BaronVonAbelDong wrote:So, if we can opt out of Spotify and all streaming. What is seen as the true benefit of that? In real terms, not simply 'Spotify are decimating the industry', that's a personal stance and I respect it. What end result are people hoping to gain? Strictly more money?
I could just be an old negative spinster here, but I think mainstream music has alread shifted somewhat because of piracy. Here in Germany (which never had such a strong mainstream music scene to begin with) the only people who still make good money are the Schlager and Volksmusik people (Cheesy pop for old people and even cheesier faux traditional music). The reason is simple their audience still buys their music instead of stealing it. I wouldn't be surprised if the big wave of Country in the US is supported by similar mechanisms.
This blow was somewhat softened, because during the same time making music and releasing it has become so much cheaper and more accessible. And some people of the younger generations are still honest.
But if the honest people are tricked into thinking that all you can eat music buffets are sustainable and 10 bucks a month is enough to pay for all that, then there will be nothing left to support a living for non-mainstream or even indie-mainstream artists. Some will get by because their music is conducive to being watched and played live. These people will then use their tracks truly only as advertisment for their concerts.
But many other styles can not go that route, because either in any one place there may be not enough people to sustain a concert infrastructure for that (while in a global aggregate, it would be enough to be sustainable via album sales), because it's just nothing people go to concerts for (when was the last Ambient concert you have seen by an unknown act?!), or they are just not good live.
I hope that this train can still be stopped (not likely, I know), but all you can eat music will destroy way too much culture.
So in a way yes, it's about more money. Enough money to be sustainable that is.
But it's also about dignity, all you can eat, for any art, is just shamefull, and making your money as an artist by selling t-sirts and branded cups even more so!
There's so much music out there that we usually get one shot, to get a listener to decide we are worth more of their time. Seconds even.
Surely unless you are in their pocket, on their gizmo, on their preferred format to meet and greet us and our wares, accessible at any moment, we're doing ourselves an injustice? Or am I just dense?
But that power differential stacked against the artist is turned into its extreme, when by trying to give your audience the format they want, you also agree to living under the poverty level. (Which everyone who can't at least get 4 million streams a month will)
That's why I mentioned iTunes plus before. Technically there is already infrastructure in place, to be in their pockets, but also earn a living.
But giving your audience what they want for (almost) no return for you is a fools game.
They want their cake and eat it too, nothing else.
Is the idea that not being on Spotify will encourage/force me come to the artist's preferred way of delivering the product and accept that as the only way to listen?
Fans who rather see me starve than to allow me to live of the art they enjoy, are not fans at all.
I can well do without them.
Sure as a popular musician you are always a whore to your audience, that's the price we pay.
But I refuse to be a back alley crack whore for them
So yes, in a way I will either force my fans to accept that, or I will vanish as an artist, because society as it is apparently does not value my services.
But my prediction is that the ones who don't try to force their fans to do that, will end up the same way.
Because Spotify
is just an expression of society not really valuing our services.
Don't we need (only in the case of maximising financial returns) to be on everyone's preferred music format? What's the perceived/real benefit from blanking streaming services?
I guess the hope is that the all you can eat model is just a temporary thing, that if enough artists see it for what it is and avoid it, it will wither and be replaced by a streaming model that
is sustainable.
Taylor Swift acted in her self interest, let's hope other artists wisen up and follow her lead.
Was cool though.
It's a crazy time.
