It's Time to Ditch Spotify

I know. You signed up for Spotify years and years ago, you’ve grown accustomed to the interface, you have friends and family who use the same service so that you can forward songs and playlists to each other.

I know.

But the bottom line is this: Spotify, Amazon, Apple and some other streaming services are paying musicians far, far less than others, and it seems to me that if you’re a fan of music – particularly newer music – you should want the musicians to benefit. (Let me note that I have no personal stake in this topic; my music has never earned me a cent and that’s not going to change.)

Exactly what streaming services pay is a complex topic and one that I’m not going to unravel in his blog, but according to dozens of websites and streaming calculators that I’ve visited over the past month, YouTube, Spotify and Amazon are at the bottom when comparing average rates per stream. Apple is a bit better. Tidal’s rates are about three times what Spotify pays. Qobuz pays even more.

I don’t want to put my stamp of approval on a particular streaming service over the other, but I encourage everyone to do his or her own homework, to check out rates and try out various streaming services, and then to make a decision that will benefit musicians the most while still giving you the access and convenience you’ve grown accustomed to.

As for me, I dropped Spotify last month and switched to Tidal after a trial period with both Tidal and Qobuz. (Qobuz was great, but their catalog wasn’t quite extensive enough for my tastes – it might be perfect for some listeners.) Switching to Tidal was a painless process. I transferred all of my playlists no problem, the interface is nearly identical, the sound quality is better, and the rates are similar. I’ve made the switch without any regret.

Streaming rates may not matter so much for legacy artists who were paid via the old model. The Eagles and Elton John are doing just fine. But for newer artists who are trying to make a go of it, who’ve put out maybe an EP or two and have enough of a following to tour at small clubs around the country, streaming rates matter. I want young artists who’ve amassed a decent following to make a decent living. No one is guaranteed anything, I know, and not everyone who can compose a song is entitled to the high life, but I’d like moderately successful musicians to at least make enough money to warrant recording their second album and not ditch their artistry for a full-time job at a corporation, you know what I mean?

Let’s say you’re a new artist who’s released an EP and an album and has managed to attract 100 million streams over the past five years. One hundred million streams! Not too shabby! You can probably hit the bigger cities in the U.S. and sell out clubs with a capacity of about 500. Touring is a tough way to make a living. You have to rent a van, hire a manager, pay a sound and merch person, stay in crappy motels or crash at fans’ homes, pay for insurance, pre-pay for merch, etc. It’s not easy (if you want to hear exactly how not easy it is – check out these YouTube videos). The likelihood of you making money on your tour is small. The likelihood of you making good money on your tour is even smaller.

But you’ve got 100 million streams! Surely, that’s going to provide you with a decent income, right?

Well…

On Spotify, these 100 million streams might have earned you somewhere around $400K. Not nothing, for sure, except that these streams were attracted over a five-year period, plus you’ve had to pay off studio expenses and share your income with the record label, your manager, your band, etc.  No one is getting rich under this scenario, which is fine, but I’d like this artist to not be destitute and to have enough money to pay the bills, take a few months off to write new material for another album, rent a decent apartment and maybe even set aside some cash for an IRA.

I think it’s important for music fans to put our money where it aligns with our values. The number one way has been and will always be to buy an artist’s merch and go to their shows. But we can also help by switching to streaming platforms that pay more to musicians. If we do this together, perhaps we can spur a sort of artistic renaissance.

Touring for Today's Musician

Last month I discussed the current state of new music (conclusion: it isn’t good, not because of the music, but because of nearly everything else), and I questioned how a smaller artist can financially justify touring. More specifically, I estimated how much the artist Sammy Rae and her amazing band might have earned at a show in Milwaukee that I attended last November. I concluded very little, if anything.

Right on cue, bassist and YouTuber Adam Neely posted a video this week on how his band, Sungazer, barely broke even on their recent tour of the West Coast. Neely is far more eloquent than I am, and I highly encourage anyone who wonders about how their favorite artists survive to check out this video. In it, Neely specifies the costs associated with his tour, some of which may surprise you. Neely discusses how important the size of the band is in determining the cost-effectiveness of touring. For Sungazer’s tour, they typically played with four musicians, and the fourth was sometimes a luxury they weren’t so sure they could afford. Compare that to Sammy Rae’s six-piece backing band; I have no idea how she was able to pull this off and whether any of her band made enough to justify being away from home and, presumably, away from their other gigging or teaching jobs that pay the bills.

A few years ago, touring was challenging enough for independent artists, but Neely highlights just how precarious such an endeavor is in the age of COVID, as his band had to postpone tour dates when two of its members contracted the virus. This took away from the bottom line, as it extended lodging requirements and added costs to its van rental and gas. There’s also the issue of insurance, and Neely points to a CBC article from last September that examines this issue.

What was most illuminating about the video for me were the negative comments Neely shared about people’s perceptions of how touring musicians “should” live: to-wit, destitute, sleeping in vans, unshowered, presumably living off of nothing but the thrill of playing music. Worse, many of these vitriolic viewpoints were from fellow musicians who, as Neely states, “had sacrificed personal comfort indignities to stretch thin budgets on the behalf of those who might exploit their labor” and were now eager to chastise those who have chosen to live the way most sane human beings live.

Neely concludes (I’ve edited his remarks for smoother reading): “Musicians are expected to struggle. It is part of the narrative. The idea of a bed to sleep in seem(s) especially controversial. But this DIY ethos metastasizes quickly into anti-labor rhetoric. and (in) relentlessly questioning the necessity of fair working conditions and compensation, the argument being made, effectively, is that living expenses are shameful and the idea of paying for labor is downright offensive.

“I would argue that live music has value. It is work. And those who do it deserves to do it with dignity, like anybody who works.”

Nicely said, Adam. Please consider subscribing to his channel.

Neely also refers to several other worthy reads, including the following:

• the band Pomplamoose’s balance sheet from its 2014 tour.

• Stereogum’s article, “Why Are Musicians Expected to be Miserable on Tour Just to Break Even?”

• If you have access, you can also check out Rolling Stone’s article that references some of the above, including the band Wednesday’s tweet about it’s appearance at South by Southwest Festival, which earned the band a net of $98.39.

I’ve been writing about music for the past couple of months. Next week I’m going to start addressing some other issues that have been on my mind, starting with the importance of physical labor for one’s well-being.