FEATURE:
Islands in the Stream
IN THIS PHOTO: Spotify’s billionaire CEO, Daniel Ek, said this week that artists “can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough”; his comments attracted a huge backlash on social media/PHOTO CREDIT: Oru Yamanaka/Getty Images
Will Spotify Ever Put Artists First?
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BARELY a week goes by…
PHOTO CREDIT: @morningbrew/Unsplash
without Spotify upsetting artists, short-changing people, or making the news! I admit that I use it all of the times and pay a monthly fee, but I always have a sense of guilt thinking about how little artists are being compensated. Most artists put their everything into their careers, and they put out music as much as they can; keen to establish a continuing and close relationship with their fans. Daniel EK, the CEO of Spotify, came out this week and criticised artists who release albums every few years, arguing that they need to be more prolific if they want to connect with their fans and enjoy better revenues. This article from Far Out Magazine explains more:
“Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, has waded into the debate about the financial status of the music industry amid major streaming platform dominance.
Artists have relentlessly spoken against the minimal financial gain from the creations, with a single stream typically earning a figure of $0,0032 per play which is then split between the record label, producers, artists, and songwriters.
Now, as part of new interview with Music Ally, Daniel Ek has voiced his opinion on the situation, urging artists to be more proactive in the continuous engagement with their fans.
“It’s quite interesting that while the overall pie is growing, and more and more people can partake in that pie, we tend to focus on a very limited set of artists,” Ek said in the interview before adding: “Even today on our marketplace, there’s literally millions and millions of artists. What tends to be reported are the people that are unhappy.”
PHOTO CREDIT: @lgnwvr/Unsplash
His controversial comments continued: “In the entire existence [of Spotify] I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single artist [publicly say] ‘I’m happy with all the money I’m getting from streaming’,” he added. “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.”
“You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists today that are making it realise that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans”.
I think more and more, Spotify is isolating and marooning artists in the streaming sea - almost like dislocated islands with no real hope tourism. That may seem like a weird metaphor, but Spotify should be there to ensure that artists are connected to one another and their fans; that the artists are paid appropriately, and it shouldn’t be a platform where the mainstream artists are okay but everyone else has to struggle! At a time like this, your bigger stars will be okay financially, but they account for a very small percentage of the total market. It is the smaller artists not signed to big labels that rely on revenue from streaming, merchandise, and gig receipts. As artists are not touring and things have slowed down, streaming is becoming more relied-upon.
IN THIS PHOTO: Producer and musician Nigel Godrich is one of many who took to Twitter in response to Daniel EK’s remarks this week/PHOTO CREDIT: Kristy Sparow/WireImage
I know Ek and Spotify cannot afford to pay every artist a lot of money per stream, but to say that musicians need to be more productive and crank out albums regularly is insulting! It is unsurprising that so many people took to Twitter (and social media in general) to condemn Ek’s assessment. As a non-musician, he is unaware of the realities of the industry, and how artists struggle to make ends meet! When an album is out, artists need to tour it and, between records, they release singles and are out there as much as they can. If they were to put out albums every year, then that would mean they would not be able to play as much, and they would lose out financially. Maybe The Beatles were able to release an album a year, but the reality for the vast majority of musicians then and now is that they cannot do that! For one, they need to gather enough material and experience between records, rather than rush-writing whatever comes to mind – that would result in very poor albums. Also, touring can take a real toll on a musician, and Ek has little realisation what consistent gigging can do to an artist. Even though they love to bring music to the fans, there needs to be periods of downtime and recovery between tours, and it does not always mean that recording is the best next step. In any case, the negativity and anger that met his comments is quite right!
IN THIS PHOTO: The brilliant Nadine Shah took to Twitter to ask for change in light of Ek’s comments
This is someone who pays very little to artists when they release singles and albums but wants them to release them more regularly. Maybe an artist like Taylor Swift can benefit from releasing an album (folklore, 2020) so soon after her last (Lover, 2019) but even most mainstream artists leave it a couple of years or longer between records - the impact that releasing albums every year or two would have on their mental-health is worrying. For years, there has been questions as to whether Spotify needs to change its business model and think about the way it pays artists. Worryingly, I think Spotify is in danger of alienating musicians, who more and more are feeling like their voices are not being heard! This article from Music Ally discusses the subject of under-payment to artists, and how Spotify seem to be more invested in podcasts and the revenue they are bringing in from advertising:
“However, in 2020 more than any other year since Spotify launched, there’s been a surge of musicians talking publicly about their streaming royalties not being enough to live on – including a campaign in the UK (#BrokenRecord) that has trained its sights not just on streaming services, but on labels and the wider industry structures.
Labels and streaming services have been pretty quiet amid this debate, so we put the question to Ek: why is there this gap between Spotify’s stated ambitions, and the experiences of the musicians who have been speaking out? And what’s needed to bridge that gap?
IN THIS PHOTO: Whilst huge artists like Taylor Swift (pictured) can generate enormous streaming revenue (even if a lot of that is going to her label) through Spotify, the reality for most artists is very different indeed/PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Garrabrant
“There are two different trends here worth picking apart. We realise that a lot of artists are impacted in the short term by Covid and the impact it has on the live industry. As you very well know, a lot of the income today that artists are getting [pre-Covid-19] is from touring and live performances. A lot of artists are struggling because of that,” said Ek.
Earlier during the conversation, we also asked Ek about podcasts, and specifically about their role in the startling growth in Spotify’s market cap (value) this year: from around $29bn at the start of 2020 to $50bn now, including noticeable spikes accompanying some of its big podcast announcements.
What’s going on here, for investors? “I can’t really speak to why other people are valuing Spotify in the way that they are,” said Ek, before venturing an opinion.
“If I made a guess, we’ve been talking about this audio-first strategy for quite some time, and now people have started understanding what we actually meant by that strategy… and understanding that not only are we talking about the music business, we’re going after all of radio, which is obviously a much bigger addressable market.”
There has been some unease within the music industry as it watches Spotify’s strategy playing out, including references by some major label executives to the need to ‘ring fence’ their royalties from Spotify, rather than see them potentially cannibalised by podcasts. Are those the kinds of negotiations going on?
PHOTO CREDT: @convertkit/Unsplash
“I can’t really talk about the specifics around that. We renewed the Universal Music deal, and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have renewed that deal if they didn’t feel comfortable about where this was heading, and being happy about the economics they receive from Spotify,” said Ek.
With sites like Bandcamp proving a more sustainable, fair-minded, and compassionate platform for artists, Spotify really need to look around and realise that they need to make some big changes! Unfortunately, most artists cannot afford to jump ship and not put music on Spotify, as they need to get exposure for their music; so many of their fans use Spotify. To infer that artists need to be more proactive and release albums as often as they can is not only insulting and unrealistic, but it betrays artists and shows that there is a huge gulf between the wealthy and uninformed Ek and the musicians who are bringing his streaming site so much money and popularity! I do hope that the continued outcry and condemnation from artists and music lovers compels Ek to change his ways and realise that the answer (to artists struggling financially) is not to pump albums out every year, but for him to understand they deserve more for their work; that they should be paid more per stream and, as Spotify generates astonishing amounts of money, the balance needs to shift so that smaller artists are paid as much as the A-list, mainstream acts – or the minority who have massive fanbases and have huge labels behind them. Continuingly seeing artists shafted and overlooked by Ek and Spotify is…
PHOTO CREDIT: @fixelgraphy/Unsplash
SO heartbreaking to see.