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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”

#671

Post by ganfortran »

shakezula wrote: post #141
7thaccount wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your friend was absolutely right. I never cared if people pirated my bands music (or later the bands that I was managing) because the real thing I wanted was them showing up at shows, buying merch, posting us on facebook, asking events to bring us on, etc... At a certain point, Taylor Swift and larger artists _do_ make a good chunk of change from their actual music sales, but it isn't a feasible strategy to rely on t…

Even Taylor Swift releases the full new Album on youtube the first day, which is unthinkable even 5 years ago.

I think the industry already accept it is the way forward.

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

#672

Post by mpalmer »

the_af wrote: post #62
pier25 wrote: post #44

Obviously the guy knows nothing about creativity and art. It takes time to grow as a person and cultivate new ideas. It may not be possible to do that if you don't get in and out of whatever it is you're doing. Imagine telling Hemingway he has to release a new blog post every week instead of a book every couple of years.

"What's he going to record a song about?" "Nothing." "Spotify'll kill him." "I guess they will." "He must have got mixed up in something with the music industry." "I guess so," said Nick. "It's a hell of a thing." "It's an awful thing," Nick said. They did not say anything. George reached down for his mobile phone and wiped the screen. "I wonder what he did?" Nick said. "Failed to write enough songs fast enough to ge…

God help me, I can't tell if this is GPT-3 or not. If you told me it was I'd believe you.

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

#673

Post by dsabanin »

carlinmack wrote: post #215
quattrofan wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why most is utter dross. People still buy millions of classic albums from the 70's and 80's, in 30 years time very few artists will have that same comfort.

every generation has older people thinking the new generation of music is bad :)

Well, maybe they had a point. We went from Bach to 50 cent…

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

#674

Post by ganfortran »

tikwidd wrote: post #654
bobthepanda wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Korean pop music has been doing this for a while too. This group has pretty rapid releases, 5 singles a year, and 10 EPs and 3 albums since 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_discography

In addition, Kpop groups put a huge amount of effort into their physical albums. Sales of physical albums are extremely high in Korea (Japan I think too) compared to other countries (just my impression, but if anyone has sources I'd be interested). Albums are usually sold as boxes with a photo book inside and collectible cards, they are almost more like magazines. Some albums come in different editions with different…

Albums in Kpop world is a different thing.

Think of buying albums more like a kickstarter fundraising for fans to support their idols. The photo book or the chance to get a ticket for a fan meeting is arguably a bigger draw than that CD itself.

In fact, what I know, a lot of sales, especially oversee ones, those albums are not even physically sent back to the country where they originated at all. It is just a gesture to help their idols rank better on the music shows.

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

#675

Post by bazeblackwood »

sukilot wrote: post #598
bazeblackwood wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't "controversial", it's just a kneejerk contrarian position from an armchair expert. It's actually hard to understate the demand for music production. You walk through any major retail store, they're playing music that is generally designed (and proven) to make you purchase more. Advertising, movies, basically any form of audio-visual entertainment would be devoid of life without music. And people demand nov…

People prefer novelty. They don't demand it.

This is absurd. Why are people who insist on couching everything in economic terms refusing to believe that new music is a commodity that people demand? People don't need cars with new features, and yet the market exists for it. Loads of people throw out their wardrobes every 3 months and buy a whole new set. If that's not demand, what is it? If you can only apply "demand" to basic necessities, and literally no luxury goods, then what is the point of the term? That's not to say the commodification of art is a good thing for artists or listeners, in my estimation, in fact I'd say the artificially induced demand of mainstream music is feeding into the current crisis. Marketers push a homogenized sound and then the force of the industry moves to capture that segment of the market. In fact I'd argue there's unmet demand that exists for quality alternative music that won't be satiated by these models.

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

#676

Post by [deleted] »

whiddershins wrote: post #628

The way in which Spotify (and other streaming services) hurts the development of music isn’t what most people say. The problem with per-stream plays is that it is based on pop music logic: more streams equals more money. Fair! But many recording artists made a modest living by releasing music that you might not want to listen to over and over and over. This music is often labeled ‘art’ or ‘experimental’ or whatever,…

[deleted]

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

#677

Post by cheez »

comprev wrote: post #337
stephencoyner wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. One of the first artists I noticed doing this was a rapper, Curren$y. All the mixtapes were free on Datpiff.com (major throwback) and the tours / Merch were the $$$ makers. This also allowed artists to go fully independent and keep all their profits. Added into the mix now are independent vinyl / cd / tape makers who the artists partner with on Physical music releases. Yes, physicals are back in a…

Even without physical media, I'd rather pay for a copy of the music I can "own" (I.e. like a physical CD) from Bandcamp as the revenue the artist gets is _significantly_ higher than a dozen streams of the same album on Spotify. At the end of the day, I want the artist to continue producing music, and prefer to find a channel by which they get the most revenue. IMHO Bandcamp is one of the best things to happen to the…

If Bandcamp has better quality, that should be the selling point (IMO)

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

#678

Post by mhh__ »

quattrofan wrote: post #191
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…

And why most is utter dross. People still buy millions of classic albums from the 70's and 80's, in 30 years time very few artists will have that same comfort.

If you think modern music is bad you should listen to more music.

There are artists that can publish work now, thanks to the internet, that publishers wouldn't even dream of going near let alone giving them deals. I really like microtonal electronic music for example, not exactly radio friendly.

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

#679

Post by Guthur »

grawprog wrote: post #390
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…

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…

You just need to be creative with the release cycle, there is nothing stopping capturing ah moment in time and then releasing a serial, indeed it may allow for a more iterative process wrt to mix and mastering

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

#680

Post by SomewhatLikely »

hedora wrote: post #660
benzguo wrote: post #657

Sharing a concrete example: 4 friends of mine are in a moderately successful band in LA. They have 1M monthly listeners on Spotify, and their top track has 17M plays. Spotify sends them ~$2k/month, which isn’t enough for 4 to live on (they live together, and record with their own equipment in a rented house). To make ends meet, they play live shows and tour (which isn’t an option anymore). Support your favorite bands…

Assuming a 90% cut for record stores and labels, I imagine they’d have gotten about a million collectively back in the 90’s. 1M * $15 * 0.1 = $1.5M

I would guess there are a lot more artists getting a million listeners each month today than in the nineties.
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