Spotify has decided to screw the little guy over even more! Let’s talk about what their latest announcement entails, how it affects musicians and music consumers, and what we can do to try to right this sinking ship we call the music industry. But first, smash those subscribe and share buttons. Let’s get the word out.
Recently, Spotify announced that they will no longer pay out royalties to artists for songs that get less than 1000 streams in any given year. How does this affect indie musicians? More importantly, how does this affect music consumers? And what can be done by both parties to help? I don’t have all the answers but I think I have a few ideas that, if done on a grand scale, could make a positive difference.
Let’s take a look at a message that a friend of mine received recently:
“Dear PlayStation Customer, As of December 31, 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and content will be removed from your video library.”
This should be alarming to consumers. This is the primary danger of the streaming model itself: you don’t own anything. You’re not even renting the music; you’re renting the platform to listen to the music that you don’t own. That’s a terrible system! And they can take it away anytime they want and leave you with nothing. The artists can too. If someone like, say, Neil Young disagrees with a certain popular pod-caster's views, he can pull all his music right off that platform leaving you to seek it out elsewhere. Sure you’ll find it on a different service, but what a pain in the ass! What if your favorite band had their music pulled off ALL of the streaming platforms? Don’t think it can’t happen? Do you know how many great actors, directors, and producers got blacklisted from ever working in movies or theater again during the era of McCarthyism? Those people lost their ass because of changing political opinions and attitudes that were mostly outside their control. And people get canceled for stupid shit all the time these days.
So what can indie musicians do about it? I’ve been reading a lot of different opinions, and they range from “pull all your music off of Spotify!” to “Inundate Spotify’s servers with so much content that they crumble!”. Either way, it’s not positive; and I can understand the hate. Imagine you had a small company that earns about $1,000 per job and there is a big corporate company across town that does huge jobs for $10,000 or more. And then one day, a law is passed that says if you don’t earn at least $5,000 on a job then you have to give the $1,000 you earned to the big company. That’s basically what’s going on. Now, the amounts we are talking about are way smaller than that, pretty much negligible, which is why the hard-liners who want us to remove our music are doing it on principle. I get that; they don’t want to support shitty business practices. They want to direct people to other streaming services or, better yet, a place where they can purchase physical or digital products.
The problem with this attitude is that it doesn’t take the audience into account. People are going to listen where they want to listen: where it’s the most convenient and the least expensive. You can try to get people to listen on Tidal and Deezer and whatnot, and a few may make the change, but you’re not going to have much success. Even so, consumers need to take note that a bunch of indie artists are pulling their songs from Spotify with no plans to return.
So what’s the answer? I think we need to look at what we think the ideal system would look like, reverse-engineer it, and work toward that goal. So when did the music industry kinda work? The simple answer: pre-Napster, before all the labels panicked and dropped a bunch of artists. It was a glorious time. You’d hear a few singles on the radio, maybe catch a video on MTV, and go down to the record store and buy the CD or vinyl. Later, after Napster got sued, there was a sweet spot in the 2000s with the advent of the iPod, the iTunes store, Bandcamp, etc. People were still buying music, and it was all digital so the little guys were able to release their music without having to pay the expensive overhead costs of releasing physical media. This, in my opinion, was the ideal time to be an indie musician and a music consumer. It was just as easy for artists to connect with their audience, they could release music at will, purchasing music was a snap for customers, and you actually owned the music even if the artist or label were to remove it later.
It’s widely accepted among indie musicians that most of your listeners on Spotify are casual listeners. It’s a great platform to pull new people in but not a great place for newer artists to actually make a solid connection with their fans or to make any kind of money that you could live on. This is true about all the streaming platforms. They are good to pull new fans in, good to promote yourself, but then it kinda stops there. Streaming sites are not a good substitute for the record shops; they’re a good substitute for the radio. A personal website and a Bandcamp page are good substitutes for record shops.
So rather than pulling everything off of those sites or flooding them with content, I think indie artists should find a middle ground and only upload singles to streaming sites from now on, reserving the albums and EPs to sell. Stop giving everything away for free. Why would anyone buy an album that’s streaming everywhere anyway? If you have some albums up already, that’s okay. Leave them up if you like, or perhaps pull off any songs that are not singles. Streaming is a great way to reach new ears, not to make money, and it’s a good idea to put your best foot forward with strong radio-ready singles. Lead them to your albums and merchandise. And consumers, you do your part and buy some music. These artists are creating for your entertainment and if you don’t want them to disappear, you need to show them some real support.
What do you think? Let me hear your thoughts on the subject in the comments below. And be sure to head over to https://thequiveringpalm.com and check out some of my stuff.
