
Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify - imartin2k
https://www.stevebenjamins.com/blog/music-in-the-age-of-algorithms-47syg
======
vannevar
It's an interesting article, but the essential information is buried in the
middle:

 _In my experience, it’s only when I get on an editorial playlist that my
songs get heavily featured on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly.

So how do you get on editorial playlists? I sincerely have no clue. I've been
on editorial playlists 16 times but I have no idea how to replicate that._

I find that this is true of many of these "I made X dollars per month doing
Y!" articles: somewhere in the chain of events, there is a fateful
intervention out of the control of the author that propels them to a higher
tier of income than their peers who are otherwise following the same
procedures.

~~~
VBprogrammer
Another thing I found interesting is that he earns $800 / month from a total
of about 3 million listens. I wonder how this compares to the royalties from a
radio play from a popular local radio station?

Comparatively, my dad has a moderately successful youtube channel, his most
popular video has 18m views, and the next 3m. He has 66k subscribers. In an
average month he'd earn ~£300 or so. Though usually quite a lot more around
Christmas.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
For the radio, in the US, artists are not paid a cent. Only the songwriters
and publishers are paid.

~~~
rewgs
True, but an indie artist is nearly always the songwriter and publisher (no
one else owns the publishing rights, hence “independent”). So it’s a fair
comparison, and unfortunately, all else being equal, streaming woefully
underperforms to radio to the point of tears.

~~~
mattmcknight
So a radio play gets $0.12 and goes out to 10,000 listeners. Amazon Music
Unlimited pays $0.012 per stream, or $120 for 10,000 listeners. Spotify pays
$0.00318 per stream, or $31.80 per 10,000 listeners.

Maybe radio does haven't that many listeners? But by my math, if your radio
play goes out more than 265 people, you are getting less per listen than on
Spotify.

The real loss is the $15 10 track CD, which someone would have to listen to
471 times to reach Spotify pricing.

~~~
rewgs
Terrestrial radio isn’t paying based on the number of listeners. The radio
station is paying for a license to broadcast the music (so that people listen
to the ads in between, just like TV), a portion of which goes to the
songwriter(s), and the publisher(s), and so on. Audience size has nothing to
do with it.

Embedded in what you’re saying is the expectation that radio plays/streams/etc
are primarily for “exposure.” It’s a tired argument and not one any
professional musician cares about past a certain point, especially considering
that, yes, radio plays ideally drive album sales. But in the world of Spotify,
streaming replaces both. What matters is that a [radio station | streaming
company] is licensing my music so that they can have something to attract
people to in order to expose them to ads. Without the music, the model doesn’t
work. Sure, some people pay to not have ads — I don’t care. That should only
raise, or at best have a neutral effect on, my per-stream rate.

You’re right that the real loss is the CD purchase. Radio plays used to not
only pay me and THEN lead to that further CD income, but now Spotify has
replaced both and pays far worse than either.

“But Spotify pays $31.80 for 10,000 streams while radio only pays $0.12 for
the same exposure!” I hear you saying. Wrong. Spotify pays $0.00318 per stream
while radio pays $0.12 per “stream” (broadcast), and that’s the only number
that matters (due to the aforementioned way in which radio works). So, not
even counting the much larger cost of CD sales, Spotify has reduced my income
by nearly 38x. This is all fuzzy math, but that checks out with my anecdotal
experience and talking with older folks who were selling gold or platinum
records pre-Napster.

Streaming is NOT okay where it is right now. As a music listener I can’t argue
that it’s not a better product, but as a music creator having my income
slashed by at least 38x isn’t worth it.

To give you an idea of a still-decent avenue for income making music and how
far it’s fallen, I’m primarily a composer for film/TV, and broadcast royalties
for a single broadcast of a single minute of underscore can pay between $0.99
to a few dollars for broadcast, cable, terrestrial TV. On the other hand, an
entire yearly quarter’s worth of earnings for that same minute of music on a
streaming service (untold thousands of streams) rarely pay a single dollar —
usually more in the single-digit cent range. Do the math — it’s worse than
38x. On a recent royalty statement I calculated that streaming services paid
70x worse than cable. And to top it off, some streaming services are outright
refusing to pay legally mandated writers’ royalties (the portion I’m supposed
to retain and get paid for, no matter what, by law). It’s moved to cable, too
— Discovery tried to pull a stunt last year where they just decided “no more
royalties.” They walked it back, thankfully, but we all took it as a warning
shot.

