Hot Take/ Musical Confession Thread!

And here’s the kicker. Streaming as a notion isn’t fundamentally bad. It’s extremely convenient. It’s the way it distributes royalties and the way it’s in bed with the major labels. My issues are:

1. Whilst me recording an album on the digeridoo and uploading it to Spotify using tune base will rightfully get no listens, not even my dad, and so no money, a mid level act with a substantial number of streams should be able to make money that’s justifies making the recording off those streams.
2. They should use their position not to get in bed with the majors but to push for a more equitable distribution of the royalties from digital rights that reflect the much lower overheads for majors.
3. They should favour music discovery based on listening and critical appraisal and not just an algorithm churning up the big and/or popular artists.
4. It offers far too much for €10. It’s going to need to cost more a month to pay artists and consumers will just have to understand why.
 
Ericj32 said:
Spotify’s share of the streaming service market is only about 31%, so they are far from the only game in town. Artists and labels have the same income streams that they’ve always had - streaming is just an additional one that didn’t exist previously. This idea that spotify has somehow singlehandedly destroyed all of the other revenue streams for artists and musicians is pretty obviously untrue. So is the idea that being a professional musician is the only way that artists can make a living. I don’t see any evidence that the music industry has been killed off - there is still plenty of new music being released every week by independent artists as well as those on major labels. Covid has had a major impact on the music industry and touring revenues but that has nothing to do with streaming services.
Click to expand...
I'm not only mad at Spotify! 31% is a massive market share, anyway, but as the undisputed market leader and pioneer in the streaming space, they've made the industry what it is. Apple, Google and the rest are all horseshit too; I'm certainly not denying that in any way.

Joe's absolutely correct. Streaming could be great. Bandcamp, as well as a bunch of smaller co-ops, are showing us how it can be both a) great and b) equitable. Spotify and the others have no interest in allowing the artists with whom they've made their empires actually earn enough to live and keep adding music to the services. That's why they suck! 31% market share and what have they done for artists during the entirety of the pandemic that even comes close to Bandcamp Fridays? In order for streaming to work, it needs to work for the people who provide all of its value, the musicians. Without that, they're unjust, unfair and (hopefully) doomed.
 
I mean, companies like Facebook and Google and Ticketmaster have closer to two-thirds marketshare in their respective markets. Universal Music Group has 32% market share - it’s not unheard of.


Joe Mac said:
And here’s the kicker. Streaming as a notion isn’t fundamentally bad. It’s the way it distributes royalties and the way it’s in bed with the major labels. My issues are:

1. Whilst me recording an album on the digeridoo and uploading it to Spotify using tune base will rightfully get no listens, not even my dad, and so no money, a mid level act with a substantial number of streams should be able to make money that’s justifies making the recording off those streams.
2. They should use their position not to get in bed with the majors but to push for a more equitable distribution of the royalties from digital rights that reflect the much lower overheads for majors.
3. They should favour music discovery based on listening and critical appraisal and not just an algorithm churning up the big and/or popular artists.
4. It offers far too much for €10. It’s going to need to cost more a month to pay artists and consumers will just have to understand why.
Click to expand...
1. I think the issue is, how do you decide what amount of money is justified there as payment? Doesn’t it have to be tied in some way to what people are willing to pay for it?
2. How does spotify avoid working with the labels that control the rights to most of the most popular music like Universal?
3. Popularity at least is more objective and fair than having some critics pick and choose the winners and losers.
4. I agree with you on this. I’d be willing to pay $20 or $30 per month. But millions of other people wouldn’t, and the overall pot of money that spotify then collects from subscriptions may end up being smaller and artists would end up getting even less of a payout. Before they do that, though, they could get rid of the free, ad-supported version of the app. The number of overall streams would go down and the payment to the artist per stream would naturally rise back up - but the artists may get less money overall from Spotify without that ad revenue stream. And many artists might prefer to make their music accessible to even those who can’t pay for it, so they’d have to resort to posting tracks for free on bandcamp or soundcloud or youtube and getting even less revenue per stream than they got with spotify.
 
Ericj32 said:
I mean, companies like Facebook and Google and Ticketmaster have closer to two-thirds marketshare in their respective markets. Universal Music Group has 32% market share - it’s not unheard of.
Click to expand...
I don't know much about Universal but the others are also all terrible companies! Ticketmaster/Live Nation is probably as detrimental toward music as Spotify is, or worse.
 
BjorgenFjorgen said:
I'm not only mad at Spotify! 31% is a massive market share, anyway, but as the undisputed market leader and pioneer in the streaming space, they've made the industry what it is. Apple, Google and the rest are all horseshit too; I'm certainly not denying that in any way.

Joe's absolutely correct. Streaming could be great. Bandcamp, as well as a bunch of smaller co-ops, are showing us how it can be both a) great and b) equitable. Spotify and the others have no interest in allowing the artists with whom they've made their empires actually earn enough to live and keep adding music to the services. That's why they suck! 31% market share and what have they done for artists during the entirety of the pandemic that even comes close to Bandcamp Fridays? In order for streaming to work, it needs to work for the people who provide all of its value, the musicians. Without that, they're unjust, unfair and (hopefully) doomed.
Click to expand...
I think this leads us back to the Taylor Swift question. If she controls much of her own music, why is she on spotify or any other streaming service? She doesn’t need the visibility.

