Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thefader.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 861 posts

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

#531

Post by platz »

philmcc wrote: post #497
crazygringo wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This whole analogy between working software and music production is flawed from the start and elaboration on the theme does not help.

What's needed is to discuss artists compensation on their own terms.

Don't distort it by relating it to software development.

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

#532

Post by gwd »

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…

Thank you; I think you answered my question.

Basically, in software, you can choose to open-source your software as marketing if you want, but proprietary is still a sustainable business model. The claim here (which I am in no position to evaluate) is that for music, you no longer really have any choice: selling music itself is no longer a sustainable business model; you can only give it away in hopes that you can sell something else as a result.

That is pretty depressing.

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

#533

Post by pmlnr »

> "The artists today that are making it realize that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans.”

FU. A musician's job is to create music. Period. It's hard enough on it's own.

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

#534

Post by gpvos »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20
wldcordeiro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, not just the monetization scheme but Spotify and others just push the music listening experience to playlists and singles and have very little room for albums and collecting a library of music you refer to.

I’m not a music aficionado, and I have no interest in albums. I love the singles/playlist format, and consume far more music now that I can easily ignore the 9 out of 10 songs I don’t like in an album (back when CDs were still a thing). I also find it easy to have a library of singles that I like.

With Spotify, you don't "have" any music, you are at their mercy.

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

#535

Post by mark-r »

theodric wrote: post #518
crazygringo wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

RIP cohesive bodies of work or concept albums in your new publish-or-perish hellworld

That was already gone when people stopped listening to music a CD at a time.

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

#536

Post by dijksterhuis »

eslaught wrote: post #495
dijksterhuis wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ 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. [1]: http://regent-lang.org/

But I'm guessing you were paid for programming during those 10 years.

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

#537

Post by JAlexoid »

egypturnash wrote: post #506
JAlexoid wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're engaged with your audience enough for them to sponsor you on Patreon... and you managed to miss that you're literally doing what Ek talks about? You have auto-copulated right in front of everyone...

I am, and I am not, there's a huge difference between "I am releasing one page of my long graphic novel on a regular basis" and "I am regularly producing stuff designed to stand alone as complete objects" IMHO.

That is not the only thing that he said, it was the opposite to make his previous statement more prominent.

Congratulations on being caught by the title and completely missing the whole argument.

Imagine if I came out and said: "I'm an atheist and I don't need God to tell me to treat people well, love freedom, help the needy and be a nice person... no longer can I justify killing, pillaging and raping using the word of God."

And you put all focus on "I justify killing, pillaging and raping using the word of God"

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

#538

Post by Nasrudith »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #411
nsl73 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Price bundling for one - even without any synergistic benefits like telling a whole story over an album.

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

#539

Post by idlewords »

asdff wrote: post #510
idlewords wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Beatles at the height of their fame put out two albums a year, while making a bunch of movies on top of it. That pace is inconceivable in 2020, but I've never understood why.

It was inconceivable even back then, and probably had a lot to do with the Beatles burning out and parting ways after a few years in the U.S.

It was the norm.

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

#540

Post by dhosek »

Alupis wrote: post #348
dhosek wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to be able to do reverse phone lookup by typing a number into google. People have turned that into a business and now it, to put it simply, does not work at all.

This is the music equivalent of that. It's also why there are gajillions of crappy cover songs on the streaming services. It's turned into a money extraction thing and is crowding out the, you know, music.

Once upon a time, not that long ago even, a talented musician could make a living from their music. It's depressing to read biographies of entertainers who came up in the first half of the twentieth century who needed a job so they became entertainers. We've traded our culture for a mess of pottage.

Post reply on HN