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I wish more people, especially tech CEOs, could understand the incredible sacrifice of time, money, and energy it takes to make an album people actually enjoy.

I wish more people, especially tech CEOs, could understand the incredible sacrifice of time, money, and energy it takes to make an album people actually enjoy. Everything you listen to, unless you are willing to listen to raw demos, is a miracle. I've worked both as a sound engineer and and a software developer. It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. The way tech companies have abused musicians to get rich is one of the most shameful things to ever happen. Furthermore, I'm sick of these guru edicts about how everyone will need to work that much harder in the "new normal". I got into software to pay the bills, but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. It requires more effort than you could ever imagine.

Kalium 6y ago
Would you be more open and accepting to commentary if there was more kindness, more love, more empathy and compassion in discussions of how the old normal is gone? Expressions of admiration and awe coupled with opining that the old multi-year release cycle doesn't work anymore, and legions of hard-working humans making sacrifices for what they love may need to change? Thank you for sharing. The world is always a better place with more human warmth.
- fallingfrog 6y ago
  Platitudes about humanity coupled with inaction. You should run for Congress.
  - Kalium 6y ago
    It's how you tease apart if someone cares more about presentation of ideas or the substance of said ideas.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  The message itself is wrong. We live in a world of plenty. We should be working less, not more. We have created more music in this century than all of the last combined. We have the ability to listen to thousands of years of music at the touch of a button. A concert that would have taken hours of work for 50 people to entertain 200 now takes nothing - a million people put on their headphones and listen to a recording made 20 years ago. And that is just music - the same plenitude is available in almost all aspects of our lives. And yet, people insist on ever more growth, on ever more work. Hopefully in the next decades, as the reality of global warming and worker empowerment gain traction, we'll realize that in fact the work week can be drastically reduced without affecting our material needs, as long we let go of this level of consumption.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > the same plenitude is available in almost all aspects of our lives. To be fair, there's orders of magnitude less plenitude in certain necessities like food and housing - still more than enough over all, but not by so large a margin that you don't get local shortfalls (especially in housing).
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      It's there, it's just not evenly distributed- or evenly zoned. As a species, we can probably produce enough to cover everyone's basic needs if we wanted to.
      - a1369209993 6y ago
        > > still more than enough over all
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    How do you think the world of plenty came about in the first place? A hell of a lot of growth and work to provide for the demands of broad consumer bases instead of the whims of some head honcho who wanted pointless setpiece folly castles or grand monuments.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      The world of plenty mostly came about from technological advancement. In my opinion, we're way past the point where we should have stopped trying to grow, in most fields. In particular in music, we're at least 2 decades past the point where the music production industry is being helpful. Also in art in general, it's interesting to think about what this world of plenty has cost us. Even if we have incomprehensibly more music available to us than any generation before say 1920, most people have actually lost the pleasure of producing their own music. In the times before recording and playing back music were common, a much larger proportion of the population would be learning how to sing and play themselves. Many more people would be composing and sharing their own stories - the almost dead world of folklore. This can also apply to a lot of crafts - we're more and more becoming dependent on industry for simple things that we would have done ourselves in centuries past. If all of this had been a way to help free us pursue other passions, it would have been good. But it seems to me that it's mostly a way to free us to do more work for other people, and that, for the average person who is not working in a job capable of using their creativity, it has started stunting a lot their creative potential, which would have found an outlet in some of these domestic pursuits in the past.
meowface 6y ago
> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. I think the same could be said of any (good) art. Art and engineering are fundamentally very different things that just can't be compared, even if there may be some mutual overlapping. (Audio/mixing/mastering engineering definitely crosses the streams more, but for the sake of argument let's just consider the entire end-to-end process of making an album, which I think is almost entirely a matter of art.) There is some degree of art involved in developing software, but if it's just getting some business app working for BigCorp, it really can't be compared to writing amazing fiction, painting a beautiful painting, directing a fantastic film, making a great album, or any other artistic endeavor. Anyone who scoffs at artists because they're not doing [technical thing] just shouldn't be paid any heed.
- throwaw4y-plate 6y ago
  Art isn't the kind of thing that can be solved with a clever hill-climbing algorithm, is it.
  - p1esk 6y ago
    We don't know yet.
- wolco 6y ago
  Counterpoint is record companies are creating pop music or using audiotune without the artist quality a classic painting has.
  - andybak 6y ago
    Artistry != Singing in tune In fact art != artistry It's entirely possible for somebody relatively lacking in technical ability and/or any great insight into their craft to produce something wonderful.
    - burntoutfire 6y ago
      > It's entirely possible for somebody relatively lacking in technical ability and/or any great insight into their craft to produce something wonderful. 100% that. Thom Yorke (Radiohead singer) has composed dozens of godly songs without even being able to read the notes (in fact, his band members are calling him the idiot savant and are asking him NOT to learn the notes at this point, as it might spoil the magic). Tricky composed some good songs without being able to read notes OR play any instrument.
searchableguy 6y ago
It's market valuing things based on scarcity. Music is in abundance right now due to lower barrier to entry for distributing and producing it than ever before. You have to provide more value than someone producing music as a hobby for free on youtube.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Good music - electrifying, change-your-life music - is still extremely scarce. But Spotify has made it even harder to find by swamping it in mediocre burger+fries music.
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    I don’t buy that. Much of my favorite music is video game fan-made music; and, while that is hard to make and their skill is great, there’s a lot of that music.
  - gh123man 6y ago
    I disagree. Music is subjective. In fact, the lower barrier to entry and discovery has enabled me to find my favorite music that 5 years ago I had no idea even existed. You would probably hate the music that changed my life, and I would probably not enjoy yours. I do agree that bands are getting screwed though. That's why I use Spotify for discovery and buy lots of merch when a band really lands with me (and go to live shows - pre COIVD of course).
  - sweetheart 6y ago
    Huh, this is an interesting take to me. I'd say that my using Spotify has definitely increased the amount of "bad" music I listen to, but it has _drastically_ increased the amount of amazing, life-changing music I find. There are _so_ many artists I enjoy now because Spotify threw them in my Discover Weekly. By increasing the sheer amount of music I listen to, thanks to Spotify, I've increased the number of bands I love that I stumble upon, and bands I hate. It's a net win though, because I forget the shit stuff, but really, really cherish the gold I find. I'm just surprised that you feel it's _harder_ to find good music because of Spotify.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. True, but hardly apples-to-apples; it's orders of magnitude easier to make music than it is to make a viral app. In either case, the barrier to entry is low, the standard for doing it professionally is surprisingly high, and making a hit is a huge undertaking.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  As a musician and programmer I find the bar to make money on apps way way lower than on music. Being a good programmer brings you much closer to making money on an app than being a good musician does to get a record out. For one you don't need luck, money and the right contacts to release an app. It isn't even in the same ballpark IMHO. Pro musician is closer to "race driver" than "viral app creator".
  - cheez 6y ago
    There is a musician equivalent of app creator. Where do you think music in TV shows, movies and YouTube comes from. A human musician creates it. Atleast for now...
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    20 years ago you needed all of the same stuff in software engineering, as you described in music. Things change... It costs as much to "release an app" as to "get a record out" today.
    - scrumbledober 6y ago
      But I don't need to "release an app" to make money as a programmer. I just need to work on small parts of an app that already exists and I can have a comfortable salary with reasonably good job security.
