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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

#91

Post by tlbsofware »

jdminhbg wrote: post #82
aeturnum wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Spotify would do well to allow users to set a label of some sort on their listening. Like, there are times when you listen to your music for yourself in the car, and there are times when your phone is being used to power the speakers at a gathering. I don't know what the internals of the system looks like, but it seems like allowing users to maintain different profiles would be simple.

I'd be happy with just a simple Incognito mode. Not so much that I'm embarrassed about listening to some things, as I am "I wonder what that sounds like" but don't want my recommendations poisoned.

Ha, Yeah just mentioned incognito at the same time as you, totally think this should be a thing

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

#92

Post by dataqat »

andygcook wrote: post #41
parhamn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just listened to "Lullabies For Little Crimes" and "Circles", it was great! I'm really happy Spotify found a way to surface artists like this who deserve attention!

Agreed. After an initial listening, it's clear Steve's really talented. Which admittedly probably helps with the earning money part of the article. It's kind of like that PG quote: "What Customers Want - It's not just startups that have to worry about this. I think most businesses that fail do it because they don't give customers what they want. Look at restaurants. A large percentage fail, about a quarter in the fir…

I can think of many restaurants with really good food that went out of business... that's a terrible analogy. Certainly a very helpful ingredient, though maybe not even the main one.

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

#94

Post by surround »

avipars wrote: post #79

Interesting blog post. Off-topic question: When a song gets covered/made into an instrumental version by a 3rd party on Spotify , who gets paid for the plays? The original recording artist or the 3rd party?

Both? I believe you need a license to publish a cover, so the pay will probably be split.

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

#95

Post by gregmac »

fuball63 wrote: post #39

> Plus I think asking listeners to listen to a full-length album don’t make sense in our attention-starved world. Asking listeners to listen to a single song might just be a more realistic ask. This is why I love listening to albums, because it flies in the face of throwaway/hyper-consumable media. Spotify, with its algorithmic playlists and singles focus, bolsters the throwaway consumption of music, but many artists…

> with its algorithmic playlists and singles focus, bolsters the throwaway consumption of music

What is "throwaway" music?

Personally, I tend to listen to genre-focused playlists I curate over time, and often in "radio" mode (so algorithms select similar music). When I find something new I really like, I add it to my playlist. Rarely do I find anything I actively dislike, but there's lots of stuff that I don't add but I don't mind either way if I hear again -- is that "throwaway"?

I think like anyone, I have a gradient of music preferences -- ranging from "can't stand" to "love". The middle ground is huge -- there's a lot of good music out there, I simply don't have the capacity to "love" everything.

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

#96

Post by wrigby »

avipars wrote: post #79

Interesting blog post. Off-topic question: When a song gets covered/made into an instrumental version by a 3rd party on Spotify , who gets paid for the plays? The original recording artist or the 3rd party?

There are actually two copyrights and sets of rights in play here: one (the © copyright[1] and the "publishing rights") is on the song itself, in the abstract - the melody and lyrics. This is owned by the songwriter, and usually assigned to a publishing company.

The other, (the ℗ copyright[2], and "master rights") is on a specific recording of the song, and is usually owned by a record label.

The cover generates royalties for both the recording artist (or their record label) that recorded the cover through the ℗ copyright and the songwriter that wrote the song (or their publishing company) through the © copyright.

1: https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formpa.pdf

2: https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formsr.pdf

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

#97

Post by NohatCoder »

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?

Actually that makes it slightly more than $1/100 plays.

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

#98

Post by daxelrod »

jdminhbg wrote: post #82
aeturnum wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Spotify would do well to allow users to set a label of some sort on their listening. Like, there are times when you listen to your music for yourself in the car, and there are times when your phone is being used to power the speakers at a gathering. I don't know what the internals of the system looks like, but it seems like allowing users to maintain different profiles would be simple.

I'd be happy with just a simple Incognito mode. Not so much that I'm embarrassed about listening to some things, as I am "I wonder what that sounds like" but don't want my recommendations poisoned.

This exists. It's called "Private listening".

https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/how-to...

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

#99

Post by strbean »

kleer001 wrote: post #81
volkk wrote: post #34

Spotify's discovery playlist is a double edged sword. My account is permanently screwed because I decided to listen to a lot of rain sounds when going to sleep for a few months while I had a puppy. Now ALL I get for recommendations are calm sounds. I don't actually listen to these during the day, I want my old stuff. I hate it and want to reset the discovery playlist, but seems I have no way of doing so aside from ge…

Youtube suffers from the same bias in their algorithm. I bet it's just a bias setting or a single falloff that would help things. It reminds me of Cronenberg's "The Fly" where Brundle had to teach his teleporting pod to reproduce living tissue rather than interpret it.

At least with Youtube, you can go through your watch history and delete videos, which makes it as if you never watched it as far as recommendations are concerned.

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

#100

Post by jdminhbg »

daxelrod wrote: post #98
jdminhbg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy with just a simple Incognito mode. Not so much that I'm embarrassed about listening to some things, as I am "I wonder what that sounds like" but don't want my recommendations poisoned.

This exists. It's called "Private listening". https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/how-to...

Awesome, thanks. It looks like Apple Music doesn't have this, but you can go to your history and remove songs, which would accomplish the same thing: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/11/18/apple-music-listeni...
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