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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”

#341

Post by prox »

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 think what he is really saying is : if you want to make money, you have to be on the clock, produce every month,week, day. Welcome to the newest rat race addition (which works wonders for creativity /s )

Just as we are pivoting away from unsustainable energy, we need to pivot away from unsustainable value structures. We have the tech, we have the brainpower, now we need the will to work on that.

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

#342

Post by JAlexoid »

jedimastert wrote: post #315
JAlexoid wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess you don't belong in the new future landscape There's really nothing unusual in bands losing fans and appeal. If you don't want to change and loose fans - that's your choice. This isn't even new. Many artists had to recreate themselves to stay relevant or just retire. Now - you have much cheaper and much more direct means of engaging with your audience. If you decide to ignore this - then you probably will n…

> There's really nothing unusual in bands losing fans and appeal. If you don't want to change and loose fans - that's your choice. This isn't even new. Many artists had to recreate themselves to stay relevant or just retire. Pretty hard to lose fans you don't have...and it's really REALLY hard to get fans

But that's work, that needs to happen. That's why Ek is saying that you can't just "release and forget for the next 4 years".

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

#343

Post by j605 »

JAlexoid wrote: post #273
jakelazaroff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can listen to the songs on bandcamp before buying it.

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

#344

Post by [deleted] »

ponker wrote: post #272
adrr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#345

Post by tanilama »

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 don't think this is disrespectful to musicians.

The way people consume music has changed and for the right reason.

Music now is a commodity that can be obtained in secs. This is totally different the old days when people buy tapes and CDs and use dedicated equipments just to listen music. If you are buying a CD for 15+ dollars, ofc it should contain more than a handful song.

Now you can literally release any number of songs at any time, and test the water as frequently as you want.

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

#346

Post by egypturnash »

AlexandrB wrote: post #253
singhrac wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not comparable - music is art.

That's irrelevant. Both software and music are: * infinitely reproducible for near zero marginal cost * subject to changing tastes and style * easily obtainable through illegal means This is especially true for games. Many software companies seem to have solved this dilemma by becoming surveillance or advertising companies that happen to make software. Games have solved it by peddling an increasing quantity of paid,…

If you stop playing the huge AAA games and start playing smaller ones, you see another solution: lower prices for games that can be finished in an amount of time that fits into the busy life of an adult, and very often a grant from a national art fund.

Not for American games, of course, we basically destroyed the National Endowment for the Arts, thanks a lot guys.

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

#347

Post by shakezula »

jimbokun wrote: post #334
shakezula wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Metallica just as much as the next guy, but they're not relevant anymore. They've been laughed out of the music industry ever since they got upset about their music being pirated - which is actually a great example of how the music industry has changed and left them in the dust. Do they still sell records? Sure. But that's not what I'm talking about. Would I listen to their opinions on modern music industry tr…

> Do they still sell records? Sure. But that's not what I'm talking about. Would I listen to their opinions on modern music industry trends? Absolutely not. I bet they feel just terrible to only be making money off of people buying their music, but not paying attention to their opinions.

People not caring about your opinions is nearly the definition of irrelevance, so I don't see how I'm wrong here.

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

#348

Post by Alupis »

dhosek wrote: post #292
Alupis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great! I wish more bands had this level of success. BandCamp is more-or-less an "indie" place to find music. People have to be "into" it to go there and find music. Spotify and Pandora are far lower barriers for every-day people. Just put on some station you've created from your favorite band, and eventually it'll start playing new bands you've never heard and might love. It's amazing.

What it ends up doing is incentivizing artists to create songs like this: https://play.google.com/store/music/artist/The_Very_Very_Awe... I read somewhere that the artist behind this discovered that the streaming songs he made the most from were songs that were apparently requested by random small child requests so he created a whole bunch of songs for just that purpose and makes the bulk of his income through that.…

How is this bad? This artist found a niche that wouldn't exist otherwise, and is making a profit from it.

This artist has made a business out of their music. Most music isn't a business, it's a passion and hobby.

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

#349

Post by jongold »

xwdv wrote: post #314
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…

> Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. Haha, no. Artists aren’t some gift from God here to bestow the world with joy from the heavens that we should all marvel at. They are people who chose to learn a skill capable of outputting something suitable for consumption as entertainment. As such, it is their job to be putting out these works regularly, just like everyone else. Appreciation is nice, but d…

you're conflating technical ability with the rest of the creative process: intuiting narratives in the collective unconscious & channeling inspiration from a much, much greater source to make something wholly outside of the artist.

that's not to say that artists are "geniuses" who should be put on pedestals, but it's a fundamentally different thing than a vocation

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

#350

Post by gxqoz »

zjaffee wrote: post #327
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 think what the CEO is saying, and it has been an increasing trend in music for a long time now, is moving even further away from large LP releases every few years. The existence of that medium of music doesn't make sense in the current year given how people actually go about consuming music. The way to keep fans engaged involves releasing EPs and Single on a regular basis, releasing a whole album only really makes…

My impression is that there was actually some benefit to having really long streaming albums, at least if you were already a hit artist. You'd rack up more individual plays and thus more money. This only works, though, if people are coming to you and playing the album rather than being sent to a song via an algorithm. If that's the majority of your usage, a constant drip of new singles makes sense.
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