      - JAlexoid 6y ago
        As a musician you can also be a wedding band, sing only covers and make a living off it. It's really not that different...
adrr 6y ago
I am curious what you think the optimal solution for music in today’s world with massive storage and high bandwidth. Spotify is paying 70% of revenue to artists. You have factor in piracy if the price is to high or the solution is inconvenient. The public has rejected DRM and songs are easily give away to their friends. Lastly, No one wants physical media.
- wolco 6y ago
  Artists/creators should be able to determine what they want to charge for streamed songs.
  - andybak 6y ago
    And I predict that would result in a race to the bottom like it has for mobile apps.
  - adrr 6y ago
    How does that work for a streaming service that charges a flat rate? Do you think public has an appetite for a pay per usage model/micro transaction model or would it drive users back to piracy? Micro transactions in online news media hasn’t managed to get any traction.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      It doesn't work for a streaming service which charges a flat rate - which is the point. Spotify is not the same as Netflix etc, because Netflix etc is commissioning and promoting new work - something Spotify has no interest in. So... you sell units, not streams. You buy a perpetual license to play a unit as many times as you want. The artist gets a royalty for the unit sale. This frontloads income around unit release, which encourages new creation, but units generate a perpetual royalty stream as part of the artist's back catalog, so artists are less likely to starve. Preview streams are available for free as tasters. Or perhaps a full taster can be played X times before it has to be bought. The player is tied to an app, but most music is now consumed on phones or in a web player, so DRM is irrelevant and there is no real loss of convenience. This model worked (more or less) for decades. The point is popular creators should be paid for full-time work. That's how you get the best work from artists. And it's not as if the economy can't support this. Operating in any other way is entirely down to politics, not economics.
enumjorge 6y ago
Yeah the CEO’s take reminds me of Jobs’s “you’re holding it wrong”. So it’s not that Spotify is not paying artists enough, it’s that artists aren’t working hard enough. And even though artists have been complaining about the money they make from streaming for years, “in private” some of them are happy. Sure.
- s17n 6y ago
  I don't think he was saying that artists aren't working hard enough, I think he was saying: 1. Albums don't maximize artist income - musicians should be steadily releasing new tracks. (Ironically, this is how things used to be up until the 70's, when a new technology, the LP, changed the dominant form of artistic expression.) 2. Nobody reads rolling stone anymore, mtv doesn't play music anymore, if you want a successful career you have to actively market yourself.
  - rnd0 6y ago
    Even so, he's wrong according to every thing I've read on the subject. The conventional wisdom seems to be that if you're a musician the primary way you're going to be making money is through touring and selling merch at shows. Not by cutting more tracks for spotify to make a buck off of.
- Bud 6y ago
  Jobs never said that, so maybe avoid putting it in quotes.
  - copperx 6y ago
    Does "just avoid holding it that way" satisfy you?
    - Bud 6y ago
      Of course. If people are going to make poor analogies and mock a quote that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, at least get the quote right. It's not asking too much, is it?
hardtke 6y ago
I highly recommend The Song Machine (Inside the Hit Factory) by John Seabrook. The author describes the modern reincarnation of the Brill Building that pumps out pop hits using methods that we would not call songwriting (Max Martin, Dr. Luke, etc.). The goal is to get you to listen to 30 seconds of a song (that counts as a spin on digital streaming services). They've decomposed the process into mass production of backing tracks (using pro tools) which then get handed to so-called topliners that add the "hook" (the catchy part of the song). They stick the famous artist at the beginning of the song to get you past the 30 second threshold.
- taylodl 6y ago
  This book is a fun read and goes a long way toward explaining why so much of today’s music is crap. It’s the difference between mass production and craftsmanship - and mass produced music just isn’t very good. Not to me anyway.
- senko 6y ago
  In a similar way, back in '88 KLF wrote tongue-in-cheek "manual" for writing a top pop song, a hilarious and cynical view into how a musical sausage is made: https://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ https://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/
  - cauthon 6y ago
    Dubba Jonny made a whole track as a semi-satirical "tutorial" on dubstep production back when it was at its peak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzfTZlEl40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzfTZlEl40
  - zebraflask 6y ago
    Still hilarious.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    It blows me away how much ranting people managed to write in the typewriter era when it wasn't very easy.
pdelgallego 6y ago
Music is a winner-take-all markets. It makes it really hard for new musicians to break in. It also tend to be a sticky market, so those that have several hits remain relevant for a long time. Winner-take-all markets are reinforced by feedback loops.
kasperni 6y ago
> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. It is order of magnitudes more difficult being in the top 0.1% in Y industry. Then, being in the bottom 99.9% in Z industry. Giving that roughly the same number of people work in each industry.
deleted 6y ago
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aglavine 6y ago
then you see movies like '24 hour party people' that have a different view...
Justsignedup 6y ago
Ugh I wish that anyone would understand that "just work more" is a HORRIBLE outlook on things.
- throwlogon 6y ago
  Demanding a "deeper, more consistent, and prolonged commitment than in the past" from people whose profession you've already made more difficult is pretty galling. It may be the case that their careers were going to get more difficult anyway; nevertheless, Ek is in fact one of the main drivers and beneficiaries.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    While I don't deny that the Spotify CEO is the best person to send a message like that, I have to ask myself what life was like for musicians before Spotify (or any other low-paying streaming service). 30 Seconds to Mars made a documentary about the album they recorded in 2008 and the lawsuit they had to deal with at their record label (which had been recently purchased by a larger company that had zero music / talent experience). Their contracts seem to put them almost $1 million in debt to the record label for each album, despite the fact that they sell (err sold?) multi millions and they do worldwide tours. Sure, Spotify's CEO is a strange vessel to make more demands on musical talent, but he's also in a position to know how his customers want to consume their music and what gets them engaged in his product. I would take it for what it is and no more.
xwdv 6y ago
> Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. Haha, no. Artists aren’t some gift from God here to bestow the world with joy from the heavens that we should all marvel at. They are people who chose to learn a skill capable of outputting something suitable for consumption as entertainment. As such, it is their job to be putting out these works regularly, just like everyone else. Appreciation is nice, but doesn’t matter. Everyday people do mundane things that you have no idea how to do and probably go unappreciated, yet they are more necessary than any sort of “art”. Take art down from the pedestal please.
- IncRnd 6y ago
  Art is the highest pinnacle of human achievement. Perhaps, not everything you call art was made with artistry or is artistic.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    All non functional human expression is art - PERIOD. Just because you may not like my perfectly polished cube and don't see the meaning I put into it - doesn't make it "not art".
    - IncRnd 6y ago
      I understand you believe that, but art is literally that which flows from a creative expression. Creative action or expression is the definition, the etymology, and the realization of art. Artistry is that which finds expression in the creative act of expressing art. That is not the same as all non-functional human expression.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  I agree that "art" isn't some kind of a uplifted thing. Certain pieces of art are uplifting. Art itself is just human expression.
- jongold 6y ago
  you're conflating technical ability with the rest of the creative process: intuiting narratives in the collective unconscious & channeling inspiration from a much, much greater source to make something wholly outside of the artist. that's not to say that artists are "geniuses" who should be put on pedestals, but it's a fundamentally different thing than a vocation
throwaway894345 6y ago
> I got into software to pay the bills, but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. I probably agree with you about your broader sentiment of the commodification of music for the principal benefit of tech investors is not in the interest of society as a whole; however, I don't think your bit about software/geeks served to support your point. Some people appreciate software the way you appreciate music, and perhaps they appreciate music as a sort of commodity. People have different preferences, but sometimes that creates an economic environment that isn't optimal for your own preferences.
zjaffee 6y ago
