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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”

#581

Post by boomlinde »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #573
boomlinde wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit like saying that a movie is a collection of single pictures.

An album is a playlist of songs selected by the musician. They can be consumed as a playlist, or individually. A frame of a movie won’t make sense without the whole movie.

> A frame of a movie won’t make sense without the whole movie.

Why not? It means exactly what's in the frame and what you can derive from it alone. The movie in its entirety may have a more profound and precise meaning, sometimes entirely different from what disjointed frames will tell you, which is the point of my analogy.

Perhaps songs-scenes make a more fair analogy. Some albums are basically collections of singles because the collection itself doesn't represent any meaningful overarching theme or creative process. I feel the same about movies. I'd bore myself to death watching another Marvel movie, but I'll happily enjoy some disjointed highlights from them on youtube.

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

#583

Post by Nasrudith »

lux wrote: post #361
apocalypstyx wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is funny, all of those descriptors for STEM and detatchment seem to apply to the dying institutions which call themselves humanities far more than STEM. Now the fundamentals still exist strongly, there is plenty of phislophizing and art creation. But not through them.

Philosophy as a grounding context of human life? Talk about historical revisionism. Philosophy has long been about getting beyond the dreary context of human life into grand abstract universals. Even the ones which had pretenses otherwise like Marx-Engle's descendants or primitivists still engaged in the same thing. Revolutions were lead by college students instead of factory workers and farmers based upon theories that find validating observations not just inapplicable but rude and offensive to even propose. That they define themselves as fundamentally not scientists is the biggest tell to the ailment.

The Non-empiricists got left behind long ago, unchanging and then insist that the world has lost touch and not them. The split from philosophy and natural philosophy and from natural philosophy to science was from an inability to accept that they must acknowledge the world as it is, even if they wish to change it.

By doing so the old institutions and concepts refused to change and are "undead" - not truly gone but not growing or adapting to their environment like a living thing. To paraphrase from the Sixth Sense they're dead and don't know it. Now like Bruce Willis thet are wondering why their spouse silently refuses to speak to them at the dinner table and never listens to a word they say.

Harshly yes, you should get with the program because not doing so in some way (even if it is defiantly crafting their own path which may or may not fail) is denying reality.

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

#584

Post by korla »

olivejun wrote: post #515
crazygringo wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But working software doesn't mean commercially successful software. It just means it runs and does something. "Working software" would be comparable to "listenable music". I'm sure every song that producer wrote daily was listenable . But even if you mean "working software" as something that goes up on the app charts, top 100 in a popular category? I mean, then no -- I could easily see a developer spend an entire yea…

The average income indifference between artists and software developers, and how many of those who make up those communities are able to find any sense of financial stability, are vastly different, so even under your logic that a “hit” is a “hit” no matter the industry, is still really misinformed and I’m sure we are all out here just doing what we are doing for the “love of it”. Speaking as a producer and developer,…

You're still off quite a ways in your analogy. I get paid to develop software that someone else owns and brands and makes all decisions for. For nothing more than money. It's nothing like my passion projects, which I do not get paid for at all. Most of the time. Maybe 1 in a 1000 that I will get paid for them in any meaningful way.

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

#585

Post by bestnameever »

I don't see anyone discussing this but I wonder if this also is a consequence of the platforms making more music available to people.

Artists are now competing in a larger pond. It would make sense (to me), that people move on from certain music quicker than they used too.

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

#586

Post by Alupis »

dhosek wrote: post #540
Alupis wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Frankly, this narrative is untrue.

Since the beginning of time, certainly modern times, artists have largely struggled to survive off their artwork. Most don't survive.

There is no time in modern history where artists, of any kind, on average made a living from their art. Even our most famous artists very often die poor.

There has always been a gross abundance of art. It's not a bad thing - but it does mean making a living off it is _hard_. Really _hard_. It's not good enough simply to be talented - there's a lot of luck involved too.

For every Taylor Swift, you'll find dozens of wannabe's with nearly as great, or sometimes as great of songwriting abilities and voice talent. Some even play instruments at the same time! Somehow, Taylor Swift was "picked" and propped up by record labels et al, and now is a household name.

How many artists can you name from the 19th century? Probably a few of the most successful ones. Do you think they were the only ones writing music, or painting? Definitely not.

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

#588

Post by embit »

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…

In agreement. Musical creations and musical creators won’t obey you, Spotify. You obey them.

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

#589

Post by hashkb »

jp57 wrote: post #322
jedimastert wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea behind creating an album, a collection of songs behind a theme or era of your creative life, lets you tell more of a story in a cohesive way. It lets you create more interconnected works, rather than one idea per song. Also, it lets you take breaks and lets things breathe. It's really hard to take a song from creation to recording to mastering to releasing without giving yourself a break in the meantime. Als…

But he said 3-4 years. Also, there's nothing stopping anyone from recording a bunch of work at once and then releasing it over time.

Not all artists look at it from a purely business perspective. Spotify has the power to support artists, to build any feature they want, using data that no distribution platfo of the past has ever had, but instead they're narrowing the path to success; and justifying it with their own profit motive.

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

#590

Post by c3534l »

I went back and read the original interview and I still don't know what he was actually trying to say. He stressed that artists need continuous engagement with their community and the old business model didn't work anymore. But I really can't tell if he was trying to say staggered, small releases, and do away with the big promos for albums, or if he really was saying "stop being lazy and churn out more product." He could easily claim the former for PR reasons, but the language he uses in the interview is incredibly ambiguous I honestly just have no idea what he's talking about. The sensationalist reporting obviously wants to play up the controversy, acting like the least favorable interpretation is unambiguously the correct one, but that's precisely why the public no longer trusts news media.
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