The company has lost control of the narrative.

That’s what we see online more and more, entities that speak to their users in the new world, but have no presence in the old. Spotify users are not complaining, content creators are. Spotify is no different from Barack Obama, who let the media define him, to the point where his own party was running away from him. You’ve got to control the story or the story will control you. And the story controlling Spotify is that it rips off artists.

P2P rips off artists.

YouTube rips off artists worse than Spotify is perceived to do. But somehow YouTube is a panacea and Spotify is the enemy. And those in power know this, read Adele’s manager Jonathan Dickins’s comments here:

“‘Spotify have always been pictured as the bad guys in this, but the biggest music streamer out there is YouTube, without a doubt,” he said, pointing out that when artists or labels remove music from Spotify, it is often still easy to find it on YouTube.

‘If I make a search now for Taylor Swift on YouTube, give me 30 seconds and I can have the whole Taylor Swift album there streamed. Some of it’s ad-supported, so there is revenue, and some of it’s not,” he said.

‘On the one hand, labels are trumpeting YouTube as a marketing tool: 10 million views on YouTube and it’s a marketing stroke of genius. But on the other hand they’re looking at 10 million streams on Spotify and saying that’s x amount of lost sales.'”

Adele’s manager: ‘Streaming’s the future, whether people like it or not’

Dickens is dealing with practical reality, wanker musicians are living in a fantasy world. First and foremost, Spotify is a piracy killer. As Michael Eisner once said, 10% of the public will never pay, but the rest…convenience triumphs, Spotify users stop stealing, because everything’s there.

To reinforce the point, what is the alternative?

Let’s say we kill Spotify and other streaming services. That will drive people to YouTube where artists get paid less, and P2P where they don’t get paid at all.

Sure, we’d all like to live in a perfect world where everybody pays $15 for an album’s worth of music, but we’d also like to live in a world where gas is a dollar a gallon and you can get somebody to fix your gadgets. Things change. Something is lost in every march forward. To cry about the loss of the past is to marginalize yourself. Yes, artists are marginalizing themselves keeping their music off Spotify, they certainly are not helping themselves. Sure, sales continue, but not for long. Know anybody using a dialup modem these days?

Then there’s the music publisher Kobalt, which represents superstars Max Martin and Paul McCartney amongst many others, the company says “its writers earned 13% more from Spotify streams in Europe during the first quarter of 2014 than they did from iTunes downloads on the continent.”

“Spotify Royalty Payments Outpace iTunes in Some Markets”

iTunes is dying. The main culprit is YouTube, but Luddites not only blame Spotify, they want a return to a service they decried at inception. Suddenly the album was unbundled, revenues were down, remember when iTunes was the enemy?

Spotify won’t be the enemy for long. It’s always the same. Time marches on and new services gain scale, Jonathan Dickens knows this, but somehow Davids Byrne and Lowery do not. We idolize musicians, successful ones trump techies in adulation, but that does not make them right. Furthermore, these old acts are victims of bad deals where the lion’s share of the dough goes to the label.

As for labels owning a share of Spotify… That does not reduce your royalties, that comes out of the 30% Spotify keeps.

As for Aloe Blacc decrying his songwriting royalties…they’re calculated differently for radio than choose your own track services. In other words, songwriting royalties are higher on Spotify. However, they are still anemic as a percentage of overall revenue. But this is an issue that must be addressed by the government, the government screwed this up. Hopefully Irving Azoff will help. Meanwhile, do you remember e-mailing the government to keep Pandora alive? Yup, you same Spotify-haters? Well, you’re part of the problem, you played into Tim Westergren’s hand, but you seemingly don’t remember this.

How could Jonathan Dickens be so right and the rabble-rousers online be so wrong?

That’s the difference between the smart and the dumb, the haves and the have-nots, the informed and the uninformed. Just like with tech help, you’re on your own today, no one is going to spoon-feed you information. You’re responsible for educating yourself, all the info is online. If you just glom on to inflammatory posts and promote them you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And I have sympathy for Dickens and Scott Borchetta at Big Machine when they desire to have their wares removed from Spotify’s free tier. The only problem is that eradicates all the progress Spotify has made against piracy. Put it behind a paywall and people will find a way to steal it. Or they’ll just stream it on YouTube for less, or nothing. And Spotify’s conversion rate, from free to paid, increased when they made the mobile app free!

