order to compete in the algorithm arena. Some artists understand this, and more singles, EPs and early album previews allow for more "touch points" with their audiences throughout the year.

Re: Spotify Saved the Music Industry (But Not Necessarily Musicians)

#40

Post by geden »

kristianc wrote: post #21

It's interesting how different types of music have thrived through the streaming economy. Hip hop is huge on Spotify, where it struggled for radio play and sales before because commercial radio is so conservative (in the sense of risk-averse). Then there's the whole Billie Eilish thing: huge on Spotify, almost no radio play at all. On the other hand, there are Billboard 100 artists who are more or less absent from th…

Spotify has had a severe and negative effect on musicians who make what I term 'peak experience music'. Amazing music, but not something you listen to every day. Say you listen once a month or even just a few times a year.

Before: 2 listens = dealer price of a CD in UK = about £7.5 (on a good UK indie that's split 50/50 with the artist).

Now: 2 listens = income from 2 streams on Spotify = about £0.0006

I'm thinking of artists like Autechre.

Spotify is starting the shape the sort of music that artists can be successful with, in a bad way.

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