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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”

#361

Post by lux »

apocalypstyx wrote: post #288
lux wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musician and software developer here, and I'm calling BS on that. Here's a transcript of a talk I gave last year on "code as art" (apologies if this sounds like self-promo). You can skip the first half and scroll down to where it says "Which leads me back to code as an artform". There are a lot of ways to demonstrate that code IS art, and this was just a quick 5-minute overview of the subject. Cheers! https://www.joh…

As an acquaintance of mine put it the other day on this exact topic (who happens to be a writer/graphic artist/programmer): "First STEM says that the humanities are worthless. Then they say how, really, STEM should get all that glory too because, really, it's the same thing -- but better." Or this quote: "Great paintings, for example, get you laid in a way that great computer programs never do. Even not-so-great pain…

I forgot about Hackers and Painters! Pretty sure there's a copy on a bookshelf here somewhere...

Interesting quotes. Reminded me of a conversation I had with some local artists a while back who were staunchly in favour of their kids going into STEM because the humanities don't have a direct application to industry any more. They didn't want their kids wasting money on exploratory education, or in pursuit of the arts which they saw as a dead-end. I found that really sad, but it stemmed from an acute awareness of the direction industries like music are going.

Historically, the sciences emerged as areas of philosophy, but they've since become detached from those roots. Those roots have a grounding effect, a sense of the greater context of human life, that's missing in the culture around STEM today. I see echoes of that in the rationalizations made by Spotify's CEO: Who cares if the album is dead? Get with the new program, whatever the cost; it was inevitable anyway.

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

#362

Post by gagege »

oblio wrote: post #131
avidphantasm wrote: post #116

Don’t people write and listen to entire albums anymore? When I listen to music, I almost always listen to entire albums, not individual songs.

Not really. Most people hated getting and paying for whole albums, out of which most stuff was garbage. Few artists have whole albums worth listening to.

I hear this a lot, but I've never understood it. Do most albums have 1 or 2 stinkers? Sure, but I still don't skip tracks. I enjoy music the most when it's in the larger context of an album. I like anticipating my favorite songs and I like the transitions between them, even if it's just silence.

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

#363

Post by user5994461 »

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.

That couldn't be further from the truth, it's extremely easy to make a hit, large labels consistently release hits again and again.

It's all about distribution and marketing network, not about the music.

Sames goes with tech, good luck trying to make a product and garner any amount of traction, whereas the same product released from microsoft/google/aws would get millions of eyeballs right away.

Thinking that good has much to do with success is a recipe to be disappointed. Go spend some time promoting your creations instead of trying to make them better.

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

#364

Post by commandlinefan »

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 wish more people, especially tech CEOs

Well, you can't really blame the tech CEO here... Spotify charges people what they're willing to pay to listen to music. I think it's a minor miracle that they've worked out a way to get people to pay anything for music considering how easy music piracy has been since the internet came along. (Not taking a moral stance, just stating a fact).

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

#365

Post by gen220 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #161
shakezula wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your friend was absolutely right. I never cared if people pirated my bands music (or later the bands that I was managing) because the real thing I wanted was them showing up at shows, buying merch, posting us on facebook, asking events to bring us on, etc... At a certain point, Taylor Swift and larger artists _do_ make a good chunk of change from their actual music sales, but it isn't a feasible strategy to rely on t…

I listen to a lot of music but I’d never go to a live show (can’t think of anything worse) and I’m not going to wear a branded t-shirt. How do they capture revenue from people like me in your model? Now I think about it I did once buy a video log of the production of an album. But that’s one artist from the thousands I listen to.

It's been mentioned a few times in this comment graph, but just in case: Bandcamp is where you should be putting your money.

80-85% of revenue from goods sold go to the artists [0].

[0]: https://bandcamp.com/about

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

#366

Post by larrik »

jp57 wrote: post #256

I'm not sure why this is controversial. In the vinyl era, when a single LP was about 40 minutes long, it was pretty normal for artists to release roughly an album a year. (e.g. Led Zeppelin's eight studio albums were released over a span of 10.5 years, but one was a double album and they took a long break when Robert Plant's son died. The first 7 albums were released over 7 years). It seems like it was only when albu…

I honestly don't think the length of the albums matter. As bands get more successful, they tour more, and that eats up all of their time. Lots of bands will tour for 2 full years after an album release, and only then start to work on another.

Back in the 70's, bands just didn't casually tour the world like now.

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

#367

Post by nullspace »

bmitc wrote: post #231
Juliate wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not depressing. That's one part of the "music industry". It's a huge sales channel, per se. Now, being a musician or an artist, you decide what you do with it. If you consider that what matters is your sales and nothing else, Spotify's stance might apply to you. But you might have different point of view as well, still make music, and still live from it, perhaps.

It's a bit disrespectful to reply to someone saying something's depressing by bluntly saying it's not. It's not up to you to judge what they find depressing. I also find it depressing. It's a societal problem that we do not value art in the same way that we value science and technology. We see it everywhere from the STEM myth to arts educational programs and artists struggling just to survive. Even earning my living…

I think I vaguely agree with much of what you said, but just want to point this one out.

> It's a societal problem that we do not value art in the same way that we value science and technology.

Want to give a couple of examples against this:

- some of the most valuable software out there is free and open source. The authors of said software don’t get compensated anywhere near the softwares value. Coz everyone uses it for free.

- I very much value the games I play on my iPhone, but I have never paid any money for them.

- I will buy Opeth t-shirts, and Akerfeld custom guitars, but I’m never going to give Spotify as much money.

So, I don’t think your claim is so clear cut as you state it.

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

#368

Post by senko »

hardtke wrote: post #228
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 highly recommend The Song Machine (Inside the Hit Factory) by John Seabrook. The author describes the modern reincarnation of the Brill Building that pumps out pop hits using methods that we would not call songwriting (Max Martin, Dr. Luke, etc.). The goal is to get you to listen to 30 seconds of a song (that counts as a spin on digital streaming services). They've decomposed the process into mass production of bac…

In a similar way, back in '88 KLF wrote tongue-in-cheek "manual" for writing a top pop song, a hilarious and cynical view into how a musical sausage is made:

https://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/

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

#369

Post by ng12 »

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…

> The existence of that medium of music doesn't make sense in the current year given how people actually go about consuming music.

I'm not convinced. The standard 3-4 minute pop song came about because that's what could fit on one side of a 78. Albums came about because an LP (33 1/2) could fit roughly 40 minutes of music, or 10-12 of those songs. These formats proved to be a popular and effective even though the technologies that created them are long obsolete.

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

#370

Post by jacquesm »

JAlexoid wrote: post #298
jacquesm wrote: post #264

Yes they can. Spotify fortunately is not the only way in which musicians can reach and audience and for some musicians it is still an art rather than a sausage of which they need to produce an extra quota to boost every Spotify quarterly earnings report. Quality takes time, especially in music. I wonder if that CEO has ever made any music themselves?

Even the best musicians get left behind. If you completely ignore your audience and don't work with them - who's going to buy your stuff?

That's a good time to ask yourself why you make music in the first place.
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