This
was all part of an experiment I did that bloomed into something a whole lot
more. I was apprehensive about starting Spotify as I thought it would cost
money, after finding out it didn’t I promptly set up an account. When I was
finally logged in a whole world of music awaited me.
The
first thing I will say is the pros about Spotify. They had nearly every album I
have been looking for in record shops for about a decade at a click of a
button. The first test was the Caddy
shack soundtrack, which to my delight they had. Out of my vast list of
albums to find and own they didn’t have the following Neverland’s self-titled debut album from 1992, Psycho 2 and 3
soundtracks and the Red Hot Chilli
Pepper’s song Set It Straight.
The
entire stream of constant music was like a sensory overload; the only way I could
cope with it all was to go with the flow. Through this I discovered many
things; a remix of Bjork’s Human Behaviour that sounded better than
the album version in my opinion, finally getting to hear the recorded version
of Father’s Song by Prince from Purple Rain, William Shatner
taking a ride on the Silver Machine
and the 77 Halloween concerts of Frank Zappa. I was consumed by it, everything
I wanted to hear was there awaiting me to click on it.
The
main advantage of Spotify is the space it saves for a compulsive music lover.
It was one of the reasons I finally considered getting Spotify, was the lack of
space. To paint a picture, imagine a room that has the shadowy visage of the
New York skyline made out of piles and piles of CD’s and you get the idea. I
used to buy at least a few albums a day on my daily hunts in charity and record
shops. I needed the space Spotify is the temporary answer.
Another
redeeming feature is the fact you can take it anywhere on your phone, making I
pods and possibly I Tunes seem like BBC Micro Computers by comparison. In
addition, you can go premium for a fee and have no ads but I didn’t mind the
ads.
Within
the first few days, I figured this opens the playing field to new bands and
artists then I looked at the streaming hits of the acts that have backing
advertising etc to acts that barely have a thousand plays. In the constant
stream of music, some bands I did enjoy listening to are barely a blip on the
screen compared to the so-called hip and popular “Taylor Swift” & “Ed
Sheeran” who have a ridiculous amount of streaming hits. However, having a
closer microscopic look at the streaming side I discovered it doesn’t pay as
well as you would think. BBC Radio One has £37.76 as the average payment per
play. On Spotify’s payroll, it’s far worse; an extremist low-level pay. From
January 2016, it is $0.00022288
per stream and that is just for the regular
service. The premium numbers are $0.00066481per stream not much better.
So if we use
our maths skills it would take about 150,419 streams to earn $100. As Ed
Sheeran is the most streamed artist on Spotify with around 3, 1 billion so
far. Working out his earnings on the
regular streaming service, Ed earns $690,928, which is an insane amount of
money for streaming, but it isn’t even in the ballpark for the money radio
royalties has. So for the average band they will be earning a mere pittance off
Spotify. They might be a vast torrent of music but there is a flaw. It seems
only the popular radio artist’s benefit from the service; it’s an overgrown allowance
for select artists on top of their airplay royalties. It operates like a third world system of
music; it only seems to benefit certain parties while other less popular artists work barely makes
them 50p. It should all be equal pay but then again screwing artists has never gone
out of fashion.
Spotify makes its money from mainly advertising
revenue and a paid subscription tier; advertisers pay money for exposure during
songs of non-premium users for income. But ironically Spotify struggles to make
money and many analysts have speculated the end of free streaming on not only
on Spotify but YouTube as well, I don’t see this happening without a fight in
the future.
The main thing Spotify can’t replace is actually
owning the album, the joy of holding physical copy. With Spotify you can’t go
over the liner notes soaking up the kernels of information contained in them;
the instruments used, where and when it was recorded, the musicians involved,
the personal thanks from the band, stories about the song, the lyrics to read
while listening and the artwork. Spotify cannot give you the experience of
that.
Despite the innovation of Spotify, it will take a
lot of time for it to create a sustainable income that can help artists thrive
and not just benefit the artists who have had millions in advertising to get
them ahead of their “competition.” I noticed recently on buses Ads for Spotify,
and I thought to myself. For a company that is supposedly losing money. Could
they have not used the money to actually pay royalties to artists who needed
it? Instead of plastering, All Saints & Phil Collins faces on
the side of buses.
For your cult,
niche and new bands and solo artists the best way to support them is to buy the
album physically, but most people sadly want it free. This musical sea may be
vast, deep, and alluring but there is always a price to it.
Stuart
Ritchie
