Spotify: Can You Support Yourself from Streaming?

[Anderton]

Spotify's Daniel Ek says that he wants artists to be able to support themselves from Spotify. Okay, that's nice, and the rest of the interview is interesting as well. But let's look at the numbers.

 

1,000 streams will make you around if you own all the rights $3.18. So if you think $50,000 a year is about right to support yourself comfortably, you need almost 16 million streams.

 

Now, it's important to remember that when it was possible to support yourself playing music without being a "rock star," there were lots of places to play live. Today, live venues continue to atrophy, and then the virus stopped pretty much all live events. To make significant money from recorded music was never easy, because you had to recoup studio costs and of course, the labels took a big chunk. So I don't think Spotify can go against the tide of history, which basically says "you have to be really big to make money from music." Taylor Swift had 93 million streams in one day of her new album, so she made hundreds of thousands of dollars on that one day. And frankly, I think she deserves it.

 

But the idea that more than the highest tier of musicians will be able to make a living from streaming is a pipe dream. Either Ek is naive, doesn't care about what powers his streaming service now that he's worth $4 billion, or is applying wishful thinking to the future. The music business will be the same as it ever was: a very limited number of people will get rich, and no one else will.

 

And there's something else to consider. As Ek says, "Obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can"t record music once every three to four years and think that"s going to be enough," arguing that successful artists today have realized that "it"s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans." So I guess this means it's more important to crank stuff out and create product than have grand artistic visions. I can just see it now...Beethoven wants to write an epic symphony, but realizes he's better of writing a zillion piano concertos. "Well, it's a living," he says

 

People ask me why I just post my music on YouTube, and don't try to make money off of it. It's because I'm realistic enough to know I will never get 16 million streams on an album. It's not worth putting even $100 of my time into promotion when I'll maybe make $30 in return. I don't blame Spotify or streaming, but I don't blame myself, either. I make music because I love to make music, some people really like my music, and they get to hear it. That's good enough for me...but luckily, I have other ways to make a living. "Don't quit your day job" is truer than ever

[KuruPrionz]

Agree. If Daniel Ek is now so wealthy he can certainly afford to increase the percentage musicians get for each stream.

 

But he won't. As full of shit as the Christmas goose.

 

And, there are exceptions but not for most people. I applaud Taylor Swift for making it in a tough business but let's face it, if she were born butt ugly to a mud fence instead of fashion model gorgeous do you think her career path would have gone the same route?

 

A good friend of mine walked into a local events coordinator who he had connections with on a business level, told them they needed a 100th anniversary song for the Ski To Sea race, pulled out his Ovation guitar and sang the song he'd written. He walked out with a $5,000 contract, took $500 off the top and called me up. Told me he was too busy to get it recorded and would I be music director, co-producer and play guitar. I took it on, he'd already lined up the studio and the male vocalist. I brought in the female vocalist, bassist (also played sax and EWI0 and drummer. A great team, we made it happen. It got local airplay on radio and television for 3 years or so.

 

Proof that crazy stuff can happen but it doesn't mean it will. Mostly, it won't.

[Doerfler]

Spotify's Daniel Ek says that he wants artists to be able to support themselves from Spotify.

 

of course he does.

 

not at all realistic

[Song80s]

Agree. If Daniel Ek is now so wealthy he can certainly afford to increase the percentage musicians get for each stream.

 

But he won't. As full of shit as the Christmas goose.

 

it won't.

 

totally agree. ek is all about ek.

 

There are anywhere from 1 milliion to 10 million musicians trying to make a few pennies on digital media.

 

Saturation. Listeners have all those choices. Most of them free.

 

I am one of the 'music is free ' types. I can handle it. Its not about the money.

 

I enjoy my music production. No strings attached. The love is nice. Perfect.

[Mike Rivers]

[quote=KuruPrionz

A good friend of mine walked into a local events coordinator who he had connections with on a business level, told them they needed a 100th anniversary song for the Ski To Sea race, pulled out his Ovation guitar and sang the song he'd written. He walked out with a $5,000 contract, took $500 off the top and called me up. Told me he was too busy to get it recorded and would I be music director, co-producer and play guitar. . . . .

