10 ms·

Just a side note, I saw the founder of Pandora speak and he said their mission is to create a middle class for musicians by making it easier to discover, listen

by Dwolb 11y ago

Just a side note, I saw the founder of Pandora speak and he said their mission is to create a middle class for musicians by making it easier to discover, listen, and support non-hit artists. I'm not sure if their plan had a broader strategy, but I felt the vision was at least admirable due to its mission beyond just firm profits.

pink_dinner 11y ago
How do you create a 'middle class' when there is no money left in the industry for smaller artists? Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. This all started with file sharing 15 years ago. Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. I know so many independent artists that were making a decent living (not rich, but enough to support themselves instead of having to get a job) selling music online. File sharing changed all of this. The value of music (CD/MP3s) slowly approached 0 and now that we have streaming, copyright infringement still hasn't gotten any better, it's worse. Live shows, the profit model so many people tried to use as justification for sharing, don't really pay much unless you are doing huge venues and have big label connections. A small gig might get you a couple hundred bucks in a night. With gas, time, and splitting it with everyone in the band, there isn't much to be passed around. This also puts many of these artists in completely desperate situations, where they will sign pretty much any contract. The big labels know this and use it to their full advantage. The big corporations with tons of cash reserves will always be able to survive the slaughtering of an industry's profits...and we still have all of the major music labels. What we don't have is many of the independent artists and labels.
- baldfat 11y ago
  > Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. Speaking about Indie Music I'm the SMALL Record Label. The money comes in through sales of Merch, Gigs and selling CD/MP3. I think there has never been a time better for Indie Music. There are more people making a "living" in music and not being a big label band or a cover band, but they are all fighting for a very small pot. Blame 1) Music Fans. The vast majority of people will never give Indie bands a listen and have the listening pallet of a 6 year old. 2) Indie population is high majority college age kids. I would love to see this expand. I am in my 40s and I don't know anyone my age that is into Indie Music. Heck when I was in my late 20s and early 30 I was "Old Man" to everyone. 3) Bands - Don't have enough money sense (Including myself as a studio/label owner). They have a TON of survivor instincts and the tenacity to keep going but they can't figure out how to turn things into money. 4) Streaming - People actively seeking out certain music pays the same as mindless random steams. I think if people search and specifically pick your music it should pay more.
  - williamcotton 11y ago
    I still write originals but I only put them in my set if they're better than the covers I know. More indie rock bands should play more covers and stop pretending like they're god's gift to songwriting. More people would go to and enjoy their shows. The country, bluegrass, jam, americana and folk scenes have tons of fans that support a large number of pro and semi-pro pickers and singers. They play a lot of covers because people do like to hear their favorite songs played live. A lot of them get to the point where they're playing like half their own songs, but some will always play songs written by other people. The pickers that can play lead on an instrument, sing, and write songs are called "triple threats". These guys are few and far between and end up being superstars. Jimi Hendrix, Merle Haggard, Jerry Garcia, Willie Nelson and Brad Paisley, just to name a few. They play lead instruments on other people's recordings, sing other people's songs, and write songs for other people. Notice the emphasis on "other people". That's kind of lacking in indie music, which instead has a philosophy of solipsism. It's built right in to the DIY ethic. Don't sing someone else's songs, sing your own songs. It's ultimately a losing formula. I make more money, play to more people and have more fun playing covers to people down at corporate gigs or just down at the local bar than I ever did in whatever indie rock band I've played in throughout the years. It seemed like we were trying to reinvent music from a faded memory in every indie band I was in. Covers were uncool, and we had to define "Our sound". "Our sound" ended up being much shittier than traditional forms like country or the blues. Oh well, indie rock will be dead in 10 years tops. I've got a lot of refugees from the indie rock scene learning to play more traditional music. Either that or they just hang up their guitars for good. The DIY ethos is just too alienated and embittered to for people who feel like making the transition to adulthood.
    - WalterBright 11y ago
      A cover done well can be very enjoyable. I tire of the album originals of Zep songs, but enjoy the song all over again when it is a cover by someone else. Then there are covers that reimagine the song, like "White Rabbit" by Sanctuary. Pretty awesome. And who can forget "Tamborine Man" by William Shatner (!)
      - 11y ago
- EliRivers 11y ago
  Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. In November 2012, the Grammy-nominated hit song-writer Ellen Shipley reported that one of her most popular tracks got played 3,112,300 times on Pandora. For this, she was paid $39.61 (Source: the somewhat depressing "The Internet is Not The Answer", by Andy Keen)
6stringmerc 11y ago
Pandora genuinely has a channel for independent music acts to submit material for play consideration. They are incredibly obscure about the process of whether they accept or decline to include specific music. But it does actually exist, so credit where it's due.
- tunesmith 11y ago
