Spotify Is An Enemy of Sustainable Arts

And there you have the reason it's so important to not put choices about music in the hands of streaming companies.

That works for you, but what about people who don't have access to your library?

Just because you personally don't care about censoring artists, why escalate this to a policy that would eliminate access to their music?

 

Even more confident most artists would prefer to be heard than not heard.

 

I call your name.
But you're not there.

 

She's not there.

 

Horsefeathers. And the 17 plays item is an outright lie. 17 streams of a song earns 10 cents. Even if you assume the 17 streams is of an entire album, that's only a dollar. That's a near-criminal major-label sort of deal if an artist's revenue per CD is $1. But so nice of Apple to embed the lie in its Siri answer. Never mind that these days when I ask Siri a question, more often than not I get an answer on a completely different subject. It's become almost useless.

 

Yes, but that's a false comparison.

 

Yes, that 17 number is incorrect. A total of 817 plays would be more likely (based on a payout rate for Apple Music of $0.00735 per stream).

 

I remember this campaign that the record industry tried on us in the 70's. I'm not sure that it is/was actually illegal to copy an album that you owned, but then truth & the rcord industry are
seldom used in the same sentence.

Streaming has been VERY good for the music industry. The big 4 labels are making mountains of money. The artists are getting screwed harder than they have ever been.

e

 

Wouldn't normally be so personal, but I throw my hands up at that one. A truly remarkable point of view that portends a very dark future if your peers agree with you.

 

Those numbers came from another thread with real math from someone earning revenue from the streaming services. If if makes you feel better, double them. How about $2 per physical CD? That's 34 plays.

I bought the Eagles Hotel California on CD in 1994. I play Hotel California on average 3x a year. That's 75 plays. So if I streamed Hotel California for the last 25 years instead of playing the CD, the Eagles would have earned $4.41 instead of $2.00.

And that's the problem with those of you who make these bombastic claims. You forget how long people own CD's. You make the argument as if it all happens in 1 day instead of years, decades, in fact. "An artist would make $1.50 on a CD sale and now he only makes $0.0065 per song! That's less than a penny for a whole album!" And that's what's horsefeathers, Ross.

 

I'm 50+ years old. I have a physical collection of 20,000 songs that represent 30 years worth of buying CD's and downloading iTunes AAC's. All my favorites. Rarities, live shows, and boots too. Nicely organized into genres and playlists that I've personally curated.

But when it comes to new music, I'm just not enthused at all in the genres of Alternative, Rock, and Singer-Songwriter which are my go-to's. So I just turn to one of my HomePod smart speakers and say "Hey Siri, play some current Alternative songs" and on comes 3 hours worth of the best new tracks in that genre and I'm good. Occasionally I'll hear a song that's really good, and I'll say "Hey Siri, add this to my Favorites" and there you go, I've got that song for future use. "Hey Siri, play more by this artist" and I can now hear all the great songs by that artist that I've just discovered. All by using my voice.

So don't be quick to condemn the way a modern listener consumes new music. It's far easier than thumbing through a rack at Sam Goody and leads to some new discoveries and lifelong fandom. Tame Impala, great example for me.

 

the war on "physical media" is almost done - it pretty much will be when my father's generation is all gone : - (

same with the campaigns(s) hype propaganda for the 21st century "cashless" society

things are moving along nicely!

I can't do anything to stop either one, so I'm not going to waste my time or my energy bitching about it - life is very short

but you know what? - it will not end well for us "rank and file" I can tell you that
it's too bad too : - (
Michael

 

No one is condemning the delivery method or the listener. What's being condemned is the situation wherein a much larger share of the revenue is going to Spotify owners (and similar) rather than musicians/creators. That's the problem.

 

I've seen the same math (from actual artists) who have seen revenues drop precipitously despite having EXPANDED audiences in the streaming age.

And let's not even get into the lunacy of "I don't care who the artist is, as long as I have my genre." Good Lord.