I think what the CEO is saying, and it has been an increasing trend in music for a long time now, is moving even further away from large LP releases every few years. The existence of that medium of music doesn't make sense in the current year given how people actually go about consuming music. The way to keep fans engaged involves releasing EPs and Single on a regular basis, releasing a whole album only really makes sense in the context of trying to produce it for artistic value, not fan engagement value.
- gxqoz 6y ago
  My impression is that there was actually some benefit to having really long streaming albums, at least if you were already a hit artist. You'd rack up more individual plays and thus more money. This only works, though, if people are coming to you and playing the album rather than being sent to a song via an algorithm. If that's the majority of your usage, a constant drip of new singles makes sense.
- trekrich 6y ago
  I think the CEO is right, the only reasons we have singles and LP etc is because of the constraints of the physical media. These are no longer so much of a problem.
- ng12 6y ago
  > The existence of that medium of music doesn't make sense in the current year given how people actually go about consuming music. I'm not convinced. The standard 3-4 minute pop song came about because that's what could fit on one side of a 78. Albums came about because an LP (33 1/2) could fit roughly 40 minutes of music, or 10-12 of those songs. These formats proved to be a popular and effective even though the technologies that created them are long obsolete.
  - nsl73 6y ago
    Over 80% of my music listening is full albums, even though I haven’t played a record or CD since 2015. I really hope the medium of the album survives, because I much prefer listening to a coherent and deliberate group of songs than any other method.
jongold 6y ago
Absolutely agree. I've been playing music for basically my whole life, and am now, finally working on producing my first record of solo singer-songwriter material. Every time I thought I've been "close" over the past 18 months it turned out I still had so, so far left to go. My "scope" is creeping, sure, but it turns out there's so, so, so much work in-between "recording & mixing one voice & one guitar" and "having a really well arranged song with just the right musical details" etc. I've done a bunch of big, original projects in tech over the years, but I've never worked as hard at anything in my life as I have on this music. And I'm still barely scratching the surface of where I want my music to go long term, and I know that the closer I get to recording the music that's in my head, the more ambitious my future records will be.
prox 6y ago
I think what he is really saying is : if you want to make money, you have to be on the clock, produce every month,week, day. Welcome to the newest rat race addition (which works wonders for creativity /s ) Just as we are pivoting away from unsustainable energy, we need to pivot away from unsustainable value structures. We have the tech, we have the brainpower, now we need the will to work on that.
- thephyber 6y ago
  > we need to pivot away from unsustainable value structures I think it's a category error to expect the CEO of the music distributor to be the one that stands up for the sustainability of music artists. Even if you did get a "benevolent dictator" figure in that position, it would likely crumble to a competitor who is focusing more on optimizing the value+experience for the listener.
  - prox 6y ago
    Probably, yes. It’s more of a political proposition and societal debate. How much do we value culture? I do agree he is probably on some expectancy rail that he cannot or doesn’t want to forgo.
tanilama 6y ago
I don't think this is disrespectful to musicians. The way people consume music has changed and for the right reason. Music now is a commodity that can be obtained in secs. This is totally different the old days when people buy tapes and CDs and use dedicated equipments just to listen music. If you are buying a CD for 15+ dollars, ofc it should contain more than a handful song. Now you can literally release any number of songs at any time, and test the water as frequently as you want.
user5994461 6y ago
>>> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. That couldn't be further from the truth, it's extremely easy to make a hit, large labels consistently release hits again and again. It's all about distribution and marketing network, not about the music. Sames goes with tech, good luck trying to make a product and garner any amount of traction, whereas the same product released from microsoft/google/aws would get millions of eyeballs right away. Thinking that good has much to do with success is a recipe to be disappointed. Go spend some time promoting your creations instead of trying to make them better.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> I wish more people, especially tech CEOs Well, you can't really blame the tech CEO here... Spotify charges people what they're willing to pay to listen to music. I think it's a minor miracle that they've worked out a way to get people to pay anything for music considering how easy music piracy has been since the internet came along. (Not taking a moral stance, just stating a fact).
- hunter2_ 6y ago
  Speaking as another sound engineer and software engineer: I believe the effort and risks involved with piracy are -- on average in well-off places -- simply "worth it" compared to owning physical media and "not worth it" compared to paid streaming subscriptions. It's not just about dollars, but the value proposition of the total experience. The average pirate doesn't streamline their rig with all sorts of automation to pull things into a slick xbmc derivative heuristically; rather it's a time sink and less on-demand. On the other hand, the more restrictive back catalog does keep piracy relevant for those who want less common selections.
  - rnd0 6y ago
    The arbitary nature of contracts also keeps piracy relevant for people who get exasperated at the "now you hear it, now you don't" problem with playlists. If you pirate something and make a playlist, it won't be full of holes after the next round of contract negotiations. With Spotify -it very well might.
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    I don’t want to own physical media of anything, anymore. Just the thought of it feels constraining to my and other people’s lifestyles.
  - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
    For me the time sink for finding new music is enjoyable. Listening to something that I've put a minimal amount of effort on acquiring makes the experience worth more. That's in comparison to letting algorithms play one song after another( which most likely will either repeat the same songs or just play top hits which are boring to me).
Kiro 6y ago
For electronic music producers the barrier is definitely lower and releasing one EP every other month is not uncommon. I listen to an artist that has released hundreds of songs this year alone (God's Warrior, check his Spotify or SoundCloud if you don't believe me). Every song is of incredibly high standard as well.
idlewords 6y ago
The Beatles at the height of their fame put out two albums a year, while making a bunch of movies on top of it. That pace is inconceivable in 2020, but I've never understood why.
- Marazan 6y ago
  The current streaming renumeration system favours solo singer-songwriters to an almost unfathomable degree. Multi writer bands (what you need for high output) are fucked by the revenue share model.
- asdff 6y ago
  It was inconceivable even back then, and probably had a lot to do with the Beatles burning out and parting ways after a few years in the U.S.
  - idlewords 6y ago
    It was the norm.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  It's inconceivable because the Beatles were hugely talented with two and a half very prolific song writers all playing off each other, they had enough money to stop touring and to live in the music studio, and they hired outside talent considered the "fifth Beatle". Not to mention that experiment along with the pace did not last.
  - idlewords 6y ago
    They weren't unusual in how often they put out albums, it was the music industry norm at the time, and had been for years.
    - tchaffee 6y ago
      Source? I think you'd also need to account for how many big acts had song writing factories working for them back then. Lou Reed for example worked as an in house song writer for Pickwick Records before he went on to form the Velvet Underground.
crazygringo 6y ago
> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. That's apples-to-oranges. Obviously a "hit" anything is hard in any field, by definition. A hit app is just as hard (even harder, probably, since there are a lot less hit apps than hit songs). But producing a single track? Seriously, it's not that hard. Yes, it takes a team of people and a lot of creativity and skill, but I don't know what this "incredible sacrifice" or "miracle" that is "more effort than you could ever imagine" is that you're talking about. It's a creative project like any other. But that's not even the point of the article, which is simply to release tracks piecemeal and regularly rather than in an album only occasionally. There's nothing about everyone working "that much harder". It sounds like you had a hard time in the biz, and I'm sorry. But I don't have any clue who the "geeks" are who "talk about the industry" that seems to bother you so much, and which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article. I know a lot of software engineers who are also really into the indie music scene in Brooklyn and I think everyone does understand the work bands put into their music and their touring, and that most of the bands are never going to make it beyond attracting a few dozen or couple hundred audience members at any show, but they do it because they love it.
- harikb 6y ago
  A good way to draw that line would be “what level of success is required to make a decent living, house, and typical luxuries of life” compared to your peers. For a software developer, this is not as hard as making a “hit”. A regular 9-5 job at any one of a thousand companies is enough. I don’t think that is the case for music industry though.