  It sucks when you get declined - I had a seven-song album that I honestly felt pretty darn good about, was co-produced by a buddy that had an album on Pandora. I remember he was nervous about whether he'd get on Pandora and was relieved when he did, said he had an "in" at Pandora but wasn't sure it helped. He felt pretty confident mine would get in if his did - I submitted. They ask for you to pick one song from the album for them to check out first, and if they choose to check out the others from the album afterward, they will. So I picked the one that seemed to have the broadest enjoyment from my friends - fairly straightforward, nice instrumentation. Months passed, and then I got a form letter saying the album was rejected. No explanation, no details on if the other songs were listened to, etc. I've never been sure whether to conclude if my songwriting just sucks more than I thought it did. Anyway, I haven't really had any ideas of where to submit the album since then, other than just giving up and putting it on Spotify.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to write out your experience - mine was very similar. Submit as close to genre basis as possible, wait, and then get the rejection. Because I'm on the prolific side, averaging a 3-5 song EP about every 2 months, I do feel like I should be trying again and again. They can afford to be picky, which okay, good for them, it helps the 'curated' experience. I'll keep trying (especially with my newer stuff which features vocals) for Pandora but still only see it as one component in a diverse distribution portfolio.
  - _AllisonMobley 11y ago
    I would just put it on Youtube and work on putting out a new song every few days. Prolific talent trumps all.
md224 11y ago
Interesting... EarBits (a YC alum, I believe?) was trying to do a similar "promote indie artists" thing but built around a system of artists paying for increased exposure (I believe they wanted to be the "Google AdWords of Music").
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
baldfat 11y ago
I was the Owner of the SMALL Label. My friend from college I worked at is a professional acoustic guitar musician. He makes 100% of his money playing guitar. He makes next to nothing from streaming, he says 1% from Pandora, Spotify and others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo9kGHYn_bI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo9kGHYn_bI
- williamcotton 11y ago
  Whoa, this dude is rad! Sort of reminds me of 70s classic rock jams like Heart or Yes or something. Great melodies, great performance.
- halotrope 11y ago
  Wow, that must be one if the best guitar performances I have ever seen.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Then you may like Kaki King and/or Stanley Jordan as well. As a multi-decade player I can appreciate the technique and talent on display, I really can. However, the reason you haven't heard of him before, and others of a similar level of musicianship, is something that my Dad once told me: "Audiences don't like it when the music goes over their head." His point was that impressing other musicians is a very limited market - not trying to insult it, just being pragmatic.
    - baldfat 11y ago
      I don't know if I totally agree about that. Seeing his live concerts there is plenty of Musicians self love AKA He was a feature artist with Martin Guitars several times and music contest. Also in his concert are a ton of people who don't even know how to play guitar. The melody is strong enough to follow.
      - 6stringmerc 11y ago
        That's fine, I just have a bit of instinct about markets and the overlap with technically flamboyant playing. Sure I've seen Tommy Emmanuel a couple times in sold out venues, but he's basically the 1% of that market. Buckethead also sort of fits too. I'm happy for your friend's success for sure, making a living is incredibly difficult in the business and the demands and travel I don't envy at all, so much respect indeed.
riprowan 11y ago
As a non-hit artist, married to a non-hit artist, and who's produced a bevy of non-hit artists, I can say that roughly none of a non-hit artist's income is likely to come from Pandora / Pandora discovery. At $0.0001/stream typical, Pandora itself cannot ever add up to meaningful income for a non-hit artist. Most of the income for the non-hit artist will come from that core group of committed fans who buy everything the artist makes, contribute to kickstarters, and shows up at all the concerts. As a discovery tool Pandora's value is debatable. My anecdotal experience is that of all the various ways that I and other artists I know have made fans, Pandora was never one. YMMV. (Update: I just found a bit a data that states that Pandora accounts for ~10% of new music discovery which is a lot better than I would have guessed.)
- S_A_P 11y ago
  You wouldnt happen to be the Rip Rowan of ProRec.com would you? miss that site...
  - riprowan 11y ago
    aw shucks
- specialist 11y ago
  As a discovery tool Pandora's value is debatable. Curation works better than recommenders. To my great surprise, I continue to discover new acts, music thru the radio. Just like when I was kid. KBCS.fm and KEXP.org have great speciality shows. They also do a good job of posting their play lists, streaming archives, linking to artists, promoting upcoming shows, etc. I've rarely discovered new stuff from a recommender (Pandora, last.fm, whatever). Now I don't even bother. But I do rediscover music (from my youth) via YouTube. Which is a delight. If mining radio playlists stops working for me, I'd be willing to try something like Apple Beat's notion.
  - riprowan 11y ago
    Well it turns out that you aren't alone. Radio is still the most important music discovery media: https://d28wbuch0jlv7v.cloudfront.net/images/infografik/normal/chartoftheday_2077_Music_discovery_n.jpg https://d28wbuch0jlv7v.cloudfront.net/images/infografik/norm.... Notably, that chart puts Pandora discovery at a meaningful 10%.
circa 11y ago
I find that hard to believe when they have the largest listener database and the smallest "song" database. When compared against the competition.
- louhike 11y ago
  Furthermore, Pandora is only accessible in USA, Australia and New Zealand.

