The problem starts with the fact that anyone almost anywhere can distribute their audio files. The glut this has created has potential listeners swimming in new releases. Spotify amplifies the malaise by shoving “related” tracks in the streams of unpaid subscribers. The situation now is that many so-called “listeners” are using music as sonic wallpaper, and that’s not a new concept. But how are your tracks going to get traction if they’re just a music bed to lovemaking, exercising, working, sleeping and wine tasting? It’s been said many times, listeners to a playlist probably didn’t get the artist’s name unless they were blown away.
I’ve written about this several times, the latest being “I Am Your Wallpaper” where I give the details of how my music is sent through Spotify’s algorithmic playlists to (at the time is was written) twelve thousand listeners a month. It quickly feel to under 7,000 when one song was dropped from their editorial “Blues Covers” list. The same track that was sending 250-300 streams per day on Spotify was gettng 10 a week on Apple Music.
The only solution I can see in the near future is to find ways to play live. Many of you probably stream live, which is cool. I’m too old to play live other than occasionally, and I don’t feel like streaming live, even though I can improvise like many do on Twitch, etc. Playing live would allow sales of physical media, too. Several sites to sell media and merch, like Ampwall, can help, but you still need to find a way to send the potential audience there. That’s the thing about Spotify, it has the biggest audience and a playlist ecosystem that spoon feeds them.
Is it possible that some day, a community (like this one?) will find a paradigm that actually works for the artist? I’ll happily lend my support. Like I said in my intro, I join everything.
Yeah, I’m also an old geezer mostly doing synth based music and playing live in Las Vegas is just about impossible. So I’m left with very few ways to get my music out in front of people. Not that I’m complaining, streaming-wise, I’ve passed 1.25 million impressions in 4 years.
How many songs and artists would human beings listen to through their lives 10.000 years ago? And a 1000 years ago? 100 years ago? 10 years ago? Now? In 10 years?
Also, how many people expected to become professional musicians (like that’s your job) 10.000 years ago? Apply the same time spans than above.
How much time did people spend outdoors in live musical celebrations 10.000 years ago? Etc.
How many people sang and/or played an instrument (from clapping to drums, flutes, guitars… to keyboards, grooveboxes, synths and DJ sets) as part of these celebrations or to entertain others in these different time periods?
I am not a researcher and I haven’t done the math, but there is a chance that the XXth century was the peak of best conditions for professional music making, and that the chances have been fading ever since with the internet becoming the global distribution channel and with software becoming sophisticated enough to mass-produce consumable music.
Or maybe this has been the only option for 99% of professional musicians all along, including many names we know that have created music we have sung and bought. I was never in “the industry” but many famous artists have mentioned that they make more money from concert tickets and selling merchandise at these concerts than from record sales (this reference might be dated from the pre-streaming years, dunno).
At least before COVID, most DJs would make more money than most artists creating the music they played – but those DJs live entirely from live sessions.
I happen to disagree (in the politest way possible )…the race to the bottom is absolutely THE problem. Streaming platforms taking all of our work, making billions worldwide, but paying us fractions of pennies per play is not only gross and unfair, it’s morally bankrupt and theft on a global scale.
You have to pay for everything else in life that you want (and sometimes need), but somehow the world got convinced that they were owed the art of musicians for free and these record labels and streaming services were all too happy to oblige. No one asks a dentist to do it “for the love.” No one gets a construction company to build their house “for exposure,” but it’s OK for music?
I understand the argument for “play live,” but there a number of issues with that.
That doesn’t preclude the theft of a musician’s labor everywhere else in the market
Not everyone has an audience large enough to support “touring” as a means of survival
Also, touring is insanely expensive…again, money is required
That also doesn’t account for disabled artists and those who live in remote areas
Musicians, just like anyone else making a product deserve to be paid for the labor and expertise and not continuously gaslit in to thinking it’s “on them” to get zen with being robbed at every turn.
Spotify has $250 MILLION DOLLARS to hand Joe Rogan for his [REDACTED] podcast, but I can’t be paid $0.01 per play on 10,000 streams and have to get 1000 streams on every song to get paid for them? Absolutely not. I refuse to accept that I deserve to get nothing while everyone else in the chain gets all the money they think they’re owed PLUS what I was supposed to get for whatever streams I DID generate.
Until musicians stop giving their music away to people for free, willingly, this nonsense will continue and we’ll get poorer and poorer until the Taylor Swifts of the world are the only one’s able to release music without working 3 other jobs.
was supposed to obviate the need to reply.
)…the race to the bottom is absolutely THE problem. Streaming platforms taking all of our work, making billions worldwide, but paying us fractions of pennies per play is not only gross and unfair, it’s morally bankrupt and theft on a global scale.