I hate when people use the "make better music" comment. There was a time when a variety of artists were given similar levels of exposure, allowing people to choose for themselves, and resulting in "not-pop" reaching an audience. (Like him or not, there's a reason why most people have, at least, heard of Frank Zappa). The playing field should be leveled out. If you play a great song for 10 people, chances are all 10 will enjoy it. If you play an uninteresting piece of garbage to a million people, well, only 11 people have to like it for it to outsell the great song. Simple mathematics. Taylor makes billions, not because she "makes better music", but because her shows are full of people who have never been exposed to Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebr. Am I suggesting all Swifties would become Gebr fans? Of course not, but if only 1000 people did, she'd possibly make a couple of Spotify cents and she could purchase that box of kleenex she's always wanted.
It's pointless to try to argue with clueless Spotify supporters, just like those other clueless supporters I don't even want to mention.
But thank you so much for always including your "listening to" links, which have alerted me to scads of cool stuff, and also for this year-end link-list, which will assure that I find a few more I neglected to check out earlier!
I buy a lot of music. I download a lot. I don't use Spotify. It is a technological mediator. I like making my own choices by bumping into stuff by accident.
Thanks for featuring the Natural Information Society in your list. I just bought three of their albums.
I had roughly the same reply guy reply on a Note I posted recently about independent movies available in New York City, that I feel deserve wider release. I even said in the note, "I know who the audiences for these are" because I'm not just wishing people would support it, I actually can give the mental categorization / pitch deck proposal for them. Yet still I got the, "Maybe these don't show because people don't want to see them."
I take it as a major development of my maturity and social skills over the last decade that I not only didn't even respond to the reply guy, I didn't even consider doing so. A decade and a half ago that could have become a huge, time-sucking Internet argument.
Now if only I could get rid of the reflexive annoyance and anger it causes me. I don't really understand why people are on the side of monoculture and edging out alternatives. Do they think they're winning anything good from that result?
Thanks as ever for your reasoned and thoughtful take on this stuff; it bears repeating more often than you might think, particularly in light of the recent changes from Spotify and the parallel takeover of bandcamp. I am about to ask my bandmates for their permission to remove our catalog from Spotify (they weren't particularly excited about being there in the first place, so it isn't likely to be a hard sell). Thanks also for all of these wonderful suggestions for listening!
I personally think a lot of it has to do with not many people writing about what is considered "unpopular". When I first started making music as glacis there were a lot of blogs and online sources writing about ambient, experimental, neo-classical and other more obscure genres. So many of those online sources have ended or disappeared and the ones that are left are really saturated with submissions and time/capacity to write about them. The reality is that the music industry is a machine and if you're not part, or able to pay to be part, of that machine then you may well remain "unpopular" no matter how good your music is. I once ran a record label and to get our releases even read by the music press would cost £2-3K to employ a PR company just to send emails and make contact. And I'm not even sure that's all that effective anymore. So you spend spend spend just to be part of the machine/game and so Spotify becomes completely irrelevant if you cannot generate huge numbers of plays.
"Make Better Music" is a hilarious comment really because let's be honest, some people out there making the most obscure music are actually qualified in music, music theory and have actual degrees in the subject. Then there's the likes of Lewis Capaldi with 300 billion plays on Spotify for Somebody You Loved. I love Lewis (this is not a dig at him) simply an observation that a song like Somebody You Love is - like you said - so obviously a pop song and is essentially 3 chords (give or take). Then you have people like Tim Hecker (perhaps not a great example as he's quite significant in his genre!) who is actually doing quite complex things with music and sound. It's never going to generate 300 billion plays but it certainly deserves, in my view, the same if not more respect.
I love your article because it's so obvious that there is a place and market for all genres of music but platforms like Spotify should be doing more to support the artists that need the most support - in my view.
"Music that isn’t pop is actually a thing – it’s not just unpopular pop." Brilliant.
