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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”

#411

Post by lotsofpulp »

nsl73 wrote: post #396
ng12 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tec…

Over 80% of my music listening is full albums, even though I haven’t played a record or CD since 2015. I really hope the medium of the album survives, because I much prefer listening to a coherent and deliberate group of songs than any other method.

I don’t understand how an album wouldn’t survive if singles survive. An album is a collection of single songs.

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

#412

Post by Apocryphon »

a1369209993 wrote: post #358
tsimionescu wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the same plenitude is available in almost all aspects of our lives. To be fair, there's orders of magnitude less plenitude in certain necessities like food and housing - still more than enough over all, but not by so large a margin that you don't get local shortfalls (especially in housing).

It's there, it's just not evenly distributed- or evenly zoned. As a species, we can probably produce enough to cover everyone's basic needs if we wanted to.

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

#413

Post by tomphoolery »

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…

<3

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

#414

Post by copperx »

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…

I absolutely agree, and that's what I think the CEO is referring to. Slowly dropping 6-12 singles over a two year period is more sensible nowadays than taking two years to write, record, and release an album or EP.

In fact, leaving out the few niche bands that release albums as a cohesive whole, the concept of an album seems terribly anachronistic in this new world of streaming. It's now the era of the single song, whether we like it or not. This is, of course, just considering popular genres of music.

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

#415

Post by lotsofpulp »

aczerepinski wrote: post #398
zjaffee wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is sad and feels to me like a dumbing down of everything due to short attention spans. I still prefer to listen to full coherent albums, and one of the highlights of my week is my Sunday run, which gives me time to listen to an album start to finish with no interruptions. I hope some of my favorite musicians will continue to conceptualize albums that have a 45+ minute arc, even if market pressures mean that they…

Even before streaming music, I don’t think many people listened to whole albums. I distributed a lot of custom CDs to people in high school because they wanted various singles off of different CDs and I had access to a CD burner and could rip and record them in custom mixes.

I personally find it too tedious to even work out the lyrics of the song because most of the time I can’t figure out what the singer is saying, or whatever cryptic message it is. I just listen for the sounds, mostly, and that scratches my itch sufficiently to not make it worth my while to look more into it. But I can understand if some people do have an interest in it.

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

#416

Post by cromon »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #290
adrr wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work for a streaming service that charges a flat rate? Do you think public has an appetite for a pay per usage model/micro transaction model or would it drive users back to piracy? Micro transactions in online news media hasn’t managed to get any traction.

It doesn't work for a streaming service which charges a flat rate - which is the point. Spotify is not the same as Netflix etc, because Netflix etc is commissioning and promoting new work - something Spotify has no interest in. So... you sell units, not streams. You buy a perpetual license to play a unit as many times as you want. The artist gets a royalty for the unit sale. This frontloads income around unit release…

Possibly not anymore since there was an investigation into what they did years ago, but they've probably just got better and hiding it:

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-i...

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

#417

Post by JAlexoid »

jacquesm wrote: post #370
JAlexoid wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And that's one of the points Ek was making - work with your fans and keep them engaged. Frequent releases help a lot with that.

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

#419

Post by sixothree »

crazygringo wrote: post #401
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's apples-to-oranges. Obviously a "hit" anything is hard in any field, by definition. A hit app is just as hard (even harder, probably, since there are a lot less hit apps than hit songs). But producing a single track? Seriously, it's not that hard. Yes, it takes a team of people and a lot of creativity and skill, but I do…

It sounds to me like you're making his point. You offered no insight into the process of creating music whatsoever.

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

#420

Post by jimmaswell »

7thaccount wrote: post #124
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…

A friend once explained this to me a decade ago. I would buy albums, but he would torrent everything. In his eyes, music has shifted to the public domain now. He said the best way to support a band now would be to buy t-shirts and go to as many concerts as you can. I still buy all my albums, but finally see his point. I mean now, all artists have their entire collection of music on YouTube. If everyone almost always…

I feel like they must make a decent amount of money from ads on free streaming sites.
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