Interesting articles about music and musicians.

i meant for each track played. As in the royalties paid by spotify. Not his annual net income.

The general consensus is that they pay $0.00318 per stream. It would be interesting to know how much this dude received compared to the huge amount of artists that seem to be getting utterly shafted

www.theguardian.com

Musicians ask Spotify to triple payments to cover lost concert revenue

Bandcamp has relaxed charges in light of Covid-19 but there is growing pressure on streaming services to compensate artists more fairly
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Torsion Jim said:
I meant for each track played. As in the royalties paid by spotify. Not his annual net income.

The general consensus is that they pay $0.00318 per stream. It would be interesting to know how much this dude received compared to the huge amount of artists that seem to be getting utterly shafted
Click to expand...

So...based off that, he'd be on around £1200 per month via Spotify.

I still don't think that's bad for a passive income source.
(Especially when it is for tracks that have been written a long time ago, and are also being sold elsewhere, AND its predictable)

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Just to clarify, you realise that people make money from selling records, AND streams...
...and further more, if you've licensed your music, you have several (if not dozens), of stream sources, right?
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ps -

1 - Guardian link: The headline screams entitlement.
2 - The artists are under no obligation to use the platform.
3 - I find it unethical to agree to business terms, then demand they change, for reasons outside of the service providers control.
4 - I would never expect a private business to fill a gap in my business model.
5 - I would never expect a private business, to recompense me for a loss of revenue, caused by a pandemic.

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pps - Evan Greer (the person that started the petition mentioned, in the link you sent), got 700 monthly listens.
Thats nothing to do with being "shafted" by spotify...
Its barely a step better than me taking my 10 monthly listens and crying because I'm not a millionaire.
boohooo hooo.... hahahhahahahahhahahahaha
 
Nanook said:
Just to clarify, you realise that people make money from selling records, AND streams...
Click to expand...
That had occurred to me, but you said he made a living solely from his spotify income. Just wondering how that stacked up against the common claim that spotify are cunts.

You are pushing at an open door with me when you highlight whats wrong with the Guardian- its the daily mail for the 'liberal left'. I only linked that thread as it had the price per stream that i mentioned. Just incase i was asked to reveal my working.
 
Torsion Jim said:
That had occurred to me, but you said he made a living solely from his spotify income. Just wondering how that stacked up against the common claim that spotify are cunts.

You are pushing at an open door with me when you highlight whats wrong with the Guardian- its the daily mail for the 'liberal left'. I only linked that thread as it had the price per stream that i mentioned. Just incase i was asked to reveal my working.
Click to expand...

They may very well be cnuts... I have nothing to compare against, and only anecdotal "evidence" from a few friends that say they "make a comfortable" living from it...

I just wanted to show another side the argument.

But as with anything, the greatest power is voting with your feet - If people feel they are cnuts... they can stop using them innit?
 
Im afraid i dont understand the point of spotify. And i certainly dont understand its popularity.

But then again there is quite a lot i dont understand.
 
Torsion Jim said:
Im afraid i dont understand the point of spotify. And i certainly dont understand its popularity.

But then again there is quite a lot i dont understand.
Click to expand...

Fair play - Nice to hear your opinions though... thanks for sharing.
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Back on topic... This is an interesting article, re: the grand-master...

blog.longnow.org

Music, Time and Long-Term Thinking: Brian Eno Expands the Vocabulary of Human Feeling

Like much of Brian Eno’s work, the chimes in the 10,000-Year Clock draw together far-flung traditions, high and low tech, and science and art to create a meditative experience, unique in a given moment, but expansive in scale and scope.
blog.longnow.org blog.longnow.org
 
Heyyy, it's been a while.

Just reading back through the Spotify debate and no disrespect, but I reckon 'Nook's mate was exaggerating. Jon Hopkins once noted that after the thick-end of one hundred thousand plays of a track, his royalty check was £8. Jon Hopkins! It was a long time ago now, but the business model and, indeed, the mentality behind it hasn't changed much since then. £1200pm? Nah, I don't buy it.

Anywayyy. I dropped in to post this:

blim.org.uk

Report - Black Lives in Music

Download
blim.org.uk blim.org.uk

There are two main strands of this report, both very in depth at first glance, and you can download them for free in PDF form upon providing an email address. Additions include data sets for the surveys and official logo. For some reason, the zip file refused to extract for me once the link was sent to my inbox, but if that happens to you and it's not just my laptop being an arse, scroll under the main link and you can download the individual PDFs already extracted. I've mentioned elsewhere about facing sexism in education, production circles in particular, and I definitely believe those experiences held me back, both in terms of how I felt about my abilities and also directly, e.g. being threatened with downgrading when I objected to certain things. This investigation deals with business professionals rather than students in HE and centres people of colour, nevertheless I'm interested to learn how equivalent discrimination plays out in those environments, especially the impact it had on respondents, and thought some of you might be too.
 
floatyhippyflower said:
Heyyy, it's been a while.