Imagine your coding salary getting slashed from $100k to $2k, and imagine
never having benefits in the first place, and having had all the costs
associated with doing the job shifted from the company to you over the last
twenty years, and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like to be a working
musician or composer nowadays.

 _breath_

To further clarify my point about streaming:

Radio and albums were how people consumed music in the old days — the deal was
that if you want something on-demand, you gotta shell out and buy the thing.
Otherwise, endure ad breaks while waiting for the song you want to come on,
listen to it once until who knows when, and hopefully you like all the other
music along the way. Right?

Now, we can listen to any music we want at any time, on demand. Album
ownership is pretty much moot. And that’s great! Again, as a music listener, I
love it. But this means that we’re getting the _benefits_ of album ownership
in the _format_ of radio. What do people demand more — the benefits, or the
format? Obviously there’s a bit of intertwining between the two, but I’m sure
most people would say “I care more about being able to listen to what I want
when I want” than “I care about being able to stream music” (even though
obviously the latter enables the former). This is why piracy was so great for
music listeners — it enabled the former. Now, for a small fee, we get the
convenience of radio and the benefits of not only album sales, but also
piracy, which we now have to compete with. They’re basically the same thing,
though: you “own” the album and can thus listen to it whenever you want.

At the end of the day, though, we’re paying for the more important of the two
(album ownership) with the payment model of the lesser-valued (radio). Radio
licenses worked for stations because they were (and continue to be)
distributed amongst a large number of artists and labels, and could be
negotiated down via the leverage that radio was ultimately driving album
sales.

Now, those ad payments are distributed amongst literally hundreds of thousands
of more artists, and instead of a radio station going cheaper with the
argument “but this will lead to more album sales via exposure,” Spotify can
just use its leverage of “well, fuck you, what else are you gonna do?” It’s a
mob mentality. They’re essentially the only game in town and they know it.
Furthermore, not all streams are equal — just as radio stations would license
in order to play a popular song more often (getting more ears glued to the ads
in between), Spotify doesn’t pay Beyoncé and Joe Amateur the same per-stream
rate. The lions get the lion’s share and the rest get the scraps divided up
between them — but “the rest” is the _overwhelming majority_ of the artists
present on Spotify. The curve is exponential.

Consumers are getting a categorically better product in every conceivable way
and yet the payment to the actual creators of the product, the reason they’re
actually there — to listen to the music - has gone down by such a degree that
it’s laughable. It’s an unbelievable amount. It’s disastrous on a scale that
is difficult to comprehend unless you live it.

Music is rapidly becoming a field that only the already-extremely-rich can do
professionally.

~~~
mattmcknight
"Terrestrial radio isn’t paying based on the number of listeners." I know
this. However, you are acting like a terrestrial broadcast to n listeners is
equivalent to a Spotify non-broadcast to one listener. If n > 265 you are
making more money with Spotify per person listening to the song. If 10,000
people are listening to it on a radio broadcast, you are getting $0.12. If
10,000 people listen on Spotify, you are getting $31.80. Even Spotify pays
better than radio, in most scenarios. $0.12 per stream is not a viable model
for music.

The better argument you make is that Spotify shouldn't be compared to radio,
because it is "on demand". It is more like a CD purchase. There is some truth
to this, and it should probably fall in the middle pricewise (and it does)
it's just a matter of which direction it should move. It shouldn't cost as
much as CD, because you have to keep paying every month for access and have no
resale option. You don't own it, you're just renting for 4 minutes. I did a
lot of CD trading- spent way too much time and money in used CD stores which
paid the artists nothing, but meant you could a least capture some residual
value from a CD you purchased.

Having streaming access has really changed my music listening patterns. I
hardly ever listen to an album on repeat. There's so much more to listen to,
but I listen to each thing less. Patterns of consumption may have changed for
others as well.

I don't know how to best try to get more money. You still have some artists
selling directly, not putting all material on Spotify, only putting it on the
higher paying places, putting it on well after release, treating it as a
sample shop.

~~~
rewgs
Try reading your first paragraph again. You’re contradicting yourself and are
completely missing the point.

