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

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

#271

Post by p1esk »

throwaw4y-plate wrote: post #209
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…

Art isn't the kind of thing that can be solved with a clever hill-climbing algorithm, is it.

We don't know yet.

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

#272

Post by ponker »

adrr wrote: post #222
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…

I am curious what you think the optimal solution for music in today’s world with massive storage and high bandwidth. Spotify is paying 70% of revenue to artists. You have factor in piracy if the price is to high or the solution is inconvenient. The public has rejected DRM and songs are easily give away to their friends. Lastly, No one wants physical media.

Spotify is distributing 70% but $10/month is too little revenue for infinite music.

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

#273

Post by JAlexoid »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #54
Alupis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. The amount Spotify/Pandora/et al pay the majority of musicians per stream is far more than they'd make selling CD's. The overwhelming majority of music is unknown, has few fans, and will never "go platinum" nor sell out stadiums - ie, most musicians are not Taylor Swift. For all those artists... access to millions of potential listeners from around the world is an amazing advancement. The number of a…

Just speaking for my own band: we have had tens of thousands of streams on Spotify, yet we have made over 4x more revenue from music sales on BandCamp than we have on all streaming services combined.

Do you think that you'd make all of those sales, if you had no Spotify access at all?

I mean... If you pointed me to your BandCamp store page and told me to buy an album, without first hearing it - I wouldn't buy it.

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

#274

Post by searchableguy »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #194
gwd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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. If the CEO of an open-source company said, "Software isn't our product, software is our marketing", would you feel the same way?

I wouldn't. But I think that's because open-source software development companies are the exception rather than the norm. No one expects you to open-source your software and then hope someone hires you for your services or buys one of your t-shirts. It's still the norm in our industry to write something and sell copies of it. Plus, software pays more. Software developers generally don't get squeezed. Musicians, on th…

> Software developers generally don't get squeezed

Where I live, they do...go live in one of the countries where software gets outsourced. People are paid Software developers have skills that are easily transferable than musicians. If software developers stop learning, they will quickly be devalued with legacy maintenance as an exception. We used to value musicians more because of supply and distribution problems. It was an artificially constrained labor market. Now it is not. That's why they aren't getting paid the same. Similar to how writing html and css would get you a good paying job, not now though. Musicians need to change and adapt. They need to pick up more transferable skills.

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

#275

Post by shakezula »

stephencoyner wrote: post #123
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…

This is very true. One of the first artists I noticed doing this was a rapper, Curren$y. All the mixtapes were free on Datpiff.com (major throwback) and the tours / Merch were the $$$ makers. This also allowed artists to go fully independent and keep all their profits. Added into the mix now are independent vinyl / cd / tape makers who the artists partner with on Physical music releases. Yes, physicals are back in a…

yeah, Datpiff, worldstar, HHWW, etc... these sites were all at the forefront of this paradigm shift for backpack hip hop and rap. Hardcore and punk genres had similar approaches with BandCamp, PureVolume, and even MySpace, and if you actually look at punk and rap they have really interesting overlaps in these areas. Hip hop going independent was a major shift from the established late 90's/early 2000's tradition of signing with a label.

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

#276

Post by waffletower »

It takes enormous hubris to build a business as a parasite of music and its creators, and subsequently whip them for more productivity. I don't think I am the only person that associates the name "Daniel Elk" with the word "douche-bag" in my head.

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

#277

Post by Alupis »

jariel wrote: post #125
Alupis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. The amount Spotify/Pandora/et al pay the majority of musicians per stream is far more than they'd make selling CD's. The overwhelming majority of music is unknown, has few fans, and will never "go platinum" nor sell out stadiums - ie, most musicians are not Taylor Swift. For all those artists... access to millions of potential listeners from around the world is an amazing advancement. The number of a…

"Let's be honest. The amount Spotify/Pandora/et al pay the majority of musicians per stream is far more than they'd make selling CD's. T" Revenues to artists from digital distribution is a fraction of what it was during the CD days. People used to pay for music, now they do not.

> People used to pay for music, now they do not.

People also used to steal music too. Having a "free" or minimal-cost streaming option has pretty much removed that desire for most people.

> Revenues to artists from digital distribution is a fraction of what it was during the CD days.

Perhaps for the Taylor Swift's of the world, sure. For everyone else, which makes up 99.99% of musicians, bands and artists... they made zero or negative money before, now they have a chance to get in front of people who would otherwise never know who they are or listen to their music. That's a win for the 99.99%.

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

#278

Post by aglavine »

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…

then you see movies like '24 hour party people' that have a different view...

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

#280

Post by lucb1e »

chadlavi wrote: post #103

[flagged]

> Net worth US$4.5 billion (July 2020)

(Wikipedia)

> Ek owns nearly 9% of the shares

(Forbes)

Spotify seems to be about 50B on the stock market, so 9% of that is... 4.5B.

It seems that nearly 100% of his known money is virtual. I'm not sure he takes home a huge salary rather than paying out to artists ("Ek and his business parter Martin Lorentzon founded the company in 2006" so he didn't invest a lot to get those 9%). The company is also unprofitable currently, but having seen what non-profits like Mozilla take home I guess that doesn't say much (they also don't make any profit, and yet...).

Not sure if the actual salary is known. It seems like the kind of thing that would be, but duckduckgo annoyingly only turns up articles about this latest news.

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