I hate when people use the "make better music" comment. There was a time when a variety of artists were given similar levels of exposure, allowing people to choose for themselves, and resulting in "not-pop" reaching an audience. (Like him or not, there's a reason why most people have, at least, heard of Frank Zappa). The playing field should be leveled out. If you play a great song for 10 people, chances are all 10 will enjoy it. If you play an uninteresting piece of garbage to a million people, well, only 11 people have to like it for it to outsell the great song. Simple mathematics. Taylor makes billions, not because she "makes better music", but because her shows are full of people who have never been exposed to Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebr. Am I suggesting all Swifties would become Gebr fans? Of course not, but if only 1000 people did, she'd possibly make a couple of Spotify cents and she could purchase that box of kleenex she's always wanted.
It's pointless to try to argue with clueless Spotify supporters, just like those other clueless supporters I don't even want to mention.
But thank you so much for always including your "listening to" links, which have alerted me to scads of cool stuff, and also for this year-end link-list, which will assure that I find a few more I neglected to check out earlier!
I buy a lot of music. I download a lot. I don't use Spotify. It is a technological mediator. I like making my own choices by bumping into stuff by accident.
Thanks for featuring the Natural Information Society in your list. I just bought three of their albums.
Thanks for that list of songs. I’m going to make a playlist of it. And the reply guys from your guardian piece can take a hike.
don't let the bastards get you down....
I had roughly the same reply guy reply on a Note I posted recently about independent movies available in New York City, that I feel deserve wider release. I even said in the note, "I know who the audiences for these are" because I'm not just wishing people would support it, I actually can give the mental categorization / pitch deck proposal for them. Yet still I got the, "Maybe these don't show because people don't want to see them."
I take it as a major development of my maturity and social skills over the last decade that I not only didn't even respond to the reply guy, I didn't even consider doing so. A decade and a half ago that could have become a huge, time-sucking Internet argument.
Now if only I could get rid of the reflexive annoyance and anger it causes me. I don't really understand why people are on the side of monoculture and edging out alternatives. Do they think they're winning anything good from that result?
Thanks as ever for your reasoned and thoughtful take on this stuff; it bears repeating more often than you might think, particularly in light of the recent changes from Spotify and the parallel takeover of bandcamp. I am about to ask my bandmates for their permission to remove our catalog from Spotify (they weren't particularly excited about being there in the first place, so it isn't likely to be a hard sell). Thanks also for all of these wonderful suggestions for listening!
I personally think a lot of it has to do with not many people writing about what is considered "unpopular". When I first started making music as glacis there were a lot of blogs and online sources writing about ambient, experimental, neo-classical and other more obscure genres. So many of those online sources have ended or disappeared and the ones that are left are really saturated with submissions and time/capacity to write about them. The reality is that the music industry is a machine and if you're not part, or able to pay to be part, of that machine then you may well remain "unpopular" no matter how good your music is. I once ran a record label and to get our releases even read by the music press would cost £2-3K to employ a PR company just to send emails and make contact. And I'm not even sure that's all that effective anymore. So you spend spend spend just to be part of the machine/game and so Spotify becomes completely irrelevant if you cannot generate huge numbers of plays.
"Make Better Music" is a hilarious comment really because let's be honest, some people out there making the most obscure music are actually qualified in music, music theory and have actual degrees in the subject. Then there's the likes of Lewis Capaldi with 300 billion plays on Spotify for Somebody You Loved. I love Lewis (this is not a dig at him) simply an observation that a song like Somebody You Love is - like you said - so obviously a pop song and is essentially 3 chords (give or take). Then you have people like Tim Hecker (perhaps not a great example as he's quite significant in his genre!) who is actually doing quite complex things with music and sound. It's never going to generate 300 billion plays but it certainly deserves, in my view, the same if not more respect.
I love your article because it's so obvious that there is a place and market for all genres of music but platforms like Spotify should be doing more to support the artists that need the most support - in my view.
Reminds me again
Spotify is Napster, but worse
Refusing to use Spotify is the correct thing to do, even though it is difficult.