You say that you “know” that terrestrial broadcast isn’t based on the number
of listeners, and then go and make the same argument that Spotify pays better
than radio based on “radio plays with n listeners.”

> You are acting like a terrestrial broadcast to n listeners is equivalent to
> a Spotify non-broadcast to one listener.

Yes, I am, exactly! Please tell me you understand the difference between
10,000 people _individually_ seeking out a song on Spotify vs a radio
broadcasting a song _one time to n people_ (and sure, n can equal 10,000).

I like how you say “$0.12 per stream is not a viable model for music” while
somehow pushing that $0.00318 per stream is. You’re right, though —- $0.12 per
stream isn’t a viable model for music _without the album sales those streams
used to lead to._ Spotify, if it’s to replace both radio and CD sales, needs
to pay at least _comparably_ to _both._ I’d say $1 per stream with a small
bonus on top if someone listens to an album from start to finish all the way
through would be a decent model.

Your last paragraph betrays your ignorance of the subject. The situation in
which an artist voluntarily choose to not put their music on Spotify is so
rare I’m not sure it’s even statistically significant. A more common reason is
due to the _publisher_ refusing for some sort of money reason, but those
situations are eroding all the time. Spotify is the de facto king.

And it’s not like “some artists sell directly.” Everyone does! They do so
because they have to recoup the utterly disastrous rates paid by Spotify
somehow. So yes, by all means pay for music directly. But it’s not a better
product than Spotify, because both allow the listener the same experiencing of
“owning the album” (due to the benefit of “on-demand access”), so direct music
purchases are just a “nice to have,” nothing a musician can actually depend
upon. In other words: who cares about the edge cases when the majority use
case is so shit and is actively pushing edge cases even closer and closer to
the edge. Direct music sales are not a remedy to Spotify’s abhorrent per-
stream rate and overall effect on the music selling landscape. Only one thing
is: negotiating better per-stream rates. Period.

~~~
mattmcknight
> You say that you “know” that terrestrial broadcast isn’t based on the number
> of listeners, and then go and make the same argument that Spotify pays
> better than radio based on “radio plays with n listeners.”

What I am saying is that even though the $0.12 isn't based on the number of
listeners, there is a number of listeners (n). So that $0.12 should be divided
by that n in order to calculate how much money is paid per listen. If that n >
265, then Spotify is paying more per listen. I agree that the on-demand nature
means Spotify should cost more than radio. Still, the argument that Spotify
does pay less than radio per listen is wrong, and it makes your case a lot
weaker if insist on that, because it's contrary.

When I said $0.12 a stream isn't a viable model for music, I didn't mean
because it paid the artists too little, I meant it cost too much! Paying the
artist and songwriter $0.12 per stream means charging the user about $0.15
each time they listen to the song. (Which doesn't seem right when compared to
the purchase price of a song, unless people listen to music they purchase
fewer than 8 times on average.) If they stream 25 hours per month, at average
song length of 4 minutes, that's about 375 songs per month, or about
$56/month. For heavy listeners, it would be a lot more. I don't think many
people would sign up at that level. It definitely couldn't be covered by
advertising. That said, you could probably get a lot more than Spotify is
paying. Still, it does indicate some room there to get more than the $0.00318.

It is surprising to me that we don't see more exclusivity with music like we
do with video content, where subscriptions to various services end up being
necessary if you want to watch a particular show. The consumption patterns are
quite different. However, given the number of competing platforms out there
and the low switching costs associated associated, probably the best strategy
is for a whole company with a lot of publishing rights to pull their content
from the lowest paying services. Something like what Disney did to Netflix.

~~~
rewgs
You are still completely missing my point w/r/t the number of listeners with
radio, but I’m not sure how else to get you to see it, so I’m gonna duck out.
Best of luck to you.

------
volkk
Spotify's discovery playlist is a double edged sword. My account is
permanently screwed because I decided to listen to a lot of rain sounds when
going to sleep for a few months while I had a puppy. Now ALL I get for
recommendations are calm sounds. I don't actually listen to these during the
day, I want my old stuff. I hate it and want to reset the discovery playlist,
but seems I have no way of doing so aside from getting a new account?

~~~
kleer001
Youtube suffers from the same bias in their algorithm. I bet it's just a bias
setting or a single falloff that would help things.

It reminds me of Cronenberg's "The Fly" where Brundle had to teach his
teleporting pod to reproduce living tissue rather than interpret it.