Again, I disagree that Spotify or any other streaming service has the power or responsibility to “allow” artists to earn a living. Streaming services have zero control over artists ability to release merch and sell physical or digital albums, or over their ability to sell concert tickets or tickets to livestreamed shows. In fact, spotify helps artists promote those other value streams to their fans. Just today, I got a “fans first” email from spotify letting me know that cut copy was touring soon and giving me a presale code to allow me to buy a ticket for the show before it goes on sale to the general public tomorrow. They’ve been sending those out for different artists for their livestreams all through the pandemic, too, as well as for benefits, petitions, and causes organized in support of covid relief, frontline workers, live music venues, etc.
 
Ericj32 said:
I mean, companies like Facebook and Google and Ticketmaster have closer to two-thirds marketshare in their respective markets. Universal Music Group has 32% market share - it’s not unheard of.



1. I think the issue is, how do you decide what amount of money is justified there as payment? Doesn’t it have to be tied in some way to what people are willing to pay for it?
2. How does spotify avoid working with the labels that control the rights to most of the most popular music like Universal?
3. Popularity at least is more objective and fair than having some critics pick and choose the winners and losers.
4. I agree with you on this. I’d be willing to pay $20 or $30 per month. But millions of other people wouldn’t, and the overall pot of money that spotify then collects from subscriptions may end up being smaller and artists would end up getting even less of a payout. Before they do that, though, they could get rid of the free, ad-supported version of the app. The number of overall streams would go down and the payment to the artist per stream would naturally rise back up - but the artists may get less money overall from Spotify without that ad revenue stream. And many artists might prefer to make their music accessible to even those who can’t pay for it, so they’d have to resort to posting tracks for free on bandcamp or soundcloud or youtube and getting even less revenue per stream than they got with spotify.
Click to expand...

1. It’s not necessarily about the size of the pie but how it’s divided. So I buy a CD. All the money from that CDs goes to the artist I’ve chosen to buy. Same with a record or a gig ticket. That money doesn’t go into a CD/record/gig pot that’s split between all artists based on a proportion of their overall sales. May it not be a more equitable solution to divide everybody’s tenner amongst the artist that they listen to? Also if you agree with 4 the pot gets bigger.
2. It isn’t about avoidance its about using your market position responsibly to exert industry pressure toward positive change. The major labels need them as much as the reverse and that gives leverage.
3. It actually fundamentally isn’t because the most popular artists are on the largest labels with the largest advertising spend and the closest tie ins with the platform. It creates a self perpetuating circle. It’s why we’ve always needed critical evaluation to cut through the shit. It also severely diluted the “exposure” nonsense you’ve been harping on about.
4. It doesn’t need to be a huge increase or creating a situation where only the rich can afford but if you’re willing to pay €10 for just Netflix or Disney’s content then all the music ever has to be worth more? Discounts for students etc would also be part of the equation.
 
BjorgenFjorgen said:
I don't know much about Universal but the others are also all terrible companies! Ticketmaster/Live Nation is probably as detrimental toward music as Spotify is, or worse.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Ticketmaster charged me $10 per ticket in fees for $35 tickets for that cut copy show today. I guess I’m paying for the convenience of not having to physically go to the box office or risk it selling out before I have the chance to get a ticket but it seems like a pretty hefty fee when you think that the band and venue and crew are all dividing up $35 between themselves.
 
Ericj32 said:
I think this leads us back to the Taylor Swift question. If she controls much of her own music, why is she on spotify or any other streaming service? She doesn’t need the visibility.

Again, I disagree that Spotify or any other streaming service has the power or responsibility to “allow” artists to earn a living. Streaming services have zero control over artists ability to release merch and sell physical or digital albums, or over their ability to sell concert tickets or tickets to livestreamed shows. In fact, spotify helps artists promote those other value streams to their fans. Just today, I got a “fans first” email from spotify letting me know that cut copy was touring soon and giving me a presale code to allow me to buy a ticket for the show before it goes on sale to the general public tomorrow. They’ve been sending those out for different artists for their livestreams all through the pandemic, too, as well as for benefits, petitions, and causes organized in support of covid relief, frontline workers, live music venues, etc.
Click to expand...
Taylor Swift is one of the artists for whom the current setup works perfectly. She is quite literally the 1% in the streaming world which primarily pay out pro rata. Why wouldn't she be on it? I was saying earlier that because she is financially comfortable and a huge source of revenue for Spotify, she should use her platform to push for change like Neil did. But I certainly don't expect her to.

Spotify and the streaming economy didn't step into a vacuum. With the help and support of the majors they've created a system that fucks smaller artists that were less fucked before. Simple as that. If Tidal and Napster can pay more reasonable royalty rates, why can't Spotify?
 