 

Proof that crazy stuff can happen but it doesn't mean it will. Mostly, it won't.

 

This has always been the case with music. Crazy stuff can, and does happen, but only sporadically. How many more $500 gigs did you get off this one, or a similar one? You'd need two a week just to take in $50k/year, and that's highly unlikely.

[Anderton]

AI applaud Taylor Swift for making it in a tough business but let's face it, if she were born butt ugly to a mud fence instead of fashion model gorgeous do you think her career path would have gone the same route?

 

There have been numerous attempts that didn't work to make fashion model gorgeous females into stars, because these days, any artist has to have the complete package - charisma, material, looks, PR savviness, etc. Removing any one of those diminishes the chance of success.

 

I'd put it this way: If Taylor Swift hadn't written good songs, sung them well, and played guitar to establish some additional musician cred, do you think her career path would have gone the same route? I also like that she gives back...not sure if that helps her career per se, but karma can be a factor. I have no idea what she's like as a person, but she worked hard to get where she is, and I respect what she's done.

[Anderton]

Agree. If Daniel Ek is now so wealthy he can certainly afford to increase the percentage musicians get for each stream.

 

Hard to say. That might be what he's worth on paper, based on how Spotify is valued for what it will do in the future. It's still losing money, and the model itself seems flawed.

 

Here's an interesting article about Spotify's finances today..

 

This article from 2018 suggests ways Spotify could make money. A lot of it makes sense, if not for Spotify, then for someone who wants to try a different model.

 

I always wondered why Apple never started a label to go along with iTunes. That way they'd be paying money that would normally go to labels to themselves, have endless opportunities to hype the music they deem worthy, and even license it to movies and non-competing companies.

 

The problem is the industry has boxed itself into "music should be virtually free because it has no value" - and of course, what DOES have value is distribution. The genie is out of the bottle, and won't go back in.

[KuruPrionz]

AI applaud Taylor Swift for making it in a tough business but let's face it, if she were born butt ugly to a mud fence instead of fashion model gorgeous do you think her career path would have gone the same route?

 

There have been numerous attempts that didn't work to make fashion model gorgeous females into stars, because these days, any artist has to have the complete package - charisma, material, looks, PR savviness, etc. Removing any one of those diminishes the chance of success.

 

I'd put it this way: If Taylor Swift hadn't written good songs, sung them well, and played guitar to establish some additional musician cred, do you think her career path would have gone the same route? I also like that she gives back...not sure if that helps her career per se, but karma can be a factor. I have no idea what she's like as a person, but she worked hard to get where she is, and I respect what she's done.

 

 

I'm not disputing any of this, your point is well taken. I remember when Taylor told Apple they couldn't have any of her music unless they gave up on the first 90 days being free because lots of artists had bills to pay for the cost of getting their music out there and she wanted them to get their fair share. And Apple backed down. She didn't have to do that but she did and I was truly impressed.

I'm a fan, not just of her music but of her humanity.

 

My point was more regarding some of the amazing musical talent that isn't quite so pretty and never gets anywhere. It's hard to come up with a concrete example since most likely we haven't heard of them.

I've seen/heard some incredible things at open mic nights, in context that's pretty meaningless as well.

[Nathanael_I]

Spotify pays 70% of its income to rights-holders. These rights to popular works are almost exclusively held by the major publishers. The labels are making lots of money streaming back catalog and have zero production costs. Their artists don't get a great split. This is a label/contract problem. The labels own a big chunk of Spotify stock - it was the only way they would consent to licensing the content. They are happy for it to be perceived as a Spotify problem - it deflects attention from their business practices. Winner-takes-all systems are good for them, as there is an almost certainty that any huge hits belong to them anyway under contracts that guarantee they get paid first.

 

Spotify doesn't contract with individual artists. They deal with publishers and distributors only (CD Baby, Tunecore, etc). These little details explain much. What Ek does say is that 43k people are getting paid decent $$ - that may be more than previously, but it has not made everyone's dreams comes true.