~~~
OzzyB
YouTube however lets you create multiple (sub)accounts that you can easily
switch to. Just create one for "sleeping", one for "animals", "news" etc.

This is what's perhaps missing from Spotify, an easy way to namespace your
account activity.

~~~
kleer001
Whaaaa?! This I did not know. I will have to look into it. Thank you so much.

Still, I think the future is in human hand crafted recommendations like
Stephenson sketched out in "Fall: or Dodge in Hell".

------
aczerepinski
If anybody wants to know how to earn $20/decade with Spotify I can throw some
of my own experiences into a blog post :)

~~~
ipnon
It's sad to admit but there are enough musicians in the world. The reason
wages for musicians is so low is that there are already countless professional
musicians making music in every style.

~~~
swiley
Maybe, but I think it could be better if Spotify paid artists per listen
instead of just paying them for being popular.

Also Spotify is definitely missing a lot of obscure music and there definitely
aren’t enough _live_ musicians. Otherwise I could afford to have a good band
play live in my living room every Sunday morning.

~~~
ipnon
Yes, I don't think Spotify is the optimal conclusion of the music industry.

------
boplicity
65,000 listeners a month – $800 in revenue. 1.23 cents per listener per month.
That works out to 14.7 cents per year. To earn a modest $50,000, you would
need ~360,000 monthly listeners. This doesn't seem sustainable without outside
sources of revenue.

~~~
sharkweek
Correct, this is why bands tour and sell shirts and other merch, and for most,
work second jobs. As an anecdote, friend of mine is in two or three bands at
any given time and bartends most nights he’s not playing shows.

Spotify makes it easier than ever for an artist to get their work out there,
which is great, but it’s similar to the publishing world, where most authors
who self publish do so into the void.

~~~
jjice
The best way to support an artist you really like is to purchase merchandise,
buy their music on Bandcamp, and see them live. For bands I really like, I buy
the album on Bandcamp and then just listen to it on Spotify for convenience.

Besides, who doesn't love a good tee with your favorite band's lyrics on it?

~~~
sharkweek
I love buying tour t-shirts. I have amassed a large collection I hope to pass
onto my kids at some point.

What I wouldn't give for some of the shirts I've seen my dad wearing in old
photos of shows he went to. Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, etc.

------
fuball63
> Plus I think asking listeners to listen to a full-length album don’t make
> sense in our attention-starved world. Asking listeners to listen to a single
> song might just be a more realistic ask.

This is why I love listening to albums, because it flies in the face of
throwaway/hyper-consumable media. Spotify, with its algorithmic playlists and
singles focus, bolsters the throwaway consumption of music, but many artists
also enjoy the long tail of revenue from album streams. If an artist creates
an album with lasting appeal, they can smooth out the initial spike of
physical sales with a long slow burn of revenue.

~~~
gregmac
> with its algorithmic playlists and singles focus, bolsters the throwaway
> consumption of music

What is "throwaway" music?

Personally, I tend to listen to genre-focused playlists I curate over time,
and often in "radio" mode (so algorithms select similar music). When I find
something new I really like, I add it to my playlist. Rarely do I find
anything I actively dislike, but there's lots of stuff that I don't add but I
don't mind either way if I hear again -- is that "throwaway"?

I think like anyone, I have a gradient of music preferences -- ranging from
"can't stand" to "love". The middle ground is huge -- there's a _lot_ of good
music out there, I simply don't have the capacity to "love" everything.

~~~
fuball63
By throwaway I mean music that is extremely popular for a short moment in time
(measured in months or weeks) and then becomes irrelevant as the next hit
single comes out. I don't mean throwaway in terms of musical preference or
taste.

------
oht
The author is the same guy behind a $40k/month website builder review site.
Big fan of his interview on Indie Hackers[1]

It's interesting to see him use SEO to describe algorithmic playlists. He
would know, SEO is a huge part of his other business.

[1] [https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/besting-the-
competiti...](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/besting-the-competition-
and-building-a-40k-mo-review-site-f2bf1023f0)

~~~
capableweb
There is even a shout out to HN in that article!

