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Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

stevebenjamins.com

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Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#11

Post by itcrowd »

brink wrote: post #3
sgt wrote: post #2

Does anyone still buy albums on iTunes? I haven't done that in a while, but I have to say I prefer to physically own the music I listen to often. If I can't get a physical media like CD or vinyl, then iTunes store was second best aside from illegal options.

Yes. There will always be times when the internet isn't there for you. To me, flac file backups are king, and what makes bandcamp so good.

Spotify does allow you to store your songs locally on your smartphone. Although you are of course locked into their ecosystem.

For me it works, for others it may not be adequate.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#12

Post by josefresco »

sgt wrote: post #2

Does anyone still buy albums on iTunes? I haven't done that in a while, but I have to say I prefer to physically own the music I listen to often. If I can't get a physical media like CD or vinyl, then iTunes store was second best aside from illegal options.

I have such a hodgepodge of purchased music. I have a giant library of old pirated MP3s. I have 30ish MP3s I bought from Amazon years ago when I was trying to avoid iTunes. And then I have about 15 tracks bought from iTunes, mixed with some mixtapes that were free but imported into iTunes.

I listen to none of it now. I was a Pandora customer, now I'm a YouTube Music customer. In the car, it's SiriusXM.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#14

Post by monocasa »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #10

His Spotify Artist page lists ~70k plays a month, so he's just slightly over $1/1000 plays. I suppose this is peanuts compared to what a radio play is, etc. but strikes me as fairly reasonable?

Radios don't have to pay anything unless they're an internet stream

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#15

Post by petargyurov »

jdxcode wrote: post #8

I feel Spotify makes it hard to listen to albums. I can queue up a song to play and it’ll then get back to my playlist, but if I play and album eventually it’ll reach the end and quit playing anything. Then I will have to stop what I’m doing and find something else to play. I feel the UX could be improved and it might change listening habits similar to Discover Weekly

There is a setting for that: "Autoplay similar songs when your music ends" - does that not work in your case?

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#16

Post by josefresco »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #10

His Spotify Artist page lists ~70k plays a month, so he's just slightly over $1/1000 plays. I suppose this is peanuts compared to what a radio play is, etc. but strikes me as fairly reasonable?

Do traditional radio stations pay per track play? I'm unfamiliar with the business.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#17

Post by drngdds »

sgt wrote: post #2

Does anyone still buy albums on iTunes? I haven't done that in a while, but I have to say I prefer to physically own the music I listen to often. If I can't get a physical media like CD or vinyl, then iTunes store was second best aside from illegal options.

I buy digital music from Bandcamp whenever possible. (Otherwise I buy it from Amazon MP3 or pirate it from Soulseek.) I like to build a collection and I can't stand the notion that some streaming company or copyright holder can just decide I'm not allowed to listen to an album anymore.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#18

Post by onychomys »

jdxcode wrote: post #8

I feel Spotify makes it hard to listen to albums. I can queue up a song to play and it’ll then get back to my playlist, but if I play and album eventually it’ll reach the end and quit playing anything. Then I will have to stop what I’m doing and find something else to play. I feel the UX could be improved and it might change listening habits similar to Discover Weekly

There's a setting to have it play related songs after it finishes an album. On the desktop client, it's in hamburger menu > edit > preferences > Autoplay > Autoplay similar songs when your music ends.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#19

Post by cvburgess »

jdxcode wrote: post #8

I feel Spotify makes it hard to listen to albums. I can queue up a song to play and it’ll then get back to my playlist, but if I play and album eventually it’ll reach the end and quit playing anything. Then I will have to stop what I’m doing and find something else to play. I feel the UX could be improved and it might change listening habits similar to Discover Weekly

They actually have a setting for this, look for "Autoplay" in settings.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#20

Post by smeeth »

With great power comes great responsibility, Spotify Data Scientists.

If discover weekly is truly that impactful a decision made by a model to include or not include a song could determine whether or not an indie artist can pay their rent that month.

Not quite iris dataset classification.

Edit: I should clarify that I only mean that this impact raises interesting questions and DSs (I am one) should pay close attention to the impact of their models.

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