Just reading back through the Spotify debate and no disrespect, but I reckon 'Nook's mate was exaggerating. Jon Hopkins once noted that after the thick-end of one hundred thousand plays of a track, his royalty check was £8. Jon Hopkins! It was a long time ago now, but the business model and, indeed, the mentality behind it hasn't changed much since then. £1200pm? Nah, I don't buy it.
Click to expand...

Wow - Epic necroposting here, FHF!
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Re: Spotify - Easy way to solve this, would be to speak to oTT.
Just noticed his monthly plays at just over 100,000
I wonder if he earned £8 ....or a little more.
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Jon Hopkins... has around 1.5 million a month.
Would be interesting to clarify whether he's going to all that effort for 150 notes.
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Stream calculator puts it at around £200 per 100,000 listens for 2021.
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As for your "nah I don't buy it" comment, no disrespect taken.
But also... kind of a bit of disrespect taken lol

Not sure:
1 - what my friend would gain from lying about such a low/poor income (£1200 is nowt to brag about)
2 - what I'd gain from backing him in a lie, to people that don't know him?
3 - why would I hang out with a guy that lies.... (Thats about as not-me as I think I've ever heard) hahahahaa

Pretty weird presuppositions mate ....no disrespect :Smile3:
 
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Nanook said:
Wow - Epic necroposting here, FHF!
Click to expand...
Admittedly, I am bit behind on forum threads except the occasional film blurb and Now Playing. It may also be I have already read the above and simply forgotten. :lol:

Regarding the rest of your reply, in being so blunt, I pointed out that this was quite some years ago, Hopkins was referring to a single track and the situation may have improved by way of disclaimer. You ask why he would go to all the effort for such shitty pay, but this implies he composes with a view to earning a living from Spotify, which is patently bollocks. Permission to allow streaming platforms hosting rights requires no effort from him at all, less still if it's down to his record company or distributors, so I consider this remark to be largely meaningless.

Either way, as numerous articles in this thread prove, Spotify's business model does not centre art and artists, all of which were authored more recently than the post I saw from Hopkins. I probably should have chosen a more current example, but was just getting into him at the time and so it's the one that always sticks in my brain. With that in mind, while I notice you do not include a citation for the 2021 figure, which would indeed be a vast improvement, I'm gonna take it at face value and spend some time dancing with it.

Two hundred quid for one hundred thousand streams is £0.002 per play. In other words, in a situation where the artist has sole rights, they earn one five hundredth of a penny each. One five hundredth! I appreciate you want to "show another side the argument", but even if your mate is not exaggerating, you think that's fair remuneration, do you? (Consider this rhetorical - I ask merely to make my point.)

Applying this to Hopkins' monthly stream rate specifically, do you know what £0.002 per play amounts to in terms of cash-in-hand? Three thousand pounds. For a million and a half plays! I mean, FFS. This guy is one of the most respected electronica artists in the frikking business and has a global platform. I'm going to assume that his record company and/or distributers will take a cut of that, so even if I'm being extremely generous here and suggest an even split, the guy earns only three hundred quid more than your mate alleges he receives per month.

Applying the cited figure to the twelve hundred pounds and reverse engineering, he would have to be racking up six hundred thousand streams per month, assuming he is completely independent and paid one hundred percent of the profits with no middlemen skimming off the top. If there is record company or equivalent involved, then he's gotta be streaming vastly more than this to be bringing in those kind of sums.

Furthermore, I just checked and here are the listener figures for ten different artists in alphabetical order that randomly sprang to mind, all of whom are considered successful within their sub-genres, mainstream and niche:

- Aphex Twin, 1.7m
- Boards of Canada, 880K
- Eat Static, 27K
- Minilogue, 30K
- Orbital, 516K
- Plaid, 192K
- Prodigy, 1.8m
- Shpongle, 182K
- The Orb, 321K
- Underworld, 1.5M

Now, you never said which genre it was, so I've made an assumption that it's some kind of electronica and stuck to that for the purposes of this comparison, which begs the question. Who on earth do you know that's more popular than Orbital? (Consider this rhetorical too - I ask purely to justify my scepticism and don't expect you to name anybody out of respect for their privacy.) Of course, it could be argued that Orbital are kinda old school, so most of their punters will be too and maybe this impacts listening figures, Spotify being one of those modern thingies that all the kids use. :Wink3:

Instead, let's look at the artist closest to the projected 600K figure, assuming one hundred percent royalties. Your friend is on a par with Max Cooper, whose 2018 album One Hundred Billion Sparks was insanely popular within its niche and considered his breakthrough by many (very Hopkins-like in places). More recently, he released a collection based on the works of minimalist legend, Philip Glass, presumably with his blessing...

