Daniel Ek is indifferent to whether the economics of streaming causes artists to give up or actually starve to actual death. He’s already got the tracks and he’ll keep selling them forever like an evil self-licking ice cream cone.
Kate Nash is the latest artist to slam Spotify’s pathetic royalty payments even after the payola and the streaming manipulation with the Orwellian “Discovery Mode” as discovered by Liz Pelly. According to Digital Music News, Kate Nash says:
“‘Foundations’ has over 100 million plays on Spotify — and I’m shocked I’m not a millionaire when I hear that! I’m shocked at the state of the music industry and how the industry has allowed this to happen,” said Nash. “We’re paid very, very, very poorly and unethically for our recorded music: it’s like 0.003 of a penny per stream. I think we should not only be paid fairly, but we should be paid very well. People love music and it’s a growing economy and there are plenty of millionaires in the industry because of that, and our music.”
But then she said the quiet part out loud that will get them right in their Portlandia hearts:
She added: “And what they’re saying to artists from non-rich privileged backgrounds, which is you’re not welcome here, you can’t do this, we don’t want to hear from you. Because it’s not possible to even imagine having a career if you don’t have a privileged background or a privileged situation right now.”
This, of course, comes the same time that Spotify board members have cashed out over $1 billion in stock including hundreds of millions to Daniel Ek personally, speaking of privilege.
Spotify responds with the same old whine that starts with the usual condescending drivel, deflection and distraction:
“We’re huge fans of Kate Nash. For streams of her track ‘Foundations’ alone — which was released before Spotify existed — Spotify has paid out around half a million pounds in revenue to Kate Nash’s rights holders,” reads Spotify’s statement.
“Her most streamed songs were released via Universal Music Group. Spotify has no visibility over the deals that Kate signed with her rights holders. Therefore, we have no knowledge of the payment terms that were agreed upon between her and her partners.”
This is a very carefully worded statement–notice that they switch from the specific to the general and start talking about “her rights holders”. That means no doubt that they are including the songwriters and publishers of the compositions, so that’s bullshit for starters. But notice how they are making Kate’s own argument here by trying to get you to focus on the “big check” that they wrote to Universal.
Well, last time I checked in the world of arithmetic, “around half a million pounds” (which means less than, but OK) divided by 100,000,000 streams is…wait for it…shite. £0.005 per stream–at the Universal level but all-in by the sound of it, i.e., artist share, label share, songwriters and publishers. This is why Spotify is making Kate’s argument at the same time they are trying to deflect attention onto Universal.
Then–always with an eye on the DCMS authorities in the UK and the UK Parliament, Spotify says:
“We do know that British artists generated revenues of over £750 million on Spotify alone in 2023 — a number that is on the rise year on year — so it’s disappointing to hear that Spotify’s payments are not making it through to Kate herself,” the company concluded.
Oh, so “disappointed.” Please spare us. What’s disappointing is that the streaming services participate in this charade where their executives make more in one day of stock trading than the company’s entire payments to UK artists and songwriters.
This race to the bottom is not lost on artists. Al Yankovic, a card-carrying member of the pantheon of music parodists from Tom Leher to Spinal Tap to The Rutles, released a hysterical video about his “Spotify Wrapped” account.
Al said he’d had 80 million streams and received enough cash from Spotify to buy a $12 sandwich. This was from an artist who made a decades-long career from—parody. Remember that–parody.
Do you think he really meant he actually got $12 for 80 million streams? Or could that have been part of the gallows humor of calling out Spotify Wrapped as a propaganda tool for…Spotify? Poking fun at the massive camouflage around the Malthusian algebra of streaming royalties gradually choking the life out of artists and songwriters? Gallows humor, indeed, because a lot of artists and especially songwriters are gradually collapsing as the algebra predicted.
The services took the bait Al dangled, and they seized upon Al’s video poking fun at how ridiculously low Spotify payments are to make a point about how Al’s sandwich price couldn’t possibly be 80 million streams and if it were, it’s his label’s fault. Just like Spotify is blaming Universal rather than take responsibility for once in their lives.
Nothing if not on message, right? As Daniel Ek told MusicAlly, “There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough.” This is kind of like TikTok bragging about how few children hung themselves in the latest black out challenge compared to the number of all children using the platform. Pretty Malthusian. It’s not a fallacy; it’s all too true.
I’d suggest that Al and Kate Nash were each making the point–if you think of everyday goods, like bacon for example, in terms of how many streams you would have to sell in order to buy a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a gallon of gasoline, Internet access, or a sandwich in a nice restaurant, you start to understand that the joke really is on us. The best way to make a small fortune in the streaming business is to start with a large one. Unless you’re a Spotify executive, of course.
The Trichordist 
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