> I worried that readers would not trust this arrangement [affiliate links]
> when I first started. But in practice it hasn't been a big issue. In fact,
> readers ask me which links to click to ensure I get my commission. Honestly,
> negativity about my business model is more likely to come from a community
> like Hacker News than it is from my readers.

~~~
csa
That’s a backhanded shout out if I have ever seen one.

... although I think it’s probably accurate.

------
drcongo
I made a surprising find on Spotify not so long ago. One of their curated
playlists - Techno Bunker [1] - algorithmically mixes from track to track,
like a fairly competent DJ, and it does it even if you turn on shuffle. There
may be others, but this is the only one I've found so far.

[1]
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX6J5NfMJS675?si=...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX6J5NfMJS675?si=x_R4CbLXTrawmOShhzv_ow)

~~~
Etheryte
This is amazing, and I'm surprised this isn't noted down in the playlist
description, nor anywhere else. It doesn't simply crossfade, it matches beats
up much like a human would. This is insanely neat and such a nice find.

------
colinmhayes
His comment on albums is interesting. It seems like he's given up on getting
press, so albums don't make as much sense for him, but music critics are still
the major driver for who gets listens in the non-pop music space. I don't see
albums disappearing for that reason. I also enjoy listening to albums much
more than singles, but that could just be me.

~~~
jomohke
Agreed. I think his view comes more from the pop section of the market.
Everything I consume and discover is still album-based.

------
larodi
You can imagine my astonishment when someone I know, a deejay and producer,
came to me several months ago, at a club, with the very unexpected answer of
'how to run more Ubuntus on one box' ?!

Because... he wanted to have them subscribe and then click and play a list of
alter-ego-monikers of himself, who release to unknown probably ghost-audience
in Spotify

Making money in the way - without releases, without gigs.

And it is exactly 600-800$ per month he cited as the amount he made from one
alter ego with several albums.

Somehow I'm sure there are others out there doing the same.

I'm leaving for folks here to imagine and comment how relevant would soon
Spotify be for indie artists that will be competing with such Spotify click-
botnets...

~~~
saaaaaam
Bots have been an issue on Spotify for years. Spotify is pretty good at
sorting them and removing fake streams.

------
smeeth
With great power comes great responsibility, Spotify Data Scientists.

If discover weekly is truly that impactful a decision made by a model to
include or not include a song could determine whether or not an indie artist
can pay their rent that month.

Not quite iris dataset classification.

Edit: I should clarify that I only mean that this impact raises interesting
questions and DSs (I am one) should pay close attention to the impact of their
models.

~~~
devalgo
It's not Spotify's responsibility to make sure indie artists are getting paid.

~~~
mkl
Well, it is definitely in Spotify's interest to keep as many quality artists
as possible on Spotify, and that probably involves paying them.

~~~
_eht
I heard a rumour once that artists did not actually need to eat.

/s

~~~
devalgo
Imagine saying this about a CD store a few decades ago. It would be ridiculous
to say that a store was responsible for promoting indie artist CDs. If you
want to get listens or sales make good music, it's pretty simple.

~~~
rewgs
On the other hand, money earned from streaming vs money earned from CD sales
(especially a few decades ago) is completely incomparable.

If selling CDs through a store could earn you (using simple but realistic
numbers here) $100k per year, and Spotify streams to the same audience size
earn $1k per year, it’s not unreasonable to expect that Spotify should add a
hell of a lot more value on its end, perhaps in the form of driving listeners
to artists — especially if Spotify possesses the means to.

------
leonardteo
Speaking of carving out a niche on Spotify.... If your kid ever asks
Siri/Google/Alexa to play the poop song a few cents of royalties goes to Matt
Farley aka the Toiletbowl Cleaners. It’s quite fascinating
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Farley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Farley)

> According to Farley, one song that contains only the word "poop" repeated
> over and over generates $500 in streaming revenue every month as of 2018,
> likely in part because children request it from Alexa or other
> devices.[4][5][6] Farley earned over $23,000 in 2013 from his song catalog.

------
jdxcode
I feel Spotify makes it hard to listen to albums. I can queue up a song to
play and it’ll then get back to my playlist, but if I play and album
eventually it’ll reach the end and quit playing anything. Then I will have to
stop what I’m doing and find something else to play.

I feel the UX could be improved and it might change listening habits similar
to Discover Weekly