...and you ask why I don't buy it?? Come on, dude, Christ on a bike! I do not need a degree in maths to realise there's something a bit fishy about this claim. In answer to point two of your post, I don't think you gain anything by backing him - that didn't even enter my head. He's your friend, end of. And if a friend of mine told me xyz about their business stats, in the vast majority of situations, I would trust them too (cf. your third point), but therein lies the rub. He isn't my mate and I don't have to.

Perhaps more relevantly, I have done a lot of reading about Spotify's practises, first when the platform exploded on the scene, then again over the past year. That's because I was offered a spare user account last December by a buddy of mine with premium (she makes Spotify playlists of my top annual music picks). In the same discussion, another pal offered to purchase one for me as an early birthday gift. OK, then, I thought - let's update my understanding, because these were incredibly generous offers and it goes without saying I appreciated them very much. Admittedly, it was a good few years since I looked into the situation, not counting a couple of articles I chucked in here last summer, having deciding long ago that Spotify wasn't something I could support.

And you know what? I doubled down on the prevailing opinion that they are thieving shitbags and I didnae want a bar of it, not even at someone else's expense. I don't doubt you, Chris, but your mate would have to be six times as popular as your own nomination of Ott to earn those sorts of amounts, so unless he's Max Cooper, you'll forgive me if I continue to doubt that.
 
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Great reply, @floatyhippyflower
Well considered, and eloquent.
Thanks for taking the time.
.

To fill in some blanks for you:

He's currently averaging 350,000 monthly listens (was a bit more last year)
Which at 2021 numbers is $1400 USD. ...(he works in Euro, which would be 1,201.34 Euro, as of today)

He also self-releases, so retains 100%

:Smile3:

------
ps - Why is this even a discussion? *

....Its like arguing about who has the shittest job.
:Laugh3:

(* no need to answer that, you're even more stubborn than me..... which is some going! haha)

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pps - Sorry - On topic - Interesting article for folks, re: 2021 Spotify numbers - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream?r=US&IR=T

x
 
Helloooo, it's been a while. I have almost certainly read some interesting articles about music and musicians since the last bump, but keep forgetting I opened this thread. :lol: Just dropping by to post this article about a Commons inquiry into the position of women in the music industry. Shared by my friend Sam, aka Prof. Samantha Parsley of Portsmouth University business department and In The Key of She (known as Warren until 2022), one of the participants sharing evidence draws on concepts and research discussed in a webisode with the two a year earlier, the link to which I will also post.

Hand's up, what sprang to mind rewatching was the to-do I had with Nanook in another thread before he left in which he applauded a female DJ for dressing down, so she was taken more seriously with the music. In contrast, I felt saddened by it. I am not writing this because I want to drag it out at all, but because something that has emerged in the research is how many women feel as though they have act like one of the guys and sometimes androgenise their appearance in order to pass. Even when they do not behave or dress outwardly 'sexy', it is often the case that they will be mistaken for groupies or stylists and in some cases physically excluded by security from spaces over which they have dominion, whether as a performer or something like a manager as per Sam's podcast partner. This was why I stood my ground with Nanook, messy though that whole thing was. It wasn't just about my experience on a production course, though I cited that as an example and was excoriated for making it personal or whatever. This is an actual thing, which permeates all areas of the business and happens to tons of women - I just did not realise back then, but with only four or five girls on the aforementioned course out of a hundred students across two year groups, why would I? Barely in a class went by that wasn't all men. There were also no female technicians and only one of the lecturers was a woman (arrangement). This why Sam's work is so important. It is easy to deride the more overt manifestations of misogyny, e.g. creepy head of department showing me his biceps, and I have no doubt Nanook would never behave in such a manner, but pervasive attitudes about women's appearance are not less harmful just because they are more subtle. The glass slipper is real.


musically.com

Misogyny in music: ‘The imposter syndrome is created by the systems’ - Music Ally

Today saw the second evidence session of the UK Parliament's inquiry into misogyny in music and the music industry.
musically.com musically.com





*hit send hit sent meep*
 
Seething eloquence about "sexist gatekeeping" in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame from Courtney Love, arguably the most maligned woman in the music business after Yoko Ono.

www.theguardian.com

Why are women so marginalised by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? | Courtney Love

Barely 8% of its inductees are female. The canon-making doesn’t just reek of sexist gatekeeping, but also purposeful ignorance and hostility
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Interesting piece about the origins of The Lion Sleeps Tonight in Graun today.

www.theguardian.com

The Lion Sleeps Tonight: one song’s journey from 1930s South Africa to Disney money-spinner

Mbube – the vocal harmony song that ended up on The Lion King soundtrack – made its writer $2. But beyond the exploitation and legal battles lies a more inspiring story
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com


I also stumbled across this mini documentary about the inspiration behind and recording of a song I found on Bandcamp, which stopped me in my tracks. Sung from the perspective of a small black child, it sounds like a nursery rhyme, but the subject is lynching. Powerful stuff.

 
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