Ericj32 said:
Agreed. Ticketmaster charged me $10 per ticket in fees for $35 tickets for that cut copy show today. I guess I’m paying for the convenience of not having to physically go to the box office or risk it selling out before I have the chance to get a ticket but it seems like a pretty hefty fee when you think that the band and venue and crew are all dividing up $35 between themselves.
Click to expand...
And that's a fairly mild case! The biggest issue with Ticketmaster is their monopoly status; they'll charge whatever convenience fees they want and because they own most of the venues in America, people will either pay them or stay home.
 
Napster and Tidal’s per stream royalty rates are function of how actively people who pay for the service are streaming songs. Literally every time someone streams a song on any streaming service, the per stream rate decreases accordingly for that finite pot of revenue. They also don’t have any free, ad-supported version of their apps diluting those numbers further. But it’s not like they are writing larger checks out each year to artists than spotify is - they just restrict the audience to a smaller group and then they can say that they’re technically paying more per stream.

Like let’s say that I hired a musician to perform in my backyard for $10,000 for me and 19 friends - that musician would earn $500 per person ($10,000 / 20 people). But if they perform out in a field on a farm that charges $20 per person, they could have 1,000 people out in the field and play the exact same show and they would make twice as much money ($20k) even though the per person rate on the farm was 1/25 of the per person rate I paid in my backyard. I could tell myself that I did 25x better than the farm in just supporting the artist and properly valuing their music and talent as a performer, but that artist would probably rather play the bigger show for the bigger payout to build that connection with 50x the amount of people who might then go out and buy their record or buy another concert ticket in the future.

I also don’t agree that smaller independent artists are in a more difficult spot now than they were under the old pre-streaming music industry days. I don’t know any way of measuring that definitively, though.
 
LiamGallagher’sBucketHat said:
wHEre r tHe HAwT tAKes?
Click to expand...
I mean, not that I’ve ever been to an NFL game or really cared, but I think “Washington Football Team” sounded more badass than “Washington Commanders.” I guess having “Football Team” in the name was too aspirational to stick. I’m working on a few jokes for next year about their “commanding” losses though - those will be good.
 
Ericj32 said:
I mean, not that I’ve ever been to an NFL game or really cared, but I think “Washington Football Team” sounded more badass than “Washington Commanders.” I guess having “Football Team” in the name was too aspirational to stick. I’m working on a few jokes for next year about their “commanding” losses though - those will be good.
Click to expand...

I’m in the middle. It’s not the worst name but it’s definitely not the best.
 
Ericj32 said:
I also don’t agree that smaller independent artists are in a more difficult spot now than they were under the old pre-streaming music industry days. I don’t know any way of measuring that definitively, though.
Click to expand...

So we’ve been linking to articles quoting smaller artists in huge trouble, bitter at getting insulting cheques for pence and cents for their work that is actually getting streamed and quoting how the model is broken and you’ve been working off an hunch?
 
Joe Mac said:
So we’ve been linking to articles quoting smaller artists in huge trouble, bitter at getting insulting cheques for pence and cents for their work that is actually getting streamed and quoting how the model is broken and you’ve been working off an hunch?
Click to expand...
I mean this goes back to what I said about Dave Grohl earlier. I’m not sure I disagree with @Ericj32 on that point. Being a small independent artist has always been hard. I don’t think they shared their struggle in such an open way in the past.

MC Taylor talks about the huge choice it was to make music as a full time job as Hiss Golden Messenger. He’d been making music for years but it was a decision he had to think about and discuss with his family.

The whole premise of Mr Holland’s Opus is that he takes on a job for security and it ends up being what he does instead of being a musician.

Making a living as an artist has never been an easy path.

Edit: And insulting checks goes back to my original point, small check > no check which is what small independent artists got for royalties in the past.
 
This might be why Neil and others aren’t making the royalties as big of a deal. They paid their dues. Newer indie groups expecting to make a living might have unrealistic expectations.
 
And again, I’m not necessarily supporting Spotify here, just saying it’s not, nor has it ever been, an apples to apples comparison.

I also find it weird that Bandcamp keeps coming up. Bandcamp is not a streaming platform. Artists aren’t making money from streams on it. It’s a merch platform like Kung Fu or Merchtable. It just happens to be a kick ass one with a pretty cool streaming preview feature and our preferred format for digital back up.
 
Last edited:
Lee Newman said:
I don’t understand the hype over Black Country, New Road. I mean they’re fine. I’d rather just listen to Leonard Cohen or David Bowie or TV on the Radio.
Click to expand...
Awesome! What’s stopping ya? Also if you are saying that BC, NR is an amalgamation of Cohen, Bowie and TV in The Radio (sounds like some awesome influences) and you enjoy those artists it’s weird you would write off this band so easily.

It’s like saying: I don’t understand the the hype over Durand Jones & The Indication. I’d just rather listen to Otis Redding or Al Green or Marvin Gaye.

An odd critique but I suppose this is the hot takes thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top