~~~
ehnto
What do you want to happen after an album is finished?

~~~
soulofmischief
Spotify needs better queuing strategies.

------
SergeAx
> Albums are big statements. Some of the most iconic releases in popular music
> have been albums.

On the contrary, most of the greatest contemporary hits was singles. I can't
remember really bold and moving statements in the form of albums, except maybe
"The Wall". Classic composers never wrote albums,their large forms were
symfonies and opera - whole pieces of separate parts.

Albums was invented by vinyl/CD music industry and will die with them.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Classic composers never wrote albums,their large forms were symfonies and
> opera - whole pieces of separate parts.

Albums, in the idealized form (there are, of course, lots that are collections
of basically disconnected singles, too) are “whole pieces of separate parts”,
like symphonies or operas (or, I suppose, soundtracks.) People who lament
losing albums aren't talking about package-of-convenience collections of
singles, they are talking about pieces where, while the individual songs may
stand alone the same way each planetary theme in Holst’s _The Planets_ can,
but they also form a single thematic work with an arc and movement across the
whole body.

~~~
SergeAx
The Planets is a later piece (beginning of XX) and may be inspired by sheet
music industry, which worked the same way and has same limitations - it was
too expensive to manufacture and distribute "singles". I beleive the term
"album" itself was inherited from there.

------
bambax
I was pretty sure I had read this before on HN but it turns out it was the
previous blog post, when he was only earning $400/month:

[https://www.stevebenjamins.com/blog/spotify-and-discover-
wee...](https://www.stevebenjamins.com/blog/spotify-and-discover-weekly)

Still it would be better if the posts had a date.

I have 14 "weekly" listeners on Spotify but I only started a month ago. Still,
I'm short of ideas on how to grow this.

------
avipars
Interesting blog post.

Off-topic question: When a song gets covered/made into an instrumental version
by a 3rd party on Spotify , who gets paid for the plays?

The original recording artist or the 3rd party?

~~~
wrigby
There are actually two copyrights and sets of rights in play here: one (the ©
copyright[1] and the "publishing rights") is on the song itself, in the
abstract - the melody and lyrics. This is owned by the songwriter, and usually
assigned to a publishing company.

The other, (the ℗ copyright[2], and "master rights") is on a specific
recording of the song, and is usually owned by a record label.

The cover generates royalties for both the recording artist (or their record
label) that recorded the cover through the ℗ copyright and the songwriter that
wrote the song (or their publishing company) through the © copyright.

1:
[https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formpa.pdf](https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formpa.pdf)

2:
[https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formsr.pdf](https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formsr.pdf)

------
tinman25
So in effect, the Spotify Discover Weekly Algorithm has become the 'last dj'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00sy6_jv7Lc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00sy6_jv7Lc)

------
michaelbuckbee
His Spotify Artist page lists ~70k plays a month, so he's just slightly over
$1/1000 plays.

I suppose this is peanuts compared to what a radio play is, etc. but strikes
me as fairly reasonable?

~~~
monocasa
Radios don't have to pay anything unless they're an internet stream

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I believe that over the air and internet streams are paid out separately.

Over the air looks to play 12c to 6c per play [https://www.quora.com/How-much-
are-music-artists-paid-in-Roy...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-are-music-
artists-paid-in-Royalties-for-each-song-played-on-radio)

~~~
satyrnein
US terrestrial radio only pays out to the composition side (whoever wrote the
song) and not to the master side (who performed and recorded the song).
Internet and satellite radio pay both sides. Non-interactive radio uses rates
set by statute across the board; this is all separate from on-demand streaming
like Spotify.

------
jedberg
> In my experience, major label artists have an easier time getting on
> editorial playlists. ... But major label artists also only typically get 13%
> - 20% of streaming royalties… so there are still plenty of reasons to stay
> indie!

This is just like the tradeoff startups make when they choose to take VC.

Will giving up 80% of the company lead to the company being at least five
times bigger? If so, then it seems worthwhile.

------
ecmascript
Very interesting read. I have never made any music but I am compelled by the
idea of starting some time in the future. I have always thought that releasing
music on Spotify was nothing that could ever bring in any revenue but it seems
I was a bit wrong on that.

Really nice blogpost!

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mcgreenbeats
this music is fantastic! Congrats on the success.

