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

thefader.com

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

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think most developers learn programming from scratch at a job?

Key word: > during I've been paid far more for software than I have for music in the last 10+ years. Spent about equal time/effort on each. ROI is better with software (I can afford more synths and records).

I don't think anyone is disputing that ROI is better with software.

That said, programming for 10 years before getting a job in the are is not uncommon. Most of my peers did it for at least five (I learned 15 years before, but I grant that's not that common).

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

#612
post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This tendency to hyper-analogise everything oh so sinks my boat.

I can’t think of even one example of the use of analogy that has helped me understand a subject better than if it were discussed and explained on its own terms.

It seems all analogies do is enable the analogiser to delude themselves in to thinking similar is equal to same.

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

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can you ELI5 what a music producer does? Was he also a writer or is writing part of producing? What is placement?

Everything from composing and performing the entire song, to contributing a couple of claps during the outtro. It's a very loose term.

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

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ 10 years crafting a unique sound.

Tons of amazing music with totally new sounds comes from people 16-20 years old. For the right person, it doesn't take a decade.

And I bet they started at 10 or 12. I know I did.

Also, "tons" is amazingly overstated. Very few of those 16 year olds are producing "good" music that appeals beyond their immediate demographic, and that's to say nothing of how low of standards many youth demographics have.

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

#615

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.

Wouldn’t say frame, but more like a collection of scenes.

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

#616
post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the CEO’s take reminds me of Jobs’s “you’re holding it wrong”. So it’s not that Spotify is not paying artists enough, it’s that artists aren’t working hard enough. And even though artists have been complaining about the money they make from streaming for years, “in private” some of them are happy. Sure.

Jobs never said that, so maybe avoid putting it in quotes.

That’s fair

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

#617

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…

> but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy.

It's the same way with software. People will just vomit up anything up there and truely good, and tested, libraries and frameworks are hard to come by.

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

#618

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 requires more effort than you could ever imagine.

Unfortunately that applies to pretty much everything. Of all the things in my life, I only even know how to provide the raw materials for some of them. And I could probably replicate a lot of the software given time.

Modern life is a series of miracles and all of it requires more effort than people imagine.

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

#620

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…

Have you ever composed music that others have liked? I strongly doubt so, otherwise you would refrain from comparing developing a hit app to a hit song, to save yourself the shame of looking like a fool. apple-to-oranges, as you said.

Last year the founder of Shazam told his story at a conference. That‘s a hit app. The effort that went into it is mind boggling. Far more than ever could possibly go into a single hit song.
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