State of the music industry

[Mike_S]

I came across this interesting BBC feature about the music industry. Enjoy.

Downloading: ‘People said it would end record labels’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50475324

[TheKevster]

Very revealing - thanks for sharing.

Lascelles is a typical know-nothing industry mogul. He and his like love Spotify because the majors effectively control it and it pays virtually nothing to indie artists.

He is totally out of touch, because he thinks every artist is Drake or Ed Sheeran, getting huge amounts of wodge for hundreds of millions of streams – his quotes in the piece effectively demonstrate this.

“You do hear arguments from artists that they are not earning a lot of money from streaming, but that is probably because they are stuck on old contracts with their record labels. But if you are an artist who does direct deals with the streaming platforms then you can make good money.” This is completely untrue, and shows how out-of-touch this buffoon is.

He could get his fat middle-aged arse out of his executive chair and go see the dire poverty most musicians have to deal with, but he seems to prefer his ivory tower…

Not a lot of people know this, but Spotify pays put on a “market share” basis, not on a “pay per stream” basis. So, if you are unfortunate enough to release your album on the same day as Taylor Swift or some other mega-act, you are likely to get zip from your first few days’ streaming, because Swift will be hogging most of the streams at that particular time.

Spotify is effectively exploiting up and coming musicians and is the enemy of sustainable arts. The big record labels know this, but because illegal file sharing hurt the labels more than it did artists, they had to end it – and Spotify, which hands the advantage to the big boys, and whose algorithms can be gamed easily by the majors, is the perfect tool for

[Mike_S]

go see the dire poverty most musicians have to deal with

Yeah, I did find that bit somewhat grating too. I follow a lot of bands that consistently struggle with the effects streaming has on making any return from their work.