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Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

thefader.com

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Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

#11
post #3

That's a strange stance. I assume there are a fair number of listeners that don't care to listen to anything new. Is there some business benefit to Spotify by artificially forcing churn?

It’s not about listening to something new; it’s about the wave of hype and promo you do around each release, it keeps you relevant and gives you something to talk about, keeps you fresh in peoples minds.

I get that side of it. But it seems to dismiss the listeners that don't care for any of that. The jist seems to be that they want to deliberately lower pay outs for older stuff even if it's played a lot.

Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

#12

I used to work in the music industry professionally, on the ground level doing booking and management. This trend has been happening slowly for nearly a decade but it’s finally here. Rap and Hip Hop figured out a long time before most other genres that rapid small releases was a far better way to keep hype and sales up. Before Spotify was a thing, the shift was happening with YouTube but it wasn’t as predominant. Now…

> The music isn’t your product, the music is your marketing. The shows, the merch, your influence - that’s your product.

Man, that's depressing.

Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

#13

I really wish bandcamp would be bigger. Much prefer their platform. The spotify monetization cycle is so bad for music

Agreed, not just the monetization scheme but Spotify and others just push the music listening experience to playlists and singles and have very little room for albums and collecting a library of music you refer to.

Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

#16

I used to work in the music industry professionally, on the ground level doing booking and management. This trend has been happening slowly for nearly a decade but it’s finally here. Rap and Hip Hop figured out a long time before most other genres that rapid small releases was a far better way to keep hype and sales up. Before Spotify was a thing, the shift was happening with YouTube but it wasn’t as predominant. Now…

[deleted]

Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

#18
post #3

That's a strange stance. I assume there are a fair number of listeners that don't care to listen to anything new. Is there some business benefit to Spotify by artificially forcing churn?

It’s not about listening to something new; it’s about the wave of hype and promo you do around each release, it keeps you relevant and gives you something to talk about, keeps you fresh in peoples minds.

This only works as long as everybody else isn't doing it.

Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”

#20

I really wish bandcamp would be bigger. Much prefer their platform. The spotify monetization cycle is so bad for music

Agreed, not just the monetization scheme but Spotify and others just push the music listening experience to playlists and singles and have very little room for albums and collecting a library of music you refer to.

I’m not a music aficionado, and I have no interest in albums. I love the singles/playlist format, and consume far more music now that I can easily ignore the 9 out of 10 songs I don’t like in an album (back when CDs were still a thing).

I also find it easy to have a library of singles that I like.

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