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Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

theguardian.com

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#71
post #62

Okay, what is it with Swedes min-maxing their way to the top of pop music? How do they do it? Even Pewdiepie is like another case of chasing algorithmic success.

In this case it's not pop music, it's instrumental ambient music and childrens tunes.. Very particular set of playlists, Spotify-owned, that if you get into them you're essentially guaranteed millions of streams (as those playlists have tens of millions of followers that I'm sure just have them on repeat often - guilty here as well..) Aside from the sketchy issue with faking 750 artist names, apparently the music is…

" faking 750 artist names"

Why would this be problematic? Artist commonly work under one or more pseudonyms. 750 is quite a lot for sure, but is there material difference between that and just a few?

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#72

> How much Röhr, who has worked as a conductor on pop stars’ tours and on TV, has earned from his agreement with Spotify is not known. However, his private company reportedly made 32.7mn kronor (£2.4m) in 2022, when it had a record year. Doesn't look much

> Doesn't look much It’s a life changing amount of money for something like 90% of humanity.

Well Britney Spears and Abba are not 90% of humanity and he is reportedly listened-to more than them.

This makes me wonder how big musicians make most of their money actually. Live concerts? Selling merchandise? Genuine question. For all I know it's not topping the Spotify.

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#73
post #71
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it's not pop music, it's instrumental ambient music and childrens tunes.. Very particular set of playlists, Spotify-owned, that if you get into them you're essentially guaranteed millions of streams (as those playlists have tens of millions of followers that I'm sure just have them on repeat often - guilty here as well..) Aside from the sketchy issue with faking 750 artist names, apparently the music is…

" faking 750 artist names" Why would this be problematic? Artist commonly work under one or more pseudonyms. 750 is quite a lot for sure, but is there material difference between that and just a few?

One could say he is dominating an opportunity reserved for small-time artists by deceit.

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#74
post #73
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" faking 750 artist names" Why would this be problematic? Artist commonly work under one or more pseudonyms. 750 is quite a lot for sure, but is there material difference between that and just a few?

One could say he is dominating an opportunity reserved for small-time artists by deceit.

smurfing the music world, epic

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#75

> A “secret” composer who has released music under hundreds of different names has been identified as Sweden’s most-listened-to artist on Spotify – pulling in more plays than Britney Spears or Abba. Wow.. this is sketchy as hell.

He's basically SEOing Spotify. Search for "peaceful piano" or whatever, and you'll likely find the guy's tracks. At home, whenever we eat X, we have a habit of asking Spotify to play X. We've made some great discoveries this way (Cornflakes 3D is an Israeli psytrance group, while The Dumplings is a Czech indie band), but these days almost all the searches have been hijacked by "playlist called Italian Restaurant Musi…

You sound like a fun parent/partner.

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#76

Okay, what is it with Swedes min-maxing their way to the top of pop music? How do they do it? Even Pewdiepie is like another case of chasing algorithmic success.

We used to have Kommunala Musikskolan, where kids for a relatively low fee could learn to play music. In the year 2000 it had 335 000 pupils (at the time the population of Sweden was less than 9 million people).

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#77
post #71
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it's not pop music, it's instrumental ambient music and childrens tunes.. Very particular set of playlists, Spotify-owned, that if you get into them you're essentially guaranteed millions of streams (as those playlists have tens of millions of followers that I'm sure just have them on repeat often - guilty here as well..) Aside from the sketchy issue with faking 750 artist names, apparently the music is…

" faking 750 artist names" Why would this be problematic? Artist commonly work under one or more pseudonyms. 750 is quite a lot for sure, but is there material difference between that and just a few?

Because it floods any related recommendations with same artist ultimately

Re: Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

#79
post #71
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it's not pop music, it's instrumental ambient music and childrens tunes.. Very particular set of playlists, Spotify-owned, that if you get into them you're essentially guaranteed millions of streams (as those playlists have tens of millions of followers that I'm sure just have them on repeat often - guilty here as well..) Aside from the sketchy issue with faking 750 artist names, apparently the music is…

" faking 750 artist names" Why would this be problematic? Artist commonly work under one or more pseudonyms. 750 is quite a lot for sure, but is there material difference between that and just a few?

Hm actually I remember I read in the studio's reply to this, that there weren't 750 active artist names at the same time, this was over many years and they release under some names, then let it go and do 50 new names etc. Still.. it's some kind of diversion of the consumer's expectations. It's one thing to see a pseudonym, but in this case, it was under "normal sounding" names.

Also, the composers' names were faked as well, so there were 750 artist names and 50 composer names..

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