# Is Spotify a bragging right?



## musicbyjoao (Aug 4, 2020)

Hello VI Control community,

This is my first post (post introduction) and it comes after this KODA press release and Spotify's CEO comments. The reason I'm posting this is to simply hear different opinions, *not to stir them*.

My network of musicians, composers and sound/mastering engineers range from starting out, to struggling, to comfortable, to well-stablished in the industry. However, most of my network earn enough to keep making a living, which I already admire.

Within my network, I've noticed young musicians using Spotify as a kind of bragging point to the world. I get it - they have something available for the public and that anyone can see. But practically, they might just say that their album is out as it's much easier and much faster and more lucrative to them to sell one album directly to the odd person than to reach over 3000 streams if you don't have any marketing campaign out there. Sure, there is the odd exception that someone has the odd mix of skills to make it work. But I'm talking about the normal musician/artist around the world that fills most of Spotify's catalog.

Putting aside the romantic idea of "being found" and looking at it practically for what it is to most musicians, should we promote young musicians to follow this trap of providing these multi-millionaire companies with free content?
1) If an artist's content took effort and resources, is it still OK to just give their content for free in return for something that barely provides food on the table? Lets say a production cost as little as 500 Euro. But let's say the person's wage is of 1000 euros. That alone can be a result of months of savings and hard work and dedication in order to put something out there.
2) Should we incentive this practice when these companies clearly are out of touch with their regular costumer (referring to Spotify's link) and feel free to just block a whole group of artists just because an agreement isn't going in their favour (referring to the KODA press release here)?

I feel like a need to chat to these young musicians, not to discourage them from their goals, but to seek for smarter and better options of making an income.

What do you think? I'm all ears to any side of this conversation.

Thanks!

EDIT: Noticed the previous thread was along the same lines and someone replied with a video of Youtuber Ola England. I just want to add that I agree with his point of view that in order to sell yourself, you have to be out there. However, that doesn't mean exposing your music for free but rather doing something that's much easier in order to get attention to a music artist's most valuable possession - his music.
_____

João Luís - www.musicbyjoao.com


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## telecode101 (Aug 13, 2020)

..


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## Kyle Preston (Aug 22, 2020)

Let's look at this with some nuance shall we?



musicbyjoao said:


> 1) If an artist's content took effort and resources, is it still OK to just give their content for free in return for something that barely provides food on the table?





musicbyjoao said:


> 2) Should we incentive this practice when these companies clearly are out of touch with their regular costumer




These are the wrong questions to ask. But I'll tell you from personal experience, if you choose to opt out of streaming as an artist, you _will _lose money and potential fans.

Artists don't "give" their content away and Spotify is absolutely not out of touch with their customers. _Listeners_ are their customers, not artists. To Spotify, we are content providers.

As for Ek, I can't believe I had to navigate to *page fucking 3* of Google just to get his full statement in context. NPR was the only site I found that actually provided the source, Music Ally. Here's what he said:




> "In the entire existence [of Spotify] I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single artist saying ‘I’m happy with all the money I’m getting from streaming,” he continued.
> 
> “Stating that publicly. In private they have done that many times, but in public they have no incentive to do it. But unequivocally, from the data, there are more and more artists that are able to live off streaming income in itself.”
> 
> “There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough."




Practically speaking, he's not wrong. In terms of strategy, he's not the best person to deliver this message. But this _is_ the landscape we're in, in no small part because of streaming services (which formed to counteract piracy, something that _actually_ pays nothing). Time moves forward, for better or worse. 

The online response was mostly a race to get those fast-food calorie clicks, everyone shouting, very few offering a constructive path forward.

With one exception.

I've never listened to em, but I thought Jack Garratt had a thoughtful response:



> "You just cannot demand so much of artists and work them to exhaustion and then also tell them they aren’t outputting enough music to suit your business model. I took all the time I needed to make my second album. I’ll do it again and again if I need to.
> 
> I’m not a social media influencer. The ‘work’ I put in is the days I spend writing and recording, the weeks rehearsing and the months touring. That is literally my job, and I am really good at it. Artists shouldn’t have to be extroverts to be successful. Most of them AREN’T."




Do what you gotta do @musicbyjoao, but you won't be doing yourself any favors if you opt out. I'm not saying the situation is fair, I'm not saying it's the best thing for artists, it's not. But it's better (empirically) than what existed before. If you're serious about making money in music, opting out of streaming is likely not a good move.


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## musicbyjoao (Aug 26, 2020)

Thanks for the comment *telecode101 *and *Kyle Preston*.

Kyle, replying to what you wrote:

- What would be the right questions?

- As for what you said there, what did exist before that was worst than the current service? I actually preferred the iTunes song purchases. At least you would still get 0.7c if you were independent.

- My experience is one where I make most of my income from upfront payments. Streaming income has barely paid me a coffee, I got more royalties out of radio play, instead. At the same time, I haven't composed to a project with international recognition. That's most artists.