 

But, it is always hard to make money off of something that is not scarce. Digital goods are not scarce and digital distribution is not expensive, and most people know that and have expectations set accordingly.

 

Most of the music YouTube channels (even huge ones like Rick Beato) don't earn a living wage off the advertising shared revenue. They are linking viewers to sites to buy books, merchandise, or to a Patreon account.

 

Most "professional money" income went to live performance (by definition scarce), or to movie/video game music (DRM enforced scarcity). The competition for these spots is fierce - hundreds or thousands of qualified people for every opportunity. When I lived in New Jersey, I used to say, "You can't swing an XLR cable without hitting someone with a master's degree from Julliard unable to find work." The easiest thing was to find lessons with someone trained at a truly elite school to the highest standards, but was unable to survive just playing music.

 

It is hard - the old ways are gone. The people making money now, are doing it very differently and have mastered using free online audiences to build a following that is willing to monetize offline. There are more avenues to monetize music than there ever have been. There are also more people chasing them than there ever have been.

[Anderton]

[wisdom wisdom wisdom wisdom]

 

Great post

[Notes_Norton]

The gate keepers have always exploited the artists.

 

I remember when we were the first choice to be the first all-white band released by Motown. This was in the late 1960s. They wanted to pay us 2 cents per record sold. They also wanted a Motown ghost-writer on all the songs we wrote so they would get half the writing credits even though the ghost wouldn't write a thing on our records. Plus they wanted all the publishing rights.

 

Out of our 2 cents Motown would deduct inflated recording costs, inflated distribution costs and inflated promotional costs. Our manager figured we would have to sell a million records before we would see one penny from Motown. We held out for 3 cents and Motown quit returning calls. Another good band, The Sunliners got the gig. I don't know what their deal was. Motown wanted to own the name so they could hire and fire and have 3 or 4 bands on tour with the same name. The Sunliners chose Rare Earth and Motown owns the name.

 

This is why there were so many one-hit wonders in the golden age of records. Their royalties never paid off their debt to the recording company. Of course the label made a fortune and there was another eager artist who would take the bad deal.

 

Every now and then someone comes along who pays off their debt and as they say today 'goes viral'. This makes the label an unexpected profit. These people can make a better deal with the record company for their next recording because they were what the record company called "an automatic".

 

Fortunately I've been able to make a living doing music and nothing but music all my life. The only money I've made from recording was as a flat rate sax for hire on someone else's records, and I never got enough of them to make a living at that (not in the right location to start with).

 

I've played dives, singles bars, cruise ships, casinos, show clubs, hotels, restaurants, private parties, retirement developments, yacht clubs, country clubs, and as an opening act for headliner stars while their records were in the top 10 or after their major hits but were still in demand.

 

As the business started to fizzle I went trio then duo making my own backing tracks. Until COVID the only time I was unemployed is when I blocked out weeks for an annual vacation. If I didn't block out the time, I wouldn't get the vacation.

 

Hopefully there will be life after COVID.

 

I feel sorry for young musicians. They don't have the opportunities I had when I was young. Back then every singles bar, every hotel from a Holiday Inn on up, every lounge with more than a dozen bar stools hired a band. I was 18 and not that good when I started playing full time. You just had to be decent. And with the experience I got and as I worked on my skills I got in better and better bands playing better and better rooms. I don't think you can do that today.

 

So Spotify is nothing new except new technology for the same old exploitation.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[nursers]

Speaking of Rick Beato, here's a great, related video he recently released:

 

[video:youtube]

[dboomer]

The gate keepers have always exploited the artists. ....So Spotify is nothing new except new technology for the same old exploitation.

 

I think we used to get 8¢ per record sold. Of course who really knows what we actually received out of that. as none of us could read the books. So yes we got screwed every which way we could. But it was a lot of money when I was 18. So like we used to say ... 'You"re either in the business or you"re not'.