- sixothree 6y ago
  It sounds to me like you're making his point. You offered no insight into the process of creating music whatsoever.
  - laughinghan 6y ago
    What is the relevance of offering insight into the process of creating music? With or without insight, it's obviously apples-to-oranges to compare "working software" to a "hit record". Most "working software" is rarely used and makes no money, look at the long tail of apps in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, etc that didn't become hits.
bborud 6y ago
The thing is: there is more talent available than there is available attention, and especially _shared attention_, to go around. Success means outcompeting other musicians for a finite amount of attention. It's a gamble - and there's a good chance you won't get the attention. Even if you did the last time. Nobody is saying that it isn't hard work to create a record. That is a straw man. But someone did get up on a stage and point out that monetization of your work will require a strategy that is adapted to reality. If you want financial success you have to do different things than before. You can get angry at it and wish this was 1983 again - or you can get cracking.
tomphoolery 6y ago
<3
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
The market does not necessarily optimize for hardest sacrifice or how much energy it takes to make something. It optimizes utility and in some cases scarcity. In other words, there are many situations where how hard something is to make is not that important, what is important is the utility of the final product.
coldtea 6y ago
>Everything you listen to, unless you are willing to listen to raw demos, is a miracle. I'm more than willing to listen to raw demos, even a single guy with a guitar or a synth and a drum machine. Instead we get over-produced turds...
laughinghan 6y ago
I'm sorry that people dismiss the work it takes to make good art, that must be frustrating. It's silly to compare the ease of making "working software" with a "hit record". Just like probably most of the music you worked on as a sound engineer, most "working software" made little money and got few customers, look at the long tail of apps that aren't hits in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, etc. Even comparing "financially successful software" to "financially successful music" makes no sense. Far more musicians have made six figures or more from a song that took tens of hours to make, than indie software developers have made six figures from an app that they only spent tens of hours on. Is that because music is easier? Yet far fewer technically competent musicians are able to make a living using those skills than technically competent software developers. Is that because music is harder? It's almost like two things can require different talents, have different factors that go into their financial success, and still both be hard.
tossthere 6y ago
This is controversial for some reason, but I don’t think there’s ever been a significant demand or market for music production. The entire notion that musicians get paid to make music is a false premise. There was a market for records, not for music. What people were actually paying for was the technology to play music, and the distribution of music. When that became digitized, no significant market formed around music production for reasons that seem pretty obvious to me: 1. It is absolutely impossible for the market to ever reach a state where new music is not produced, regardless of the existence or absence of any monetary factor; and 2. I will be just as happy regardless of what is produced because my brain naturally adjusts that emotion to the scale of whatever I am perceiving. There was a huge market around distribution and licensing and technology related to music, and a lot of that went away. But that doesn’t mean musicians are entitled to a 50-billion-dollar industry around music production that never existed to begin with.
- salty_biscuits 6y ago
  Isn't it just the age old problem that most people like crap and people who like art aren't willing to pay for it?
- kmlx 6y ago
  not too long ago you were considered a sell out musician if you actually made money out of licensing deals and the like. to my memory, the mantra was that money corrupts the art.
- bazeblackwood 6y ago
  This isn't "controversial", it's just a kneejerk contrarian position from an armchair expert. It's actually hard to understate the demand for music production. You walk through any major retail store, they're playing music that is generally designed (and proven) to make you purchase more. Advertising, movies, basically any form of audio-visual entertainment would be devoid of life without music. And people demand novelty. Just because you don't personally see the value because of your "automatic brain adjustment" problem doesn't mean it isn't there. These of course, are consumerist arguments, let alone the fact that say, personal expression has been a major feature of popular music for over 500 years, and that people from all walks of life have proven time and again that they are willing to pay for the experience of live entertainment, even to change their entire life to accommodate it (think festivalgoers, Deadheads, other diehards, etc.). I mean you may as well be arguing that the economy doesn't exist—like, yeah it sort of doesn't, because currency is all just an illusion we have to agree upon to grease the wheels, but acting like that invalidates the clear societal value of music... is some willful ignorance. The music industry has grown over the past decade. I implore you to do some reading on this, maybe start with Tin Pan Alley.
silasdavis 6y ago
Tell us why (it is so hard). It's possible we won't be able to imagine but let's give it a go.
dijksterhuis 6y ago
tl;dr: Spotify performance royalties paid by PROs used to be fairer than other revenue streams, until independent labels + artists got screwed over by the major labels. ------ Story time. The streaming point values PRS for Music assigned to Spotify used to be higher per play value than many radio stations in the UK. Someone I worked with actually analysed all this and we were really surprised to discover it. Low Performing royalty revenues were not Spotify isn't paying money fairly to artists, rather Spotify knew exactly how many people streamed any given track and the royalty payout model paid based on % of total streams. So it was actually a fairer model -- if you assume number of streams is an indicator of performance copyright value. Compared this to the Radio model. A typical track played on BBC Radio could earn something like £80 for one play (depending on the time of day and the station). But that was because radio audience figures were estimated from sample data for the entire nation. And those samples changed something like every 1-2 years. 10 people in the country might actually be listening to the station at the time -- but you'd still get £80 regardless. Of course the actual total license value then becomes the big point of issue -- was Spotify being charged enough...? EMI, Sony, Warner et al. all thought no. They went and cut their own deals with Spotify. Not only was their music being treated as equal to everyone else (they didn't like that), they thought they could get a larger license revenue by dealing with Spotify directly. So the we ended up in this really weird position: PRS for Music wasn't licensing the majority of UK royalty revenue from Spotify (the majors were) but PRS did all the processing for them (eventually GEMA took over). Leaving PRS for Music with the same workload and less bargaining power during license negotiations. I bet you all £10 in my wallet that the artists Ek referred to as "happy" were on those major labels' rosters. ------ Source: I used to work for PRS doing usage level data analysis. Note 1: This was correct as of 5 years ago, certain things may have changed recently. Note 2: I'm only talking about the Performing copyright. I stayed the hell away from the mess that was Mechanical rights as much as possible. PRO: Performing Rights Organsiation streaming point values: 1pt = 1 stream for Spotify. 1pt = 1 second of music on Radio. royalty payout model: total points in a quarter * point value = total available license revenue for the quarter
matchagaucho 6y ago
Creating a "hit" in the software space would be more of an apples to apples comparison. Both music and software are crafts that take years to perfect. But adoption by an audience is never guaranteed.
embit 6y ago
In agreement. Musical creations and musical creators won’t obey you, Spotify. You obey them.
ekianjo 6y ago
> The way tech companies have abused musicians to get rich is one of the most shameful things to ever happen. Compared to what, the records major companies? I clearly remember artists were complaining about those, too. So which one is it?
8bitsrule 6y ago
Couldn't agree more. Of course Spotify would say that. The reality is much more complicated. One idea:musicians could organize around federated servers, operated at cost-plus by tech helpers. One avenue to liberate themselves from the mass-market vultures. For a recent, nuanced view of what's happened by music historian Alan Cross, try:'Ongoing History of New Music' podcast 'Trying to be a Superstar in the 21st Century'. https://omny.fm/shows/ongoing-history-of-new-music/trying-to-be-a-superstar-in-the-21st-century-1 https://omny.fm/shows/ongoing-history-of-new-music/trying-to...
monksy 6y ago
> but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. It's the same way with software. People will just vomit up anything up there and truely good, and tested, libraries and frameworks are hard to come by.
roenxi 6y ago
> It requires more effort than you could ever imagine. Unfortunately that applies to pretty much everything. Of all the things in my life, I only even know how to provide the raw materials for some of them. And I could probably replicate a lot of the software given time. Modern life is a series of miracles and all of it requires more effort than people imagine.