by Dwolb 11y ago

pink_dinner 11y ago

How do you create a 'middle class' when there is no money left in the industry for smaller artists? Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. This all started with file sharing 15 years ago. Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. I know so many independent artists that were making a decent living (not rich, but enough to support themselves instead of having to get a job) selling music online. File sharing changed all of this. The value of music (CD/MP3s) slowly approached 0 and now that we have streaming, copyright infringement still hasn't gotten any better, it's worse. Live shows, the profit model so many people tried to use as justification for sharing, don't really pay much unless you are doing huge venues and have big label connections. A small gig might get you a couple hundred bucks in a night. With gas, time, and splitting it with everyone in the band, there isn't much to be passed around. This also puts many of these artists in completely desperate situations, where they will sign pretty much any contract. The big labels know this and use it to their full advantage. The big corporations with tons of cash reserves will always be able to survive the slaughtering of an industry's profits...and we still have all of the major music labels. What we don't have is many of the independent artists and labels.

baldfat 11y ago
> Everyone thought they were helping out the independent artists, but in reality, it made it so they could no longer compete without a huge corporation backing them. File sharing has only helped big labels by increasing the barrier to entry. Speaking about Indie Music I'm the SMALL Record Label. The money comes in through sales of Merch, Gigs and selling CD/MP3. I think there has never been a time better for Indie Music. There are more people making a "living" in music and not being a big label band or a cover band, but they are all fighting for a very small pot. Blame 1) Music Fans. The vast majority of people will never give Indie bands a listen and have the listening pallet of a 6 year old. 2) Indie population is high majority college age kids. I would love to see this expand. I am in my 40s and I don't know anyone my age that is into Indie Music. Heck when I was in my late 20s and early 30 I was "Old Man" to everyone. 3) Bands - Don't have enough money sense (Including myself as a studio/label owner). They have a TON of survivor instincts and the tenacity to keep going but they can't figure out how to turn things into money. 4) Streaming - People actively seeking out certain music pays the same as mindless random steams. I think if people search and specifically pick your music it should pay more.
- williamcotton 11y ago
  I still write originals but I only put them in my set if they're better than the covers I know. More indie rock bands should play more covers and stop pretending like they're god's gift to songwriting. More people would go to and enjoy their shows. The country, bluegrass, jam, americana and folk scenes have tons of fans that support a large number of pro and semi-pro pickers and singers. They play a lot of covers because people do like to hear their favorite songs played live. A lot of them get to the point where they're playing like half their own songs, but some will always play songs written by other people. The pickers that can play lead on an instrument, sing, and write songs are called "triple threats". These guys are few and far between and end up being superstars. Jimi Hendrix, Merle Haggard, Jerry Garcia, Willie Nelson and Brad Paisley, just to name a few. They play lead instruments on other people's recordings, sing other people's songs, and write songs for other people. Notice the emphasis on "other people". That's kind of lacking in indie music, which instead has a philosophy of solipsism. It's built right in to the DIY ethic. Don't sing someone