Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says working musicians can no longer release music only “once every three to four years.” Spotify's stock value hit all-time highs of $50 billion this summer.

[ignatius]

20 hours ago, iococoi said:

One big shitshow over there in streaming-land...g

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/spotify-artists-streaming-fraud-1235965379/

wow. his story made it to variety. glad it's gotten more attention 

[Zephyr_Nova]

I hate that Spotify playlists are the only semi-effective thing I've found for getting my music to a wider audience in my 20+ years of trying.  The idea of making money through streaming or selling CDs/vinyl/etc. has not been part of what I've considered possible for most of that time.  So while I recognize Spotify is evil, I also recognize that it's the only platform that's been all that useful for me as a relatively unknown artist. 

[ignatius]

22 minutes ago, Zephyr_Nova said:

I hate that Spotify playlists are the only semi-effective thing I've found for getting my music to a wider audience in my 20+ years of trying.  The idea of making money through streaming or selling CDs/vinyl/etc. has not been part of what I've considered possible for most of that time.  So while I recognize Spotify is evil, I also recognize that it's the only platform that's been all that useful for me as a relatively unknown artist. 

i never got _any_ traction on streaming services. had stuff up since the beginning. so like 10 years or something.. made like $200. lol. and then took it all down. then tried again and got even less traction that the first time. bandcamp been decent though.

it's not a service i've ever used other than netflix/youtube for video. never have i streamed a piece of music.  shrug. some people do alright on streaming services though.. not many.. but some make a few dollars even with the shitty conditions and all the scams and shit. 

if i had ever made any real money from it i'd put my stuff on there and leave there but i don't see the purpose of it. a handful of listeners.. and spotify constantly mixing up my albums with artists or the same name etc.. and me having to tell them to fix it etc.. ugh. annoying.  

it is what it is. 

[auxien]

31 minutes ago, ignatius said:

i never got _any_ traction on streaming services. had stuff up since the beginning. so like 10 years or something.

did you get on any playlists? that’s what Zephyr mentioned specifically and i’ve heard that before from others…getting on those popular playlists is super important supposedly for triggering the algorithms

[ignatius]

2 hours ago, auxien said:

did you get on any playlists? that’s what Zephyr mentioned specifically and i’ve heard that before from others…getting on those popular playlists is super important supposedly for triggering the algorithms

i don't think so. i wouldn't even know how to look. it's all water under the bridge now though.  i only got a few complaints the first time i took my stuff off streaming services and zero complaints more recently when i took my stuff down. 

Edited April 15 by ignatius

[prdctvsm]

[Zephyr_Nova]

9 hours ago, ignatius said:

i never got _any_ traction on streaming services. had stuff up since the beginning. so like 10 years or something.. made like $200. lol. and then took it all down. then tried again and got even less traction that the first time. bandcamp been decent though.

it's not a service i've ever used other than netflix/youtube for video. never have i streamed a piece of music.  shrug. some people do alright on streaming services though.. not many.. but some make a few dollars even with the shitty conditions and all the scams and shit. 

if i had ever made any real money from it i'd put my stuff on there and leave there but i don't see the purpose of it. a handful of listeners.. and spotify constantly mixing up my albums with artists or the same name etc.. and me having to tell them to fix it etc.. ugh. annoying.  

it is what it is. 

I haven't made any money from streaming, but I don't care about that at all.  Only thing I care about is people hearing it.  There's a site called submithub where you can pitch songs to various playlists.  You have to pay for credits, and then use those credits to submit (amounts to anywhere from $1-$4 a submission-ish).  For my most recent album, released late February, I've had songs make it onto 27 different playlists, and as a result about half of the songs have 100-300 streams so far.  Previous album had a couple songs that did reasonably well.  One has over 3000 streams, another over 6000.  That's substantially more listens than all my songs put together from past releases, where I might get 15 album downloads from bandcamp and a comparable amount of streams.  So as much as I hate to say it, I can't help but be grateful for Spotify.  I'd feel differently if I were actually successful in music and had a shot at making money from these platforms.

[beerwolf]

Wasn't it always the case, that bands even fairly big ones made little money from record sales, even back in the day when record companies were charging £13 for a CD. Pretty sure it was, apart from maybe a few exceptions (U2 springs to mind) Pretty sure there was even a UK government enquiry into it. Wasn't it the reason why George Michael and Prince both rebelled against their record companies because they made hardly any money from record sales because of the original contracts they signed as youngsters? I remember Don Henley saying he made a few thousand dollars from one of his biggest multi million selling solo hits because David Geffen personally screwed him over on some contract technicality. I think sometimes people are looking back with rose tinted glasses and think that everyone back in the day before streaming made a mint by being in fairly well known band. What I'm saying is that it's mostly been the case that musicians have been ripped off by the music industry. Spotify isn't new in that respect. 

I haven't read this thread in its entirely so maybe there is something I'm missing, but just thinking out loud really. 

Edited April 16 by beerwolf

[o00o]

Did you guys watch the Milli Vanilli docu?

[beerwolf]

I quite like watching band documentaries if there is a good story to tell, even if the music sucks. UB40 would be a classic example. Back in the early 90's they were fucking huge (they were quite popular in the 80's) but they were selling out football stadiums in the early 90's. They get home after some huge world tour. Where's the money? There isn't any! The record industry since day one of the blues artists has been the devils work. And the cunt who runs Spotify is the latest shadowy character making deals at The Crossroads. 

Edited April 16 by beerwolf

[beerwolf]

[ignatius]

7 hours ago, beerwolf said:

classic prince story in case you've not seen it. here it is in 4 parts. 

 

there's a documentary about the "We are the world" recording and ho wit was organized etc. i guess lionel ritchie did the whole thing?? i haven't watched it but apparently it's full of gems about all the heavy hitters involved. lot's of hilarious stuff and awesome stuff. they recorded it around the grammy's because everyone was there for that so they made it happen after the grammy's at like 3am or something.. i'll have to watch it eventually. sounds like a laugh. 

Edited April 17 by ignatius