Kalium 6y ago

Would you be more open and accepting to commentary if there was more kindness, more love, more empathy and compassion in discussions of how the old normal is gone? Expressions of admiration and awe coupled with opining that the old multi-year release cycle doesn't work anymore, and legions of hard-working humans making sacrifices for what they love may need to change? Thank you for sharing. The world is always a better place with more human warmth.

fallingfrog 6y ago
Platitudes about humanity coupled with inaction. You should run for Congress.
- Kalium 6y ago
  It's how you tease apart if someone cares more about presentation of ideas or the substance of said ideas.
tsimionescu 6y ago
The message itself is wrong. We live in a world of plenty. We should be working less, not more. We have created more music in this century than all of the last combined. We have the ability to listen to thousands of years of music at the touch of a button. A concert that would have taken hours of work for 50 people to entertain 200 now takes nothing - a million people put on their headphones and listen to a recording made 20 years ago. And that is just music - the same plenitude is available in almost all aspects of our lives. And yet, people insist on ever more growth, on ever more work. Hopefully in the next decades, as the reality of global warming and worker empowerment gain traction, we'll realize that in fact the work week can be drastically reduced without affecting our material needs, as long we let go of this level of consumption.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > the same plenitude is available in almost all aspects of our lives. To be fair, there's orders of magnitude less plenitude in certain necessities like food and housing - still more than enough over all, but not by so large a margin that you don't get local shortfalls (especially in housing).
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    It's there, it's just not evenly distributed- or evenly zoned. As a species, we can probably produce enough to cover everyone's basic needs if we wanted to.
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      > > still more than enough over all
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  How do you think the world of plenty came about in the first place? A hell of a lot of growth and work to provide for the demands of broad consumer bases instead of the whims of some head honcho who wanted pointless setpiece folly castles or grand monuments.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    The world of plenty mostly came about from technological advancement. In my opinion, we're way past the point where we should have stopped trying to grow, in most fields. In particular in music, we're at least 2 decades past the point where the music production industry is being helpful. Also in art in general, it's interesting to think about what this world of plenty has cost us. Even if we have incomprehensibly more music available to us than any generation before say 1920, most people have actually lost the pleasure of producing their own music. In the times before recording and playing back music were common, a much larger proportion of the population would be learning how to sing and play themselves. Many more people would be composing and sharing their own stories - the almost dead world of folklore. This can also apply to a lot of crafts - we're more and more becoming dependent on industry for simple things that we would have done ourselves in centuries past. If all of this had been a way to help free us pursue other passions, it would have been good. But it seems to me that it's mostly a way to free us to do more work for other people, and that, for the average person who is not working in a job capable of using their creativity, it has started stunting a lot their creative potential, which would have found an outlet in some of these domestic pursuits in the past.

meowface 6y ago

> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. I think the same could be said of any (good) art. Art and engineering are fundamentally very different things that just can't be compared, even if there may be some mutual overlapping. (Audio/mixing/mastering engineering definitely crosses the streams more, but for the sake of argument let's just consider the entire end-to-end process of making an album, which I think is almost entirely a matter of art.) There is some degree of art involved in developing software, but if it's just getting some business app working for BigCorp, it really can't be compared to writing amazing fiction, painting a beautiful painting, directing a fantastic film, making a great album, or any other artistic endeavor. Anyone who scoffs at artists because they're not doing [technical thing] just shouldn't be paid any heed.

throwaw4y-plate 6y ago
Art isn't the kind of thing that can be solved with a clever hill-climbing algorithm, is it.
- p1esk 6y ago
  We don't know yet.
wolco 6y ago
Counterpoint is record companies are creating pop music or using audiotune without the artist quality a classic painting has.
- andybak 6y ago
  Artistry != Singing in tune In fact art != artistry It's entirely possible for somebody relatively lacking in technical ability and/or any great insight into their craft to produce something wonderful.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    > It's entirely possible for somebody relatively lacking in technical ability and/or any great insight into their craft to produce something wonderful. 100% that. Thom Yorke (Radiohead singer) has composed dozens of godly songs without even being able to read the notes (in fact, his band members are calling him the idiot savant and are asking him NOT to learn the notes at this point, as it might spoil the magic). Tricky composed some good songs without being able to read notes OR play any instrument.

searchableguy 6y ago

It's market valuing things based on scarcity. Music is in abundance right now due to lower barrier to entry for distributing and producing it than ever before. You have to provide more value than someone producing music as a hobby for free on youtube.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Good music - electrifying, change-your-life music - is still extremely scarce. But Spotify has made it even harder to find by swamping it in mediocre burger+fries music.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  I don’t buy that. Much of my favorite music is video game fan-made music; and, while that is hard to make and their skill is great, there’s a lot of that music.
- gh123man 6y ago
  I disagree. Music is subjective. In fact, the lower barrier to entry and discovery has enabled me to find my favorite music that 5 years ago I had no idea even existed. You would probably hate the music that changed my life, and I would probably not enjoy yours. I do agree that bands are getting screwed though. That's why I use Spotify for discovery and buy lots of merch when a band really lands with me (and go to live shows - pre COIVD of course).
- sweetheart 6y ago
  Huh, this is an interesting take to me. I'd say that my using Spotify has definitely increased the amount of "bad" music I listen to, but it has _drastically_ increased the amount of amazing, life-changing music I find. There are _so_ many artists I enjoy now because Spotify threw them in my Discover Weekly. By increasing the sheer amount of music I listen to, thanks to Spotify, I've increased the number of bands I love that I stumble upon, and bands I hate. It's a net win though, because I forget the shit stuff, but really, really cherish the gold I find. I'm just surprised that you feel it's _harder_ to find good music because of Spotify.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. True, but hardly apples-to-apples; it's orders of magnitude easier to make music than it is to make a viral app. In either case, the barrier to entry is low, the standard for doing it professionally is surprisingly high, and making a hit is a huge undertaking.

Dahoon 6y ago
As a musician and programmer I find the bar to make money on apps way way lower than on music. Being a good programmer brings you much closer to making money on an app than being a good musician does to get a record out. For one you don't need luck, money and the right contacts to release an app. It isn't even in the same ballpark IMHO. Pro musician is closer to "race driver" than "viral app creator".
- cheez 6y ago
  There is a musician equivalent of app creator. Where do you think music in TV shows, movies and YouTube comes from. A human musician creates it. Atleast for now...
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  20 years ago you needed all of the same stuff in software engineering, as you described in music. Things change... It costs as much to "release an app" as to "get a record out" today.
  - scrumbledober 6y ago
    But I don't need to "release an app" to make money as a programmer. I just need to work on small parts of an app that already exists and I can have a comfortable salary with reasonably good job security.
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      As a musician you can also be a wedding band, sing only covers and make a living off it. It's really not that different...

adrr 6y ago

I am curious what you think the optimal solution for music in today’s world with massive storage and high bandwidth. Spotify is paying 70% of revenue to artists. You have factor in piracy if the price is to high or the solution is inconvenient. The public has rejected DRM and songs are easily give away to their friends. Lastly, No one wants physical media.