I’m not being paid by Spotify. I’m just dispassionately looking at the facts. Hell, if the labels had approved the U.S. launch of Spotify before music on YouTube got traction, the service would have even more paying customers.

People who put brakes on the future end up screwing themselves.

Streaming is here to stay. Revenues will only go up. The goal is to get as many people to pay as possible, to increase the pot. Tech is all about scale. There are billions of people in the world, tech reaches almost all of them, a few shekels from all trumps a lot of shekels from a few. Yes, getting everybody to pay for streaming trumps getting a few to overpay for ownership.

But that’s hard for artists to understand. Who yearn for a world where the label would be their daddy, where radio would force feed their product to fans so not only would albums sell, the acts could tour.

But the labels were hurt by P2P which they could not even see. Radio has so many competitors that a good percentage of the public has never even heard #1. And the barrier to entry is so low that artists today are competing with many more competitors, never mind the complete history of recorded music, and the audience is overwhelmed by choice.

Spotify puts some discipline in the system. Its playlists add coherence. It pays artists.

If you can’t see this as a good thing, you’re blind.

You’ve got to listen to this on headphones.

And while you’re at it, get a subscription to Tidal or Deezer Elite, to immerse yourself in the sound, because that’s what it’s about…the organ, the guitars, they’re so exquisite you’ll smile as the band lays down in the pocket.

Taylor Swift may have sold a million albums, but most LPs go unlistened to. Used to be you paid for it, you played it. Back when music was scarce. But now with everything available we’re inveterate grazers, it’s hard to get us to stop and stay without excellence, and I’d be lying if I told you Jackson Browne’s new album “Standing In The Breach” was excellent.

The truth is happiness does not beget riveting personal testimony, we don’t like to hear exhortations of how in love you are, especially when we’re still searching ourselves, especially when odds are you’re gonna break up and be back where we are eventually, if not soon.

But Jackson Browne is no longer in his twenties, he’s on the far side of sixty five, and last time I checked he was in a long term relationship, but he’s still angry, about the world situation.

That’s the story of today, the election. I like to see it as dissatisfaction with business as usual, a desire to shake things up. Otherwise it’s too depressing, people voting against their interests, giving more power to people who don’t care about them.

And Jackson feels the same way.

There’s a restlessness out in the street there’s a question in the air
How long if this theft goes on will our country still be here?

They might still call it the United States, but I barely recognize it. Sure, forty five years ago you didn’t want to venture in your VW microbus south of the Mason-Dixon Line with long hair, but you knew if you were broke down and busted on the side of the road you’d be taken care of. And when you got back on your feet you could get a job flipping burgers, digging ditches, and you’d be able to put a roof over your head and food on your plate. But those days are through. Today poverty is only a slip away, a return to your parents’ basement, as they parade winners in front of your eyes and you wonder if you’ve even got a chance.

Come on come on come on if you’re coming
Which side – which side are you on?

We all used to be on the same side. We’d never seen a Ferrari in real life, there was no such thing as private jets, we paid our taxes and were all in it together, at least the baby boomers.

Yes, the way the younger generation is addicted to its mobile devices, we were addicted to our stereos. That was our goal, to get a big rig. Everybody had a device to play discs and you saved your money for something better, to get closer to the sound.

And you can get closer to the sound again. We’re now delivering everything you want but you’re too cheap to partake of. Ain’t that how it always is, people want to bitch. That’s right, you’re no longer relegated to MP3s, but are you willing to lay down $20 a month for pure sound?

You should.

Because your life will change. That’s the power of music.

Not the stuff you hear on pop radio, compressed crap, but stuff made by people who’ve spent their lives learning how to play, who’ve spent money and time to get it right.

That’s right, you’ll listen to “Which Side?” in CD quality with no disc and the election will fall away, it’s aural dope.

Come on, you remember the Beatles, you remember Ed Sullivan, when you saved your shekels and bought a guitar, when everybody was in a band, when your only goal was to work in music, to be closer to the sound…that era is here again.

No joke.

He has to sing at a lower pitch, but he’s putting one foot in front of another, he’s no longer sure of the direction, but credit Jackson Browne for soldiering on, for trying. That’s right you can just go on the road and play your greatest hits but that’s all about money, that’s not about art.