else's songs, sing your own songs. It's ultimately a losing formula. I make more money, play to more people and have more fun playing covers to people down at corporate gigs or just down at the local bar than I ever did in whatever indie rock band I've played in throughout the years. It seemed like we were trying to reinvent music from a faded memory in every indie band I was in. Covers were uncool, and we had to define "Our sound". "Our sound" ended up being much shittier than traditional forms like country or the blues. Oh well, indie rock will be dead in 10 years tops. I've got a lot of refugees from the indie rock scene learning to play more traditional music. Either that or they just hang up their guitars for good. The DIY ethos is just too alienated and embittered to for people who feel like making the transition to adulthood.
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    A cover done well can be very enjoyable. I tire of the album originals of Zep songs, but enjoy the song all over again when it is a cover by someone else. Then there are covers that reimagine the song, like "White Rabbit" by Sanctuary. Pretty awesome. And who can forget "Tamborine Man" by William Shatner (!)
    - 11y ago
EliRivers 11y ago
Pandora pays the superstars well and if you aren't getting millions of plays, you aren't making enough to even provide for yourself. In November 2012, the Grammy-nominated hit song-writer Ellen Shipley reported that one of her most popular tracks got played 3,112,300 times on Pandora. For this, she was paid $39.61 (Source: the somewhat depressing "The Internet is Not The Answer", by Andy Keen)

6stringmerc 11y ago

Pandora genuinely has a channel for independent music acts to submit material for play consideration. They are incredibly obscure about the process of whether they accept or decline to include specific music. But it does actually exist, so credit where it's due.

tunesmith 11y ago
It sucks when you get declined - I had a seven-song album that I honestly felt pretty darn good about, was co-produced by a buddy that had an album on Pandora. I remember he was nervous about whether he'd get on Pandora and was relieved when he did, said he had an "in" at Pandora but wasn't sure it helped. He felt pretty confident mine would get in if his did - I submitted. They ask for you to pick one song from the album for them to check out first, and if they choose to check out the others from the album afterward, they will. So I picked the one that seemed to have the broadest enjoyment from my friends - fairly straightforward, nice instrumentation. Months passed, and then I got a form letter saying the album was rejected. No explanation, no details on if the other songs were listened to, etc. I've never been sure whether to conclude if my songwriting just sucks more than I thought it did. Anyway, I haven't really had any ideas of where to submit the album since then, other than just giving up and putting it on Spotify.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to write out your experience - mine was very similar. Submit as close to genre basis as possible, wait, and then get the rejection. Because I'm on the prolific side, averaging a 3-5 song EP about every 2 months, I do feel like I should be trying again and again. They can afford to be picky, which okay, good for them, it helps the 'curated' experience. I'll keep trying (especially with my newer stuff which features vocals) for Pandora but still only see it as one component in a diverse distribution portfolio.
- _AllisonMobley 11y ago
  I would just put it on Youtube and work on putting out a new song every few days. Prolific talent trumps all.

md224 11y ago

Interesting... EarBits (a YC alum, I believe?) was trying to do a similar "promote indie artists" thing but built around a system of artists paying for increased exposure (I believe they wanted to be the "Google AdWords of Music").