wolco 6y ago
Artists/creators should be able to determine what they want to charge for streamed songs.
- andybak 6y ago
  And I predict that would result in a race to the bottom like it has for mobile apps.
- adrr 6y ago
  How does that work for a streaming service that charges a flat rate? Do you think public has an appetite for a pay per usage model/micro transaction model or would it drive users back to piracy? Micro transactions in online news media hasn’t managed to get any traction.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    It doesn't work for a streaming service which charges a flat rate - which is the point. Spotify is not the same as Netflix etc, because Netflix etc is commissioning and promoting new work - something Spotify has no interest in. So... you sell units, not streams. You buy a perpetual license to play a unit as many times as you want. The artist gets a royalty for the unit sale. This frontloads income around unit release, which encourages new creation, but units generate a perpetual royalty stream as part of the artist's back catalog, so artists are less likely to starve. Preview streams are available for free as tasters. Or perhaps a full taster can be played X times before it has to be bought. The player is tied to an app, but most music is now consumed on phones or in a web player, so DRM is irrelevant and there is no real loss of convenience. This model worked (more or less) for decades. The point is popular creators should be paid for full-time work. That's how you get the best work from artists. And it's not as if the economy can't support this. Operating in any other way is entirely down to politics, not economics.

enumjorge 6y ago

Yeah the CEO’s take reminds me of Jobs’s “you’re holding it wrong”. So it’s not that Spotify is not paying artists enough, it’s that artists aren’t working hard enough. And even though artists have been complaining about the money they make from streaming for years, “in private” some of them are happy. Sure.

s17n 6y ago
I don't think he was saying that artists aren't working hard enough, I think he was saying: 1. Albums don't maximize artist income - musicians should be steadily releasing new tracks. (Ironically, this is how things used to be up until the 70's, when a new technology, the LP, changed the dominant form of artistic expression.) 2. Nobody reads rolling stone anymore, mtv doesn't play music anymore, if you want a successful career you have to actively market yourself.
- rnd0 6y ago
  Even so, he's wrong according to every thing I've read on the subject. The conventional wisdom seems to be that if you're a musician the primary way you're going to be making money is through touring and selling merch at shows. Not by cutting more tracks for spotify to make a buck off of.
Bud 6y ago
Jobs never said that, so maybe avoid putting it in quotes.
- copperx 6y ago
  Does "just avoid holding it that way" satisfy you?
  - Bud 6y ago
    Of course. If people are going to make poor analogies and mock a quote that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, at least get the quote right. It's not asking too much, is it?

hardtke 6y ago

I highly recommend The Song Machine (Inside the Hit Factory) by John Seabrook. The author describes the modern reincarnation of the Brill Building that pumps out pop hits using methods that we would not call songwriting (Max Martin, Dr. Luke, etc.). The goal is to get you to listen to 30 seconds of a song (that counts as a spin on digital streaming services). They've decomposed the process into mass production of backing tracks (using pro tools) which then get handed to so-called topliners that add the "hook" (the catchy part of the song). They stick the famous artist at the beginning of the song to get you past the 30 second threshold.

taylodl 6y ago
This book is a fun read and goes a long way toward explaining why so much of today’s music is crap. It’s the difference between mass production and craftsmanship - and mass produced music just isn’t very good. Not to me anyway.
senko 6y ago
In a similar way, back in '88 KLF wrote tongue-in-cheek "manual" for writing a top pop song, a hilarious and cynical view into how a musical sausage is made: https://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ https://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/
- cauthon 6y ago
  Dubba Jonny made a whole track as a semi-satirical "tutorial" on dubstep production back when it was at its peak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzfTZlEl40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzfTZlEl40
- zebraflask 6y ago
  Still hilarious.
- sukilot 6y ago
  It blows me away how much ranting people managed to write in the typewriter era when it wasn't very easy.

pdelgallego 6y ago

Music is a winner-take-all markets. It makes it really hard for new musicians to break in. It also tend to be a sticky market, so those that have several hits remain relevant for a long time. Winner-take-all markets are reinforced by feedback loops.

kasperni 6y ago

> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. It is order of magnitudes more difficult being in the top 0.1% in Y industry. Then, being in the bottom 99.9% in Z industry. Giving that roughly the same number of people work in each industry.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

aglavine 6y ago

then you see movies like '24 hour party people' that have a different view...

Justsignedup 6y ago

Ugh I wish that anyone would understand that "just work more" is a HORRIBLE outlook on things.

throwlogon 6y ago
Demanding a "deeper, more consistent, and prolonged commitment than in the past" from people whose profession you've already made more difficult is pretty galling. It may be the case that their careers were going to get more difficult anyway; nevertheless, Ek is in fact one of the main drivers and beneficiaries.
- thephyber 6y ago
  While I don't deny that the Spotify CEO is the best person to send a message like that, I have to ask myself what life was like for musicians before Spotify (or any other low-paying streaming service). 30 Seconds to Mars made a documentary about the album they recorded in 2008 and the lawsuit they had to deal with at their record label (which had been recently purchased by a larger company that had zero music / talent experience). Their contracts seem to put them almost $1 million in debt to the record label for each album, despite the fact that they sell (err sold?) multi millions and they do worldwide tours. Sure, Spotify's CEO is a strange vessel to make more demands on musical talent, but he's also in a position to know how his customers want to consume their music and what gets them engaged in his product. I would take it for what it is and no more.

xwdv 6y ago

> Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. Haha, no. Artists aren’t some gift from God here to bestow the world with joy from the heavens that we should all marvel at. They are people who chose to learn a skill capable of outputting something suitable for consumption as entertainment. As such, it is their job to be putting out these works regularly, just like everyone else. Appreciation is nice, but doesn’t matter. Everyday people do mundane things that you have no idea how to do and probably go unappreciated, yet they are more necessary than any sort of “art”. Take art down from the pedestal please.

IncRnd 6y ago
Art is the highest pinnacle of human achievement. Perhaps, not everything you call art was made with artistry or is artistic.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  All non functional human expression is art - PERIOD. Just because you may not like my perfectly polished cube and don't see the meaning I put into it - doesn't make it "not art".
  - IncRnd 6y ago
    I understand you believe that, but art is literally that which flows from a creative expression. Creative action or expression is the definition, the etymology, and the realization of art. Artistry is that which finds expression in the creative act of expressing art. That is not the same as all non-functional human expression.
JAlexoid 6y ago
I agree that "art" isn't some kind of a uplifted thing. Certain pieces of art are uplifting. Art itself is just human expression.
jongold 6y ago
you're conflating technical ability with the rest of the creative process: intuiting narratives in the collective unconscious & channeling inspiration from a much, much greater source to make something wholly outside of the artist. that's not to say that artists are "geniuses" who should be put on pedestals, but it's a fundamentally different thing than a vocation

throwaway894345 6y ago

> I got into software to pay the bills, but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. I probably agree with you about your broader sentiment of the commodification of music for the principal benefit of tech investors is not in the interest of society as a whole; however, I don't think your bit about software/geeks served to support your point. Some people appreciate software the way you appreciate music, and perhaps they appreciate music as a sort of commodity. People have different preferences, but sometimes that creates an economic environment that isn't optimal for your own preferences.

zjaffee 6y ago

I think what the CEO is saying, and it has been an increasing trend in music for a long time now, is moving even further away from large LP releases every few years. The existence of that medium of music doesn't make sense in the current year given how people actually go about consuming music. The way to keep fans engaged involves releasing EPs and Single on a regular basis, releasing a whole album only really makes sense in the context of trying to produce it for artistic value, not fan engagement value.

