Imagine we treated audio production the same way we treated video/movie production. The whole paradigm between starving musicians and Hollywood film stars is ridiculous. And to be honest, the two trades are not that much far removed from each other.
Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
491–500 of 861 posts
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#492Earlier 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…
LP's or long form collections by artists capture a moment in that artist's creative point. Typically, the cycle was release a record, tour a bunch, write new music, and repeat. This meant by the time that next LP came along, the collection of songs on there could sound fairly different as the artist changed, got better, heard new songs and got inspired etc. Then there's the recording and engineering challenges around…
I completely agree with you from the perspective of being a fan of music for music's sake. Listening to a well put together album is fantastic, but that isn't the be all end all of music.
Music in the current age is equal parts pop culture as it is listening aesthetics. For an artist to thrive financially they have long had to take the first path rather than primarily focus on the later.
The artists all producing the top songs on spotify are doing so through the release of singles here and there and it makes total sense given the cultural context for how music is consumed and discovered in the current year.
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
A tremendously important example is videogames which as well as being a multi-billion dollar industry akin to music are also a major medium of individual self expression. In the broader set you have interactive fiction and a whole slew of art that shares a lot in common with time-based art. Demoscene is a good example of the latter.
Games certainly can be art! But I don't see how that conflicts with what I said or serves as a counterexample. Games are not just software products. They are the culmination of work by artists, designers, writers, and engineers. The end product is often an artistic piece, and a rather interesting one. Games being art doesn't suddenly mean software products are art. The software itself helps drive the art but is not t…
Videogames are software products though so are a prime example of software products that are art. To quote your own recent definition of software:
"I have always viewed hard, firm, and soft as a description of the ware's malleability. Hardware is not easily changed or updateable, if at all. Firmware is typically code deployed to stay in hardware like an EEPROM, flash, or FPGA, where it can be changed but not necessarily dynamically or easily. Software is able to be easily molded and changed."
And whilst videogames do require traditional artists so do the construction of other mundane software products. Also invoking other disciplines rather ignores a lot of the work that goes into the gameplay itself which is entirely software driven.
Not to mention the other examples you studiously avoided.
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kanye West was the first big artist I know to really utilize The new release model to break out of the old formula of releasing an album and then it’s done. It was fascinating when Life of Pablo was released on Spotify and over the next few months was given continuous updates and patches, like it had been software. Really proves the old proverb that great art never is finished, it’s abandoned...
I wonder if being able to update albums has been a good thing. It may encourage people to release "MVP"s because they can always improve them later. It doesn't quite fit because reviewers will review the first version. For me personally, it has been a negative, because I really loved Tame Impala's Borderline, which was switcheroo'd with a song I don't feel for when the album came out. They even took out the single ve…
There is a very scary thing about digital art where platforms at any time can remove things or silently release a new version. It makes me uncomfortable in the same way as when newspapers online make updates to their articles with no transparent revision history of what was changed and when.
The technology just makes it easier though. The Foundations have been trying to erase the original Colin Young version of Build me up Buttercup that I love in favor of Clem Curtis rerecordings since long before Internet was a thing, as an example.
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but 10s of hours of effort isn't anywhere near "more than I can imagine" as the OP said. I don't think anyone here is claiming it's easy
+ 10 years crafting a unique sound.
It probably took me about 10 years to get good at programming. Sure, I could create programs pretty quickly---but making something like [1] is another matter altogether.
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have an orchestra with 100 musicians who receive something like $10^5 per year, you pay $10^7 per year. You need several years to practice and to form the orchestra into a team with a repertoire. If it takes 10 years, then that is $10^8.
Your numbers are grossly off here. I would bet that zero orchestra musicians are making anywhere close to $100k just from playing in an orchestra - the absolute top of the top might make that across all of their engagements. Most are making far, far less.
> I would bet that zero orchestra musicians
That'd be a losing bet.
https://www.pennlive.com/life/2016/10/highest_paid_orchestra...
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#497I 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…
Not touching the whole heft of the argument, I would like to point out that the original poster didn't compare the difficulty of writing a hit song to a "hit app", he compared a creating a hit song with creating working software.
I can co-sign on this part of his premise. I worked for a music producer who has a number of #1 hits (Beyonce, Fergie, John Legend etc). He wrote >1 songs per day almost every day for over a decade.
His success ratio (hit vs placement vs nothing) was much lower than any mediocre software engineer trying to make working software over the same period of time.
It feels safe to say that in a 365 day period, a software developer can reasonably expect significantly more than one of those days to be used in 'working software' right?
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> we need to pivot away from unsustainable value structures I think it's a category error to expect the CEO of the music distributor to be the one that stands up for the sustainability of music artists. Even if you did get a "benevolent dictator" figure in that position, it would likely crumble to a competitor who is focusing more on optimizing the value+experience for the listener.
Probably, yes. It’s more of a political proposition and societal debate. How much do we value culture? I do agree he is probably on some expectancy rail that he cannot or doesn’t want to forgo.
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#499Musicians should be getting closer and closer to 100% royalties as the infrastructure gets cheaper and cheaper. But, tech CEOs all like crappy music. Which is why they should never be in control of the livelihoods of creatives.
Re: Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only “once every 3-4 years”
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usefulness of software is not universally objective. Perhaps a paint-mixing simulator would be very useful to me. Probably most people don't care. In the same way, everyone likes different music. It's just that some music is "harder to like" than others. Just as in software utility.
I am speaking of the usefulness of software in a much more general sense - does it work? Adobe Photoshop and GIMP are two competing softwares for a specific task - editing photos. Not everyone needs to edit photos. Those who do are voting with their money, because Adobe Photoshop worked faster and more easily at the same task than GIMP. (This can change, with the recent subscription-model only Adobe is pushing that i…
Let's talk about editors.
Some people like vim. Some people like VS Code.
I still don't think it's really different.