And I blame the audience as well. Is that what it comes down to? Going to the shed to hear the songs of your youth? It gets creepy after a while. We yearn for something new.

And Jackson Browne’s “Standing In The Breach” does not deliver.

It came and went almost instantly. I played a few cuts and moved on. There’s too much new stuff to experience. But late one night doing my back exercises with my headphones on I decided to give it a full chance, and that’s when I discovered “Which Side?”

Jackson screwed it up. It was an Occupy anthem. It was acoustic and edgy. It wasn’t quite the new “We Can’t Make It Here,” but it was on the continuum. Now in its slick, studio iteration the rough edges are smoothed over, the message is submerged, but the sound is PURE MAGIC!

That’s right, life is full of contradictions, it’s nearly inexplicable. But the truth is “Which Side?” is a thread pulling you down into wonderland, somewhere you remember but rarely visit anymore.

But you have to listen on headphones, via CD quality streaming.

Which side?

Music used to be on the right side, not only the makers, but the listeners. We questioned authority, which you should always do, we strove for a better society, not only personal achievement.

In search of El Dorado, but you haven’t found it yet

We’re all searching. There are so few opportunities, but we’ve still got our dreams. I want yours to come true.

Or you might be an old man with his whole life at his back

That’s what’s so scary. My generation is trying to deny the shifting sands of time, they think if they just get plastic surgery, wear hip clothing and refuse to go to the doctor they’ll live forever. If only it were so.

But you know that it’s coming, as surely as the dawn
The battle for the future, baby, which side are you on?

Stop with the CDs. Stop with the anti-streaming rhetoric. The first path to victory and happiness is a refusal to deny the future, and the future is here.

Can we all get on the same page people?

Can we stop keeping each other down as the rich carry the ball to the goal line unopposed?

Can we save not only ourselves, but the music?

That’s right, it’s up to you.

You have to insist it be made by artists, people who’ve practiced, people who have something to say, who aren’t only in it for the cash. You have to ensure that first and foremost it be ear-pleasing.

Like “Which Side?.”

The bankers and their special friends
Who rob you time and again
Who like to pretend they’re the only game in town
Or the people who
Hope with everything they do
They can build something new
And turn this world around

Which Side? – Spotify

Jackson Browne and Dawes “Which Side?” live and acoustic

 

Tidal – 7 day free trial

Deezer Elite

It’s cold here.

I know that sounds ridiculous, to complain about the weather in Los Angeles, but I was just in Bilbao where they were having a hot streak, it was in the eighties, which felt comfortable, because that’s what I’d been experiencing at home, but then I came back and had to turn on the heat.

That’s when the fall begins, when I can’t wear my shorts and I can’t sleep without the heat. I try to stretch it as long as possible, you’ll catch me in my short pants in November, but usually I’ve got to crank the thermostat by the third week of October, but not this unseasonably warm year, but when I got home from Spain, there was a nip in the air.

And then it started getting dark an hour early.

I thought I loved winter, now I can’t wait for summer to return.

You see I used to live ignorantly on the east coast. People didn’t travel back then like they do today. This was before airline deregulation. I’d been around, but I had no idea that it could truly be so warm in the winter. My first December in Los Angeles I wouldn’t wear anything heavier than a jean jacket, something I didn’t break out in Vermont until May. Well, maybe some borderline days in April. In the east, you’re optimistic.

But there’s no worse month in Vermont than November. It’s not quite cold enough to snow, but it is cold enough to freeze your tootsies off.

How depressing. That’s what I like about getting older, the lack of depression. Being young sucks. Your body works, but you’re confronted with so many questions, life is a blank slate, for all the winners we read about in the press there’s a plethora of losers, or lost.

And there’s nothing worse than graduating from college. Everybody’s in your business and then suddenly they’re not. That’s when you become an adult, when you no longer go to school, when you no longer are beholden to the administration, never mind your parents.

But before that…

College is weird. There are infrequent tests. Very little classroom time. Your schedule is your own. You’re champing at the bit to get out and start your life, but you’re revving in neutral, it’s so depressing.

Then again, I went to college in the dark ages. Literally, with no TV, never mind internet or Netflix. Campuses did not compete on facilities, there was no exotic food, never mind StairMasters. Hell, we didn’t even have telephones in our rooms!