 

Sorry about the formatting (it disappeared when I made my probably illegal copy)

Steve Lukather has some comments on the state of the recording business today. Steve was a founding member of Toto, has released solo LP's and is one of the most successful studio guitarists in history. He has been involved in thousands of records (if a Michael Jackson song has a guitar on it, it's Steve). Here is what he wrote: "I just want to know something. ALL this pontificating about how Spotify and the like are the ’ answer ’ and how ’ the artists get paid’ etc. How much? Really? WHO keeps tabs and accounting? Maybe I just don’t know. I don’t see any money and have A LOT of stuff out there over 35 years of making records. Have you done the breakdown on what an artist get PER tune on iTunes? Pitiful. Now IF you are with a label its even worse cause they take a huge share of that. The breakdown after all is said and done for most it’s pennies. TOO many people can make records. Period. No catalog artists are made these days. One hit wonders galore. Sad really. Now record companies don’t give budgets like the old days when the great records were made cause they cost MONEY!! They want to make money for nothing and own you for life and a piece of EVERYTHING an artist does. You can sell a million and still OWE them! My 25 year old son has buddies who have platinum records living in a one room studio apartment…Broke. Of course back ‘then’ rec. companies cared about MUSIC and nurturing artists for a LONG term career and long term money. Sure they got the Lions share but then they invested, believed and promoted it so there was SOME justification. Now its ’ Beats’ and how many facebook hits or Youtube hits you get .. ALL which either make NO money or short term dog-**** money with no real way to account for it and truly suck for the most part. What the **** ? People want to be famous NOT good! It is TOO easy to play ‘pretend pop star’ now. With all the fakery and auto tune-time correction -cut and paste etc.. **** most young people don’t know how to play a song from top to bottom in a studio in tune and in time and with feeling?? Rare . I am in the studios all the time and hear the stories from the producers and engineers.. and yet NO ONE cares that ’ so and so’ who sold a **** load of records ( how much IS that these days? ) cant sing or play. They make ‘McRecords’ for people who don’t even really listen. It’s background music for people to either find a mate or shake their heads while texting or skyping or doing other things. Environmental noise for the multi-tasker. Gone are the days of loving , dissecting, discussing the inner workings of ’AN ALBUM”… sitting in silence while it plays.. looking at the liner notes and the few photo’s IN the studio .. imagining what a magic place it music be to make such music…Gone. You need a ****ing jewelers eye to read the credits IF one even cares. Most don’t. So if you keep blaming the ‘old antiquated artists’ who are the only REAL ones left.. who MAY make a great record once in awhile but may be overlooked cause the media chooses to care more about who is super gluing meat to their bodies and other ridiculous HYPE and ******** to get attention rather than LISTENING hard to the music being made we might be in a different place. When we were kids ( yes I will be 108 this year) there were only a handful or artists and they WERE great cause they HAD to be. You could choose not to like some but outside the teenage fodder most deserved their success and NO ONE sounded alike ! No one! We live in a McWorld that moves way too fast and now even the drugs suck. I mean when I was young and got high I never got naked foaming at the mouth and tried to eat someone’s face off. Time to put on Dark Side of the Moon and chill. Have a nice day and may real music come back and fill our ears. ( there IS some great stuff but you know what I mean ..) REAL music played by REAL musicians. They ARE out there. They just don’t get a lot of press anymore, or at all.” Luke (Steve Lukather)

 

That’s not lunacy. That’s reality.

Like I said earlier, I have a deep library of physical media and probably 3000 alternative songs that I love. But if I want to hear new alternative music, I don’t have the patience to stick with one or two current bands and see if they come up with something original and exciting in the next five years. I just ask my HomePod smart speaker to play a variation of that genre. “Hey Siri, play some new and uptempo alternative songs” and on they come.

An artist can thrive in this environment which rewards catchy singles over boring album filler. I’ve got enough of that from the 40 years I’ve been buying physical media. I just want to get to the good stuff now.

 

In 1980, an artist would receive an advance from the record label in order to record, produce, and release an album. If they were lucky they would break even on physical media sales. The real money came in from touring. Guess what. Same rules apply today.

Tell Son Of Toto to get out of his apartment and hit the road. That’s how artists make bank back then and right now. Record revenue (now streaming revenue) gets you eyeballs and ears and helps you sell concert tickets.

 

The average revenue from a CD to an artist is $1.50.

If a CD has 10 songs, that's $0.15 cents per song.

$0.15 cents divided by $0.00735 equals 20 plays.

Stop moving the goalposts.

 

talk about fake news

 

That's not the problem. Those are the ground rules of the recording industry since 1940. The platform of delivery may have changed but that doesn't mean that musicians and creators are entitled to more money. $0.0073 sounds like a tiny amount of money. But it's actually more than artists have ever been paid. If a CD has been paid 100's of times, those poor creators and musicians have never made $0.0073 cents per play. More like $0.00025. Streaming finally gives them that chance to make more money.

 

The 'fake news' is using streaming math as a negative without taking into account the decades of plays that $0.0073 per-play adds up to. Streaming makes more money for an artist than physical media does- when you consider how long physical media lasts. 10, 20, 30 years or more.