gxqoz 6y ago
My impression is that there was actually some benefit to having really long streaming albums, at least if you were already a hit artist. You'd rack up more individual plays and thus more money. This only works, though, if people are coming to you and playing the album rather than being sent to a song via an algorithm. If that's the majority of your usage, a constant drip of new singles makes sense.
trekrich 6y ago
I think the CEO is right, the only reasons we have singles and LP etc is because of the constraints of the physical media. These are no longer so much of a problem.
ng12 6y ago
> The existence of that medium of music doesn't make sense in the current year given how people actually go about consuming music. I'm not convinced. The standard 3-4 minute pop song came about because that's what could fit on one side of a 78. Albums came about because an LP (33 1/2) could fit roughly 40 minutes of music, or 10-12 of those songs. These formats proved to be a popular and effective even though the technologies that created them are long obsolete.
- nsl73 6y ago
  Over 80% of my music listening is full albums, even though I haven’t played a record or CD since 2015. I really hope the medium of the album survives, because I much prefer listening to a coherent and deliberate group of songs than any other method.

jongold 6y ago

Absolutely agree. I've been playing music for basically my whole life, and am now, finally working on producing my first record of solo singer-songwriter material. Every time I thought I've been "close" over the past 18 months it turned out I still had so, so far left to go. My "scope" is creeping, sure, but it turns out there's so, so, so much work in-between "recording & mixing one voice & one guitar" and "having a really well arranged song with just the right musical details" etc. I've done a bunch of big, original projects in tech over the years, but I've never worked as hard at anything in my life as I have on this music. And I'm still barely scratching the surface of where I want my music to go long term, and I know that the closer I get to recording the music that's in my head, the more ambitious my future records will be.

prox 6y ago

I think what he is really saying is : if you want to make money, you have to be on the clock, produce every month,week, day. Welcome to the newest rat race addition (which works wonders for creativity /s ) Just as we are pivoting away from unsustainable energy, we need to pivot away from unsustainable value structures. We have the tech, we have the brainpower, now we need the will to work on that.

thephyber 6y ago
> we need to pivot away from unsustainable value structures I think it's a category error to expect the CEO of the music distributor to be the one that stands up for the sustainability of music artists. Even if you did get a "benevolent dictator" figure in that position, it would likely crumble to a competitor who is focusing more on optimizing the value+experience for the listener.
- prox 6y ago
  Probably, yes. It’s more of a political proposition and societal debate. How much do we value culture? I do agree he is probably on some expectancy rail that he cannot or doesn’t want to forgo.

tanilama 6y ago

I don't think this is disrespectful to musicians. The way people consume music has changed and for the right reason. Music now is a commodity that can be obtained in secs. This is totally different the old days when people buy tapes and CDs and use dedicated equipments just to listen music. If you are buying a CD for 15+ dollars, ofc it should contain more than a handful song. Now you can literally release any number of songs at any time, and test the water as frequently as you want.

user5994461 6y ago

>>> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. That couldn't be further from the truth, it's extremely easy to make a hit, large labels consistently release hits again and again. It's all about distribution and marketing network, not about the music. Sames goes with tech, good luck trying to make a product and garner any amount of traction, whereas the same product released from microsoft/google/aws would get millions of eyeballs right away. Thinking that good has much to do with success is a recipe to be disappointed. Go spend some time promoting your creations instead of trying to make them better.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> I wish more people, especially tech CEOs Well, you can't really blame the tech CEO here... Spotify charges people what they're willing to pay to listen to music. I think it's a minor miracle that they've worked out a way to get people to pay anything for music considering how easy music piracy has been since the internet came along. (Not taking a moral stance, just stating a fact).

hunter2_ 6y ago
Speaking as another sound engineer and software engineer: I believe the effort and risks involved with piracy are -- on average in well-off places -- simply "worth it" compared to owning physical media and "not worth it" compared to paid streaming subscriptions. It's not just about dollars, but the value proposition of the total experience. The average pirate doesn't streamline their rig with all sorts of automation to pull things into a slick xbmc derivative heuristically; rather it's a time sink and less on-demand. On the other hand, the more restrictive back catalog does keep piracy relevant for those who want less common selections.
- rnd0 6y ago
  The arbitary nature of contracts also keeps piracy relevant for people who get exasperated at the "now you hear it, now you don't" problem with playlists. If you pirate something and make a playlist, it won't be full of holes after the next round of contract negotiations. With Spotify -it very well might.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  I don’t want to own physical media of anything, anymore. Just the thought of it feels constraining to my and other people’s lifestyles.
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  For me the time sink for finding new music is enjoyable. Listening to something that I've put a minimal amount of effort on acquiring makes the experience worth more. That's in comparison to letting algorithms play one song after another( which most likely will either repeat the same songs or just play top hits which are boring to me).

Kiro 6y ago

For electronic music producers the barrier is definitely lower and releasing one EP every other month is not uncommon. I listen to an artist that has released hundreds of songs this year alone (God's Warrior, check his Spotify or SoundCloud if you don't believe me). Every song is of incredibly high standard as well.

idlewords 6y ago

The Beatles at the height of their fame put out two albums a year, while making a bunch of movies on top of it. That pace is inconceivable in 2020, but I've never understood why.

Marazan 6y ago
The current streaming renumeration system favours solo singer-songwriters to an almost unfathomable degree. Multi writer bands (what you need for high output) are fucked by the revenue share model.
asdff 6y ago
It was inconceivable even back then, and probably had a lot to do with the Beatles burning out and parting ways after a few years in the U.S.
- idlewords 6y ago
  It was the norm.
tchaffee 6y ago
It's inconceivable because the Beatles were hugely talented with two and a half very prolific song writers all playing off each other, they had enough money to stop touring and to live in the music studio, and they hired outside talent considered the "fifth Beatle". Not to mention that experiment along with the pace did not last.
- idlewords 6y ago
  They weren't unusual in how often they put out albums, it was the music industry norm at the time, and had been for years.
  - tchaffee 6y ago
    Source? I think you'd also need to account for how many big acts had song writing factories working for them back then. Lou Reed for example worked as an in house song writer for Pickwick Records before he went on to form the Velvet Underground.

crazygringo 6y ago

> It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. That's apples-to-oranges. Obviously a "hit" anything is hard in any field, by definition. A hit app is just as hard (even harder, probably, since there are a lot less hit apps than hit songs). But producing a single track? Seriously, it's not that hard. Yes, it takes a team of people and a lot of creativity and skill, but I don't know what this "incredible sacrifice" or "miracle" that is "more effort than you could ever imagine" is that you're talking about. It's a creative project like any other. But that's not even the point of the article, which is simply to release tracks piecemeal and regularly rather than in an album only occasionally. There's nothing about everyone working "that much harder". It sounds like you had a hard time in the biz, and I'm sorry. But I don't have any clue who the "geeks" are who "talk about the industry" that seems to bother you so much, and which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article. I know a lot of software engineers who are also really into the indie music scene in Brooklyn and I think everyone does understand the work bands put into their music and their touring, and that most of the bands are never going to make it beyond attracting a few dozen or couple hundred audience members at any show, but they do it because they love it.

harikb 6y ago
A good way to draw that line would be “what level of success is required to make a decent living, house, and typical luxuries of life” compared to your peers. For a software developer, this is not as hard as making a “hit”. A regular 9-5 job at any one of a thousand companies is enough. I don’t think that is the case for music industry though.
sixothree 6y ago
It sounds to me like you're making his point. You offered no insight into the process of creating music whatsoever.
- laughinghan 6y ago
  What is the relevance of offering insight into the process of creating music? With or without insight, it's obviously apples-to-oranges to compare "working software" to a "hit record". Most "working software" is rarely used and makes no money, look at the long tail of apps in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, etc that didn't become hits.