~~~
parhamn
I just listened to "Lullabies For Little Crimes" and "Circles", it was great!
I'm really happy Spotify found a way to surface artists like this who deserve
attention!

~~~
andygcook
Agreed. After an initial listening, it's clear Steve's really talented. Which
admittedly probably helps with the earning money part of the article.

It's kind of like that PG quote:

"What Customers Want - It's not just startups that have to worry about this. I
think most businesses that fail do it because they don't give customers what
they want. Look at restaurants. A large percentage fail, about a quarter in
the first year. But can you think of one restaurant that had really good food
and went out of business?"

(edit - formatting)

~~~
dataqat
I can think of many restaurants with really good food that went out of
business... that's a terrible analogy. Certainly a very helpful ingredient,
though maybe not even the main one.

~~~
andygcook
I agree that it's definitely not a foolproof analogy. But good food (like good
music) is usually a table-stakes ingredient for a successful restaurant. Again
of course again, there are exceptions there too.

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jacksnipe
It may be that causality on this works backwards, but I’ve also noticed that
artists that perform concerts together (Spotify does keep track of concerts
and who performs at them) tend to be very algorithmically associated. At the
very least, I think it’s a huge factor in “Related Artists”.

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sgt
Does anyone still buy albums on iTunes? I haven't done that in a while, but I
have to say I prefer to physically own the music I listen to often. If I can't
get a physical media like CD or vinyl, then iTunes store was second best aside
from illegal options.

~~~
drngdds
I buy digital music from Bandcamp whenever possible. (Otherwise I buy it from
Amazon MP3 or pirate it from Soulseek.) I like to build a collection and I
can't stand the notion that some streaming company or copyright holder can
just decide I'm not allowed to listen to an album anymore.

~~~
tohnjitor
Make sure you backup your Bandcamp purchases. I know of at least two artists
whose Bandcamp accounts were deleted. The artists claim that Bandcamp never
notified them of any copyright claims or policy violations.

There is an album I purchased which no longer appears in my collection. I am
only able to listen to it via mobile app because it's still cached on the
device.

In the course of writing this response I realized that I had not contacted
customer support so I now have.

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bowlingx
I love your songs :) Thank you!! <3 And you defnitly popped up on discover
weekly :D. I usually star songs that I like there, and / or order them in my
custom playlists.

~~~
steve-benjamins
Thank you very much— that's awesome to hear!

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nickthemagicman
He's really talented as well, so that helps.

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HellDunkel
When i first read this i tried to imagine what kind of music this would be. It
sounded exactly what i thought it would.

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happyruss
So, what's the best distributor to use to get your music on spotify? Is it
cdbaby? tunecore? distrokid?

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annoyingnoob
Its cool that what looks like your hobby generates income. What do you do to
pay the bills otherwise?

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wallawe
He's actually got a really cool story, I happened to recognize him from this
Indie Hackers interview: [https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/site-builder-
report-f...](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/site-builder-
report-f2bf1023f0)

~~~
annoyingnoob
Nice, good for him.

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haywirez
Note that this is all applies only to easy listening music suitable for the
background (I checked the author's playlist at the end). Not something
emotionally intense or overly energetic that demands your full attention.
Spotify is optimizing for muzak, and artists who thrive in this ecosystem are
muzak.

I could (and soon will) go deeper to prove my point, but Liz Pelly already did
a lion-hearted job covering the problems with streaming platforms and Spotify
specifically — they have a catastrophic effect on music.[1]

Spotify is the No. 1 enemy of music culture and artistic expression.

[1] [https://lizpelly.com/writing](https://lizpelly.com/writing)

~~~
bazeblackwood
I think this is a pretty valid point—in fact the effect of Spotify's approach
to promoting music with this hegemonic quality has been documented pretty
well, even resulting in something people call "The Spotify Sound":

[https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/06/how-the-spotify-
soun...](https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/06/how-the-spotify-sound-is-
changing-music.html)

Not to mention they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar a number of
times, promoting their own fake artists "algorithmically", and it was such a
good game that Sony got in on it as well.

