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

Post by wolco » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #185

alchemyromcom wrote: post #139

I wish more people, especially tech CEOs, could understand the incredible sacrifice of time, money, and energy it takes to make an album people actually enjoy. Everything you listen to, unless you are willing to listen to raw demos, is a miracle. I've worked both as a sound engineer and and a software developer. It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. The way tech com…

> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. I think the same could be said of any (good) art. Art and engineering are fundamentally very different things that just can't be compared, even if there may be some mutual overlapping. (Audio/mixing/mastering engineering definitely crosses the streams more, but for the sake of argument let's just consider the entire end-to-end…

Post by ssully » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #4

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…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #204

Kalium wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be more open and accepting to commentary if there was more kindness, more love, more empathy and compassion in discussions of how the old normal is gone? Expressions of admiration and awe coupled with opining that the old multi-year release cycle doesn't work anymore, and legions of hard-working humans making sacrifices for what they love may need to change? Thank you for sharing. The world is always a bett…

The message itself is wrong. We live in a world of plenty. We should be working less, not more. We have created more music in this century than all of the last combined. We have the ability to listen to thousands of years of music at the touch of a button. A concert that would have taken hours of work for 50 people to entertain 200 now takes nothing - a million people put on their headphones and listen to a recording…

Post by kbenson » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #167

kbenson wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is not for putting out art, it's for generating buzz about your art so you can get paid for it later. If your goal is the best art you can produce, then perhaps Spotify and that roller coaster isn't what you should care about. If you want to good art while also also getting a lot of buzz so you can make money or be popular, then you need to deal with market forces, just like everyone always has. Different art…

Right, but my point is that if you're absorbed dealing with market forces you won't be able to produce significant work. The more cookie cutter stuff you release, the more you will adopt that mindset and it will consume your creativity. I guess in the past musicians toured and performed to satisfy that need, and relegated the "important" work to long term writing/composing. With Spotify (and specially now with COVID)…

Post by andybak » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #241

meowface wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. I think the same could be said of any (good) art. Art and engineering are fundamentally very different things that just can't be compared, even if there may be some mutual overlapping. (Audio/mixing/mastering engineering definitely crosses the streams more, but for the sake of argument let's just consider the entire end-to-end…

Counterpoint is record companies are creating pop music or using audiotune without the artist quality a classic painting has.