All we had was each other. If you weren’t a conversationalist you’d have to drop out, there were no diversions, just the four walls. You had to come out of your shell.

I think about all this when the clocks change. When suddenly it’s dark while you’re still doing your business. Driving home in L.A., walking to dinner at Middlebury. And it’s never quite bright, the sun is at an angle such that despite what the thermometer says, er, the weather app, it doesn’t feel that warm, the app says it’s 70, but I was chilled walking to my car just now.

At least we’re all connected. The world has gotten smaller. But we’ve lost some freedom along the way. Not only our privacy, with Big Brother watching, but the ability to be alone with our thoughts, to feel. Used to be if you were waiting for a bus, before everybody had a car, you couldn’t divert yourself with your phone, you just had to kick the curb and be alone with your thoughts, it made us who we are.

And I’m not sure who everybody is anymore. We seem to have winners and losers. The winners drop out of college and succeed, those who graduate don’t spend time finding themselves, but start their careers. And those without advantages, those who screw up, don’t realize their permanent record is going to hold them back forever.

They talk more on the east coast, they make better friends. It’s because of the weather, all we have is each other.

And you can take the boy to California but he still remembers…when darkness closed in and depression loomed and you sat in the overheated buildings listening to records just waiting for it to get warm outside.

“Taylor Swift Pulls Her Music From Spotify”

This is about money.

Not in the album, that’s bupkes compared to the tour!

In other words, Taylor Swift is not selling a million plus albums this week to get rich on the sales, but to get rich on the penumbra. I.e. the tours, the endorsements, all the tchotchkes and change that come to the doorstep of America’s most successful pop star. It’s about the publicity, baby, and who cares if anybody streams her music on Spotify.

Spat, schmat. What we’ve learned in music is early adopters pay a price. That you’re best off waiting for others to blaze the trail and then walking through the door and getting all the money. It’s kind of like that joke about the baby bull and the papa bull and the cows down in the meadow…those who run get less.

Streaming has won, if you’re talking about how people listen to recorded music. According to the RIAA, “These streaming services contributed 27% of total industry revenues in 1H 2014, compared with 20% for 1H 2013. The growth in revenues from streaming services offset the entire decline in revenues from permanent downloads for the first half of 2014.”

(They define streaming as including not only Spotify and its ilk, but SiriusXM and Pandora and YouTube and…”Streaming music services grew 28% in the first half of 2014 to $859 million, versus $673 million for 1H 2013.”)

2014 Mid-Year RIAA Shipment and Revenue Statistics

 

So Taylor Swift cannot turn back the hands of time, but she doesn’t want to (at least not financially, as she herself has declared, her new album is retro).

So there’s no story here. Other than one that can be trumped up by the media to further burnish Taylor’s career/money-making machine. The facts don’t matter, whether she had a spat with Spotify or not. The truth is Taylor Swift owns the news cycle, and he who reaches the most people wins today.

So on one hand we’ve got Ms. Swift. Whose scorched earth publicity campaign will end up putting the weekly sales crown on her head, the only 2014 debut to sell platinum in one week. If that’s a statistic that tickles your fancy, you seem to have forgotten what ‘N Sync achieved fifteen years ago. But that was a different era. One in which MTV still mattered, however briefly thereafter, most people did not have broadband and we knew and cared who was number one, we were living in a monoculture.

But today we live in a multifarious world where we come together on so few things. Taylor Swift is a rallying point, someone we can talk about, but it’s got nothing to do with her music and everything to do with the publicity. Selling a million copies a week in a country of 300 million people is a blip on the radar screen, but owning the news cycle, even trumping the World Series, is priceless.

As for Spotify…

Acts come and go, institutions remain.

How long a career will Taylor Swift have? She can tour until she drops, as to whether people will care about her new music…

Does anybody care about Bob Seger’s new music? The Luddite finally on iTunes and not on Spotify? Absolutely not. At some point the zeitgeist passes you by.

But Taylor Swift owns the zeitgeist this week.

But Spotify owns the zeitgeist in the future.

You might think it’s Taylor Swift’s world and we only live in it, but the truth is it’s streaming music’s world and we not only live in it, we love it!