- You will loose money from not having anything available on streaming if you have an enough following to raise your count of at least above 125 thousand stream within a relatively short time, to generate about 500 euro. In that case, I understand your point. But from my network of professional musicians (mostly in Portugal), I don't know anyone who was "discovered" or hired from having their songs on Spotify or that has in fact, gained anything substancial from it.


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## Kyle Preston (Aug 27, 2020)

musicbyjoao said:


> - What would be the right questions?




40,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify every day. _In what ways can I stand out from a crowd this massive? _

Drake's income for the past decade was $123 million from Spotify alone. _How are these artists finding success on streaming?_

@christianhenson has mentioned on his channel the differences between thinking of yourself as a _media composer _vs thinking of yourself as a _recording artist. _That idea fits perfectly in the context of Spotify. You have an artist profile, just like on social media. Growing that is more a _recording artist _game (assuming we're talking about your own albums and not official soundtracks which you may or may not have the rights to upload). 



musicbyjoao said:


> I actually preferred the iTunes song purchases. At least you would still get 0.7c if you were independent.




And when iTunes began, musicians hated it because they wanted people to buy cds for $10. When people could pick and choose specific songs from albums and disregard the rest, artists made less money. Keep rewinding time and the cycle continues. There will always be resistance to change, for better or worse. 

But in any case, it doesn't matter because most listeners (the data doesn't lie) aren't buying singles anymore, they're streaming. All I'm saying is, you literally have nothing to lose, opting out won't help you because Spotify isn't incentivized to care. They have Michelle Obama, they have Joe Rogan, they don't care about indie artists opting out.


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## purple (Aug 27, 2020)

musicbyjoao said:


> I feel like a need to chat to these young musicians, not to discourage them from their goals, but to seek for smarter and better options of making an income.



Why would you discourage musicians from spotify? That's how 90% of people are listening to these days. Nobody buys CDs. Where else would one go to get their music listened to? The reality is that musicians these days need to use many avenues for success. Social media, a good youtube channel, spotify, live gigs...


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## Hadrondrift (Aug 27, 2020)

Two years old, even more relevant today:


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## Polkasound (Aug 27, 2020)

musicbyjoao said:


> I don't know anyone who was "discovered" or hired from having their songs on Spotify or that has in fact, gained anything substancial from it.



Spotify is like a scratch-off lottery — out of everyone who spends $10 to play, 99% will get $1 back, .9% will get their $10 back, and .1% will actually make money. The key is understanding _why_ you're playing the game. If you're distributing to Spotify thinking profits are going to automatically flow in, uh, good luck. But if you're distributing to Spotify to gain and maintain exposure, that's a goal worth pursuing.

I distribute my music on Spotify not because it makes money, but because it gives my music the best chance of being discovered and enjoyed by new people. If you're not on Spotify, you're non-existent to a pretty large audience.

Unfortunately, almost none of today's young, independent artists will ever know what it's like to profit from music sales. Streaming has completely changed the way people get their music. The days of coming home from a gig with an extra $100 profit in your pocket from selling ten CDs has been replaced with streaming a few songs for a nickel.

I would encourage musicians to continue distributing to Spotify and other streaming platforms, but not with dollar signs in their eyes. If they want to make a profit with their music, they're not going to do it just by being another good musician or band with a modest following like the old days. They're either going to have to find success with other ways of selling their music, such as other royalty streams, or work hard enough and be good enough to earn a place in the top .01%.

As far as bragging goes, being on Spotify is nothing to brag about, because anyone can do it. It's like someone bragging that they have a Facebook page.


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## Matt Damon (Aug 28, 2020)

musicbyjoao said:


> I feel like a need to chat to these young musicians, not to discourage them from their goals, but to seek for smarter and better options of making an income.



The smarter and better options of making money either don't involve music at all, or involve their music basically never "getting out there".

Something everyone misses in this whole conversation is that the very idea of "sell recordings; make money" was actually only a thing that was a realistic and had a legit industry built around the concept for like...a few decades and that was it.

But people today talk about it as if that's what making money or a living at music always was and always was meant to be.

It wasn't. It was a stroke of luck in a technological breakthrough that corporations cashed in on and that people were predicting since it began would be ultimately short lived because the goal of the technology was always to make it smaller, more portable and more accessible.

The idea of like, a rock band or something hitting it big like in the 70s and 80s and selling out millions of albums and getting all this insane radio airplay or at least making a comfortable living doing that is never coming back. It was actually difficult to do even back then.

People talk about this like music careers themselves have been destroyed in some miscarriage of justice, but in reality, they've just been set back to what they were for most of history — a culturally-affirmative hobby where a handful of lucky performers make exceptional coin.

Where the real issue is, is that live performers get screwed royally now and economic hell. I knew a guy who played in an unsigned band in the 70s and 80s and made a great living just playing clubs for 8 years. Good luck doing that now.


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## Ivan M. (Oct 4, 2020)

Birthplace of the Top 100 Current Streamed Artists on Spotify


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## Henu (Oct 4, 2020)

As an artist who used to formerly sell CD's, no, it's definitely not.


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