Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?

Subject: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 06:38 PM


"Is Spotify a good deal for musicians? Is it better to sell records/CDs or Spotify listens?"

This was a question on another thread.
thread.cfm?threadid=90211&messages=177#3834944

I thought it would be worth its own thread.


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Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 08:20 PM

My son's, band, curiously named !!! (Chk Chk Chk), has a lot of YouTube videos and gets a lot of hits on Spotify. They get a little bit of money, but not much. I think they're at the point where they figure that Spotify and YouTube give them publicity and enough money for coffee, but not much more. They make their money in live performances.
-Joe-

Here's a sample of what my kid does: https://www.youtube.com/user/ChkChkChkVEVO. I hadn't seen the "Every Little Bit Counts" video before. It gave me a good laugh. Now that he's 40, though, I wish he'd stop wearing those short shorts.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: GUEST,protest folk magazine blog
Date: 12 Mar 21 - 02:02 PM

info related to demands of Justice At Spotify's March 15, 2021 action: "...To pay the median American monthly rent ($1,078) an artist needs to generate 283,684 recurring streams monthly...We are asking Spotify to raise the average streaming royalty from $.0038 to a penny per stream...Major record labels own a huge percentage of Spotify’s catalog. With their leverage they are able to dictate the terms of their own streaming royalties and negotiate their own complex payment structures. It also gives them preferential treatment when it comes to editorial and algorithmic playlisting, something that all artists depend on. We are calling on Spotify to be more transparent with their finances, their platform, and their relationships with artists. Make all deals with major labels public, and to end practices that resemble payola. In addition, we urge Spotify to give due credit to all engineers, musicians and laborers on all recordings. https://www.unionofmusicians.org/justice-at-spotify

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: GUEST,Rob Mad Jock Wright
Date: 12 Mar 21 - 04:50 PM

Angie Wright like many produced CDs just when they were no longer wanted. So she has boxes full of them to sell but of course due to Covid cannot get out and perform and sell them at gigs.

Meanwhile she does have two albums of self penned material on Spotify and other platforms.

The main point is that Angie gives 20% of sales and performance fees to the Scottish Mental Health Charity SAMH.

The fees from Spotify are low so SAMH does not get much.

Every bit helps so give a listen buy a few and enjoy.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 13 Mar 21 - 03:22 PM

CDs all the way for me. Here's how they compare for my band:

When we sell a CD for £12.00 at a gig we get to keep £12.00

Selling a physical CD via Bandcamp for £12.00 we have to deduct their 10% fee, Paypal charges and P&P, so we get to keep around £8.00. That's still a good deal for us.

Spotify payouts vary according to the length of the track, but averages around $0.00621563 each, which is £0.0044646. That doesn't take account of Paypal charges to send it to us. So we need more than 2,688 Spotify streams to equal one CD at full price. That may not be a lot for a mainstream artist, but for a semi-pro ceilidh band it takes a while.

Looking at a breakdown of our sales by value, 66% are direct sales of CDs, mostly at gigs. 28% are online sales of physical CDs, mostly through Bandcamp. Only 6% comes from digital sales, and that includes downloaded albums at £10.00 each as well as streaming.

So Spotify is a lousy deal financially. The reason to be on it is to get our music out there. If somebody hears of us they can quickly check out our music. Hopefully one or two of these might buy an album or go to a gig, or better still offer us one. It helps give some credibility. It's also quite cool to see that people in distant lands have listened to us. But as a means of generating actual cash it's pretty rubbish, at least for bands like us.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Mar 21 - 11:57 PM

thanks Howard useful info, hope you are keeping well

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 30 Mar 21 - 10:28 AM

New Rule: Equality of Outcomes | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Standout quote from the Rolling Stone article: In a perfect world, the bottom one percent of artists would get one percent of activity.

“Bottom” – Descartes and Pareto both be like... wty?

Famous and/or successful do not equate with best unless you are just in it for the money. A lot of great music “falls through the cracks”, as Maher puts it. As an entertainer, he knows better.

The problem with both sides of the debate is they begin after the poor consumer has at least sampled those 40k+/day uploads to Spotify; not to mention catching up on the tens of millions of songs previously uploaded; whilst maintaining equally equitable outcomes for Youtube, Netflix, ad nauseum.

The number one choice for everything is always “don't know and/or don't care.” It's why marketing and advertising exists.

Your share of the electricity bill and rent for the tens of millions of clunkers is an altogether different show-biz maths.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: Acorn4
Date: 31 Mar 21 - 04:17 AM

Our current car, now 6 years old was one of the last to be fitted with a CD player as standard.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 31 Mar 21 - 04:42 AM

Spotify is a terrible deal for musicians.
Only seems to work for bands that are selling thousands.

Bandcamp is much much better.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 31 Mar 21 - 08:06 AM

Surely Spotify is a vital means of getting your music heard out there, and getting your CDs bought.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Mar 21 - 09:59 AM

I urge everybody to follow Joe's link (2nd post) and watch the video "Every Little Bit Counts." It will brighten your day.

Subject: RE: Is Spotify a good deal for musicians?
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 04:33 AM

"Surely Spotify is a vital means of getting your music heard out there, and getting your CDs bought."

I use Spotify a lot but I can't say Spotify has ever introduced me to a new act I hadn't previously heard of before. Perhaps does for pop and rock music - for younger listeners who click on 'Hot new hip-hop tracks' playlists or whatever. But traditional folk music is pretty niche.

I am much less likely to buy an album if it is on Spotify. Whereas if it is not on Spotify but is on Bandcamp, I will buy it. I suspect I'm not alone in that. There's no urgency to (ever) buy an album when you know you can listen to it as many times as you like for free on Spotify.

Most of the time, when someone is recommending some new artist there's usually a link to that artist's webpage or a YouTube video or something. So there are plenty of ways to check them out. They invariably have a Bandcamp or Soundcloud page.