 

 

btw ... funny you listed that as we had a song in 'Almost Famous' although we didn"t get paid for it as the record company kept it all

[Notes_Norton]

<...snip...>

btw ... funny you listed that as we had a song in 'Almost Famous' although we didn"t get paid for it as the record company kept it all

 

So many of us got so close, but never got there, and so we were both "almost famous". Back in the 1960s from Detroit to Chicago I met a lot of other almost famous people and some who became famous. It was an exciting time in my life.

 

One nice thing about being "almost famous" was being treated as a peer by the people who made hit records we covered when we were a cover band. It was validation for our teenage brains. The other nice thing was the girls. There were always more females who wanted to get close to famous and almost famous musicians than there were musicians for them to get close to. Every female I have ever been intimate with was introduced to me by my saxophone, including the best one, and I married her.

 

Before Motown we had a 45RPM single self release that sold enough to pay for the recording and pressing, and made us a tiny bit of profit. It got some airplay on local stations in Michigan. This was when there were still stations that had the DJ pick the songs instead of some program director. It was easier to get airplay back then.

 

One of our friendly competitors "? And The Mysterians" (Rudy Martinez and the band) did the same thing with "69 Tears", which was changed at the recording session to "96 Tears" for fear or censorship. However they sold a percentage of their royalties to a DJ in Flint Michigan who played it a lot, got a number of his DJ buddies around the state to play it. Then one of the minor major labels picked it up and it became a hit. We never saw Rudy and his band of Mexicans again. I hope they did well with it, they were nice folks.

 

I don't know if things would have been better or worse if we took the Motown deal. There is no way to tell, so it's fruitless to spend time thinking about it. I'm having a happy life as a professional musician, living it on my own terms, and not a wage slave for some faceless and soulless corporation.

 

I wake up in the morning, go to bed at night, and in between I do what I want and what makes me happy. To me that is one definition of success.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[KuruPrionz]

Then there is that which cannot be explained or comprehended.

 

 

At 3.7 billion clicks, if pay out was 1/4 of one cent for half of the total clicks it generated $4,625,000.

 

Gangham Style yo!

[Doerfler]

Then there is that which cannot be explained or comprehended.

 

Pink Fong has almost doubled Psy in hits and it came out 4 years later. Go Nats!

 

[video:youtube]

[Song80s]

Then there is that which cannot be explained or comprehended.

 

 

At 3.7 billion clicks, if pay out was 1/4 of one cent for half of the total clicks it generated $4,625,000.

 

Gangham Style yo!

 

do I have to follow the herd ?

[KuruPrionz]

Then there is that which cannot be explained or comprehended.

 

Pink Fong has almost doubled Psy in hits and it came out 4 years later. Go Nats!

 

[video:youtube]

 

Thereby compounding the mystery of it all!!!!

Cats being asshole videos do really well too. Sadly, none of us are cats...

[Doerfler]

Speaking of Rick Beato, here's a great, related video he recently released

 

hey Dave (just noticed you changed your forum name back to the origional one), thanks for posting that Rick Beato video. Never cared for him until I saw this one. Completely changed my opinion of him, for the better.

[Anderton]

thanks for posting that Rick Beato video. Never cared for him until I saw this one. Completely changed my opinion of him, for the better.

 

I look upon most YouTubers skeptically, but he's done quite a few good ones. I don't hold it against him that he uses click bait thumbnails and titles, it's the only way to get clicks.

[nursers]

Speaking of Rick Beato, here's a great, related video he recently released

 

hey Dave (just noticed you changed your forum name back to the origional one), thanks for posting that Rick Beato video. Never cared for him until I saw this one. Completely changed my opinion of him, for the better.

Speaking of Rick Beato, here's a great, related video he recently released

 

hey Dave (just noticed you changed your forum name back to the origional one), thanks for posting that Rick Beato video. Never cared for him until I saw this one. Completely changed my opinion of him, for the better.

 

I was on the fence with Rick too mate, but yeah have liked a few of his recent more outspoken vids And sorry yes I needed to change back to original name, long story