bborud 6y ago

The thing is: there is more talent available than there is available attention, and especially _shared attention_, to go around. Success means outcompeting other musicians for a finite amount of attention. It's a gamble - and there's a good chance you won't get the attention. Even if you did the last time. Nobody is saying that it isn't hard work to create a record. That is a straw man. But someone did get up on a stage and point out that monetization of your work will require a strategy that is adapted to reality. If you want financial success you have to do different things than before. You can get angry at it and wish this was 1983 again - or you can get cracking.

tomphoolery 6y ago

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

The market does not necessarily optimize for hardest sacrifice or how much energy it takes to make something. It optimizes utility and in some cases scarcity. In other words, there are many situations where how hard something is to make is not that important, what is important is the utility of the final product.

coldtea 6y ago

>Everything you listen to, unless you are willing to listen to raw demos, is a miracle. I'm more than willing to listen to raw demos, even a single guy with a guitar or a synth and a drum machine. Instead we get over-produced turds...

laughinghan 6y ago

I'm sorry that people dismiss the work it takes to make good art, that must be frustrating. It's silly to compare the ease of making "working software" with a "hit record". Just like probably most of the music you worked on as a sound engineer, most "working software" made little money and got few customers, look at the long tail of apps that aren't hits in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, etc. Even comparing "financially successful software" to "financially successful music" makes no sense. Far more musicians have made six figures or more from a song that took tens of hours to make, than indie software developers have made six figures from an app that they only spent tens of hours on. Is that because music is easier? Yet far fewer technically competent musicians are able to make a living using those skills than technically competent software developers. Is that because music is harder? It's almost like two things can require different talents, have different factors that go into their financial success, and still both be hard.

tossthere 6y ago

This is controversial for some reason, but I don’t think there’s ever been a significant demand or market for music production. The entire notion that musicians get paid to make music is a false premise. There was a market for records, not for music. What people were actually paying for was the technology to play music, and the distribution of music. When that became digitized, no significant market formed around music production for reasons that seem pretty obvious to me: 1. It is absolutely impossible for the market to ever reach a state where new music is not produced, regardless of the existence or absence of any monetary factor; and 2. I will be just as happy regardless of what is produced because my brain naturally adjusts that emotion to the scale of whatever I am perceiving. There was a huge market around distribution and licensing and technology related to music, and a lot of that went away. But that doesn’t mean musicians are entitled to a 50-billion-dollar industry around music production that never existed to begin with.

salty_biscuits 6y ago
Isn't it just the age old problem that most people like crap and people who like art aren't willing to pay for it?
kmlx 6y ago
not too long ago you were considered a sell out musician if you actually made money out of licensing deals and the like. to my memory, the mantra was that money corrupts the art.
bazeblackwood 6y ago
This isn't "controversial", it's just a kneejerk contrarian position from an armchair expert. It's actually hard to understate the demand for music production. You walk through any major retail store, they're playing music that is generally designed (and proven) to make you purchase more. Advertising, movies, basically any form of audio-visual entertainment would be devoid of life without music. And people demand novelty. Just because you don't personally see the value because of your "automatic brain adjustment" problem doesn't mean it isn't there. These of course, are consumerist arguments, let alone the fact that say, personal expression has been a major feature of popular music for over 500 years, and that people from all walks of life have proven time and again that they are willing to pay for the experience of live entertainment, even to change their entire life to accommodate it (think festivalgoers, Deadheads, other diehards, etc.). I mean you may as well be arguing that the economy doesn't exist—like, yeah it sort of doesn't, because currency is all just an illusion we have to agree upon to grease the wheels, but acting like that invalidates the clear societal value of music... is some willful ignorance. The music industry has grown over the past decade. I implore you to do some reading on this, maybe start with Tin Pan Alley.

silasdavis 6y ago

Tell us why (it is so hard). It's possible we won't be able to imagine but let's give it a go.

dijksterhuis 6y ago

tl;dr: Spotify performance royalties paid by PROs used to be fairer than other revenue streams, until independent labels + artists got screwed over by the major labels. ------ Story time. The streaming point values PRS for Music assigned to Spotify used to be higher per play value than many radio stations in the UK. Someone I worked with actually analysed all this and we were really surprised to discover it. Low Performing royalty revenues were not Spotify isn't paying money fairly to artists, rather Spotify knew exactly how many people streamed any given track and the royalty payout model paid based on % of total streams. So it was actually a fairer model -- if you assume number of streams is an indicator of performance copyright value. Compared this to the Radio model. A typical track played on BBC Radio could earn something like £80 for one play (depending on the time of day and the station). But that was because radio audience figures were estimated from sample data for the entire nation. And those samples changed something like every 1-2 years. 10 people in the country might actually be listening to the station at the time -- but you'd still get £80 regardless. Of course the actual total license value then becomes the big point of issue -- was Spotify being charged enough...? EMI, Sony, Warner et al. all thought no. They went and cut their own deals with Spotify. Not only was their music being treated as equal to everyone else (they didn't like that), they thought they could get a larger license revenue by dealing with Spotify directly. So the we ended up in this really weird position: PRS for Music wasn't licensing the majority of UK royalty revenue from Spotify (the majors were) but PRS did all the processing for them (eventually GEMA took over). Leaving PRS for Music with the same workload and less bargaining power during license negotiations. I bet you all £10 in my wallet that the artists Ek referred to as "happy" were on those major labels' rosters. ------ Source: I used to work for PRS doing usage level data analysis. Note 1: This was correct as of 5 years ago, certain things may have changed recently. Note 2: I'm only talking about the Performing copyright. I stayed the hell away from the mess that was Mechanical rights as much as possible. PRO: Performing Rights Organsiation streaming point values: 1pt = 1 stream for Spotify. 1pt = 1 second of music on Radio. royalty payout model: total points in a quarter * point value = total available license revenue for the quarter

matchagaucho 6y ago

Creating a "hit" in the software space would be more of an apples to apples comparison. Both music and software are crafts that take years to perfect. But adoption by an audience is never guaranteed.

embit 6y ago

In agreement. Musical creations and musical creators won’t obey you, Spotify. You obey them.

ekianjo 6y ago

> The way tech companies have abused musicians to get rich is one of the most shameful things to ever happen. Compared to what, the records major companies? I clearly remember artists were complaining about those, too. So which one is it?

8bitsrule 6y ago

Couldn't agree more. Of course Spotify would say that. The reality is much more complicated. One idea:musicians could organize around federated servers, operated at cost-plus by tech helpers. One avenue to liberate themselves from the mass-market vultures. For a recent, nuanced view of what's happened by music historian Alan Cross, try:'Ongoing History of New Music' podcast 'Trying to be a Superstar in the 21st Century'. https://omny.fm/shows/ongoing-history-of-new-music/trying-to-be-a-superstar-in-the-21st-century-1 https://omny.fm/shows/ongoing-history-of-new-music/trying-to...

monksy 6y ago

> but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. It's the same way with software. People will just vomit up anything up there and truely good, and tested, libraries and frameworks are hard to come by.

roenxi 6y ago

> It requires more effort than you could ever imagine. Unfortunately that applies to pretty much everything. Of all the things in my life, I only even know how to provide the raw materials for some of them. And I could probably replicate a lot of the software given time. Modern life is a series of miracles and all of it requires more effort than people imagine.