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    They don’t have to put their music on there. If they want more money, they should band together and demand more.
    HP, I feel that's a bit of a simplification. Music is put on Spotify primarily (in theory only) by record labels. If you're an ambitious young band, you get signed to a record label, and they explain Spotify is a key plank of spreading the word about the group, are you realistically going to say no? It's not a free choice. The likes of Adele can of course say "no, I don't want this", but that's like comparing a park footballer to Cristiano Ronaldo.

    As for "they should band together and demand more", that's the same situation with Uber and Amazon, no? Neither of whcih I use. (full disclosure: I use Spotify a lot, as it's great for my music-related job).

    I very much share your worry over non-essential plastic, though.

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      My CD collection is my adult biography to some degree. There are certainly many CDs there I won't listen to again but they have a significance such as "yeah, Macy Gray, I bought that the month when I met my wife." If I wanted to listen to Macy Gray now, it would only be a couple of singles that I could find on Youtube in two clicks rather than going to the CD shelves, taking out the CD, opening my disc drive and then finding the tracks in the running order.

      OTOH if I want to listen to one of my 10 favourite albums of all time, I will take the trouble to put the CD in because I want to hear the best possible quality. But for pure laziness reasons, Youtube supplies all other needs really, except when an artist takes their stuff down (as The Beatles and Prince did).

      Playlists: fuck them, too time consuming to compile

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        Originally posted by diggedy derek View Post
        HP, I feel that's a bit of a simplification. Music is put on Spotify primarily (in theory only) by record labels. If you're an ambitious young band, you get signed to a record label, and they explain Spotify is a key plank of spreading the word about the group, are you realistically going to say no? It's not a free choice. The likes of Adele can of course say "no, I don't want this", but that's like comparing a park footballer to Cristiano Ronaldo.

        As for "they should band together and demand more", that's the same situation with Uber and Amazon, no? Neither of whcih I use. (full disclosure: I use Spotify a lot, as it's great for my music-related job).

        I very much share your worry over non-essential plastic, though.
        Musicians and songwriters already have a union, don’t they? Indeed, isn’t how they got what royalties they are getting from Spotify etc? Uber and Amazon don’t have that.

        I’m not really sure what record companies do any more. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to record music. There’s increasingly no need to actually press CDs or vinyl. Radio play/payola doesn’t matter as much as it used to nor does placement in stories. And if there’s not much money to be made from records, what does a record company get out of spending a lot on videos and other promotion? For the bands, it seems like most of them would be better off doing it DIY or with kickstarter.

        Spotify etc gives an opportunity to bands that previously wouldn’t have been heard outside their local venues. It’s so much easier for fans to find them there and actually hear their music. In the old system, they we’re dependent on radio programmers and their record label. Most of them never made much or even lost money on records because the label took a big cut for producing it and promoting it. So they probably make out better being able to promote their music more widely and get more people to shows than they would have made off of records in the old world.

        The popular bands that were once making a lot on record sales can still make a lot on live shows. I’m not worried about Adele making a living. It’s the smaller acts that are losing out.

        I will explore Bandcamp a bit. I didn’t know it sold music. I still like Spotify because it keeps most of the music and podcasts in one place. And it can shuffle 6000 songs. No CD changer I can afford can do that.

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          Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
          Radio play/payola doesn’t matter as much as it used to nor does placement in stories.
          This has been replaced by payola to get tracks included on Spotify playlists, hasn't it? Because an unknown artist who isn't included on a popular playlist has almost no chance of reaching any audience. Basically you still have gatekeepers who control who gets exposure, but unlike with record labels and radio programmers, we don't even know who they are or how they work.

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            This has been replaced by payola to get tracks included on Spotify playlists, hasn't it? Because an unknown artist who isn't included on a popular playlist has almost no chance of reaching any audience. Basically you still have gatekeepers who control who gets exposure, but unlike with record labels and radio programmers, we don't even know who they are or how they work.
            That's not entirely true. I, for one, rarely look at those playlists. I just look at the "related artists" or playlists made by the artists themselves. As far as I can tell, the related artists lists are just based on the algorithm. A lot of the bands that pop up don't have a lot of hits so I doubt there's anyone paying to push those bands. And the playlists that I do see include a lot of bands that are long gone. I don't think anyone is still paying anyone to make sure I'm reminded to listen to REM, for example.

            but unlike with record labels and radio programmers, we don't even know who they are or how they work.
            Who is we? I never understood who those people were or how one could get such a cush job.

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              Playlist payola is definitely a thing. Hell, there's an entire industry of Spotify playlist scams. They're pretty central to the financial ecosystem of Spotify. I too hardly ever use them, but most users do.

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                How are they "central to the financial ecosystem?" Spotify has a strong financial incentive not to pay for bots playing music, because they have a strong financial incentive not to pay anybody for anything.

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                  Playlists are, I mean. Getting on a popular playlist is the way to make money on Spotify.

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                    Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                    Playlists are, I mean. Getting on a popular playlist is the way to make money on Spotify.
                    My chums in a critically well-regarded but modest selling indie band will confirm this is the case.

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                      Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                      Playlists are, I mean. Getting on a popular playlist is the way to make money on Spotify.
                      That’s true of everything these days, it seems. “Celebrity influencers” being paid five-digits just to mention a product on Instagram, etc.

                      But there are loads of great songs as well as bands I like that I never would have heard if I was just buying CDs on the strength of reviews, recommendations, and radio play.

                      Of course, that doesn’t mean it has to be as dirt cheap as it is.

                      It also seems like Spotify should allow bands to say the whole album counts as one track, so it’s harder to pick off tracks. That’s kinda dumb and pretentious, but some bands really want that. Like Tool. I guess they don’t realize that listeners were already able to just pick certain tracks off a CD - CD shuffle changers, people making their own mix tapes, etc.

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                        Good article on the music industry and streaming here - https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2018/12/31/2019/

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                          I question the claim that hip-hop is "innovative," though I could be wrong.

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                            Perhaps innovative is the wrong word. But I'd certainly argue that, compared to 'rock & roll', it's where you hear new ideas and different sounds.

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                              I find it best to take Lefsetz's scribblings with a heavy pinch of salt.

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