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

baldfat 11y ago

I was the Owner of the SMALL Label. My friend from college I worked at is a professional acoustic guitar musician. He makes 100% of his money playing guitar. He makes next to nothing from streaming, he says 1% from Pandora, Spotify and others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo9kGHYn_bI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo9kGHYn_bI

williamcotton 11y ago
Whoa, this dude is rad! Sort of reminds me of 70s classic rock jams like Heart or Yes or something. Great melodies, great performance.
halotrope 11y ago
Wow, that must be one if the best guitar performances I have ever seen.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Then you may like Kaki King and/or Stanley Jordan as well. As a multi-decade player I can appreciate the technique and talent on display, I really can. However, the reason you haven't heard of him before, and others of a similar level of musicianship, is something that my Dad once told me: "Audiences don't like it when the music goes over their head." His point was that impressing other musicians is a very limited market - not trying to insult it, just being pragmatic.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    I don't know if I totally agree about that. Seeing his live concerts there is plenty of Musicians self love AKA He was a feature artist with Martin Guitars several times and music contest. Also in his concert are a ton of people who don't even know how to play guitar. The melody is strong enough to follow.
    - 6stringmerc 11y ago
      That's fine, I just have a bit of instinct about markets and the overlap with technically flamboyant playing. Sure I've seen Tommy Emmanuel a couple times in sold out venues, but he's basically the 1% of that market. Buckethead also sort of fits too. I'm happy for your friend's success for sure, making a living is incredibly difficult in the business and the demands and travel I don't envy at all, so much respect indeed.

riprowan 11y ago

As a non-hit artist, married to a non-hit artist, and who's produced a bevy of non-hit artists, I can say that roughly none of a non-hit artist's income is likely to come from Pandora / Pandora discovery. At $0.0001/stream typical, Pandora itself cannot ever add up to meaningful income for a non-hit artist. Most of the income for the non-hit artist will come from that core group of committed fans who buy everything the artist makes, contribute to kickstarters, and shows up at all the concerts. As a discovery tool Pandora's value is debatable. My anecdotal experience is that of all the various ways that I and other artists I know have made fans, Pandora was never one. YMMV. (Update: I just found a bit a data that states that Pandora accounts for ~10% of new music discovery which is a lot better than I would have guessed.)

S_A_P 11y ago
You wouldnt happen to be the Rip Rowan of ProRec.com would you? miss that site...
- riprowan 11y ago
  aw shucks
specialist 11y ago
As a discovery tool Pandora's value is debatable. Curation works better than recommenders. To my great surprise, I continue to discover new acts, music thru the radio. Just like when I was kid. KBCS.fm and KEXP.org have great speciality shows. They also do a good job of posting their play lists, streaming archives, linking to artists, promoting upcoming shows, etc. I've rarely discovered new stuff from a recommender (Pandora, last.fm, whatever). Now I don't even bother. But I do rediscover music (from my youth) via YouTube. Which is a delight. If mining radio playlists stops working for me, I'd be willing to try something like Apple Beat's notion.
- riprowan 11y ago
  Well it turns out that you aren't alone. Radio is still the most important music discovery media: https://d28wbuch0jlv7v.cloudfront.net/images/infografik/normal/chartoftheday_2077_Music_discovery_n.jpg https://d28wbuch0jlv7v.cloudfront.net/images/infografik/norm.... Notably, that chart puts Pandora discovery at a meaningful 10%.

circa 11y ago

I find that hard to believe when they have the largest listener database and the smallest "song" database. When compared against the competition.

louhike 11y ago
Furthermore, Pandora is only accessible in USA, Australia and New Zealand.