Bob,

These are good points…let’s also remind everyone that Spotify created a previously non-existent middle class.  In the last 60 years, around 2,900 major label artists (give or take 1,000) have amassed an audience and brand large enough, that to this day, they drive enough traffic to generate at least $50,000/year in Spotify streaming revenue. In 2021, Spotify paid 13,400 artists at least $50,000 in streaming revenue.  If you back out these major label artists over the last 60 years, 1,000 artists currently signed to a major label or significant indie label (that’s a generous number don’t you think?), and pad that number with an additional 1,000 artists for error and/or pre-1965 brand names still driving this kind of traffic (like Elvis), that leaves a super conservative number of 8,500 unknown artists that generated at least $50,000, just in streaming revenue, just from Spotify. This number doesn’t include streaming revenue from all the other platforms, ticket, merch, or social media revenue.  These are 8,500 indie artists who NEVER would’ve signed a label deal and who NEVER would have been on the radio prior to Spotify. These are 8,500 artists who can’t exist or at least prosper prior to 2009.

In 2022, one short year later, 16,500 artists were paid a minimum of $50,000 in streaming revenue from Spotify.  That’s a YOY gain of 3,100 artists or a whopping 23% increase!

The label system DID NOT sign, develop, and/or bring-on-line 3,100 new artists in one  year.

These are indie artists.

DMN published a whiny piece about the 2021 Spotify payout report spinning it to say that these 13,400 artists represent a paltry 0.0017% of the 8 million artists on the streaming service.  I can only think the implication was that somehow in the art and music world, every “artist” deserves to be paid, and Spotify is the bad guy because less than 1% of the “artists” are getting any kind of real revenue.  Of course, in the art and music world, 99.9% of the content is objectively SHITE!  I have a Hollywood network executive buddy, he told me they teach that if you say “NO” 80% of the time, you’ll almost always be right.

Spotify clapped back at DMN when they released their 2022 report by including a very simple criteria to identify the “professional” and “professionally aspiring” artists from everyone else on the app that wants to put their little finger painting on Spotify’s worldwide refrigerator…

Artist must have released at least 10 songs (enough to make one album)

Artist must have at least 10,000 monthly listeners (this number won’t pay anyone’s bills; this is a low bar)

Artist must have generated at least $1 in online ticket sales (to be fair, Spotify used pre-pandemic 2019 sales for this data)

The results?

2.6 million had released a minimum of 10 songs (2/3 of Spotify “artists” haven’t even released a full album!)

140,000 had a minimum of 10,000 monthly listeners

200,000 had generated at least $1 dollar of pre-pandemic digital ticket sales.

Out of 200,000 professional or professionally aspiring Spotify artists in 2022, 16,500 or 8.2% were paid at least $50,000 in streaming revenues.

Johnny Dwinell

Daredevil Production, LLC

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How is Spotify affecting anyone who owns their music from making money off their music?

The problem isn’t Spotify’s egalitarian payment system (everyone is paid if someone consumes your music and if you get as many streams as Elton, you get Elton sized payments) or its non-curated addition of 100,000 songs a day.  It’s that payments follow consumer choices.  Eg, The choice to stream your music.

Creating that demand is not Spotify’s job.

Whereas, filling the demand that exists?  Making it easy to for fans to stream your music?  Spotify is class best.

Dennis Pelowski

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Stating perhaps the obvious – but isn’t this discussion a microcosm of the moment?  An inability to acknowledge/agree on a set of facts, much less being able to have a legitimate discussion on that information?

FWIW – keep up the great work, Bob.

Bob Flint

Springfield, VT

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I suspect we may share something in common that I’m very proud of: I can accept an inconvenient truth.

It makes life much easier to live and makes me more patient with people that can’t—hopefully they have other qualities that make interactions tolerable.

Michael Aiken

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R: Mike Froedge

I am a ‘creator’ – not a ‘corp.’

And yet – I don’t see a company like Spotify as the enemy – or as ‘exploitative,’ even though it commits the cardinal sin of making money.

There seems to exist some misunderstanding on a fundamental level with the role of a service provide. But I’ve seen it before – strong dislike for a firm like Spotify that doesn’t produce widgets, but rather provides a key service to creators.

Spotify is a key provider of exposure for the fruits of creators’ labors. Theirs is a valid and important service, and I as a creator, thank them for providing it.

And no – I don’t hate them for making money in providing their service. Isn’t that ‘the American Way?!’

Manny Freiser

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There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes, and people convinced that Spotify is the enemy.

“There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.” – Louis Armstrong

David Dietrich

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I’m constantly baffled by people (like this first poster Mike Froedge) who seem to be very confused about the source of “wealth”. Ek is a billionaire because people are willing to purchase Spotify stock at a certain share price. That may or may not have anything to do with the business itself.

Sheesh…

Roy Liu

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The only cogent point he made was the discussion as to whether Spotify’s subscription price could/should be raised. I’m sure they have data through on lost subscriptions vs revenue from retained subscribers at the higher rate. Hell, I was president of a bar association and we had those same discussions related to raising our dues: will the increased annual dues exceed the lost revenue from non-renewals who don’t want to pay the higher price?

But side by side to yours, his argument fails misapply because it’s based on emotion and bogey men and not logic and math. A 4.77% net profit margin and he wants higher payments? Absurd!

Craig Davis

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I’ve done some math on this over the years. If Spotify paid what “older” folks think artists should be paid, the consumer would be spending between 4-600 dollars a month on Spotify. Young artists love Spotify because more people show up at their shows, play and simple!

Kevin King

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I believe I see where Mike Froedge is coming from with his insistence that Daniel Ek is the enemy and that you, Bob, are pretending Mr. Ek is not the enemy. My best guess is that Mike wants Spotify’s subscribers to pay a lot more for access to music so that Spotify can turn around and pay the artists and other rights holders more. This argument ignores the free, if limited, tier of Spotify and also neglects the basic principle of charging what the market will bear. If Spotify charged people $50 or $100 per month for access to the music, millions would cancel their subscriptions and go elsewhere.

I believe Mike is saying music’s inherent value greatly exceeds its potential revenue from Spotify payments. And then, as Spotify gets more and more music, each stream or thousand streams or 10 million streams, is worth less and less in payments to rights holders (including artists). Fair point. But we live in a market economy, for better and worse. Spotify can charge more if it can still make money.

Capitalism has its pitfalls, but communism, for example, works well only in ivory tower minds and maybe some kibbutzim.

If Mike wants more in payments, he can set up his own distribution system and somehow get loads and loads of subscribers.

As Mike himself says, “It is what it is.” But Ek is not the enemy. He’s just the guy with the market-leading solution. Build a better mousetrap, and Ek gets knocked off the top of the hill.

All the best,

David Arnold

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Well, you’re certainly a master of publicly cherry-picking responses which agree with your position.

LOL. Bravo!

Hell, at least Steve Jobs devised a comparatively fair business model.
With iTunes, if you consumed more music from more artists, then you paid more… As one should… And so all of those artists at least got paid accordingly.

With Spotify, etc… it doesn’t matter if you consume music from 10 artists or 10,000 artists, you still just pay the same lousy ten dollar subscription. And those 10 or 10,000 artists make essentially nothing.

If 1,000 people bought your single on iTunes (even if they never actually listened to it)… you would have grossed approx $700, after Apple took their piece of pie.
This is not a fortune, of course… But to pretty much any independent artist, 700 bucks is a pretty decent chunk of change, and will pay some bills.

If 999 people listen to your single on Spotify… you get precisely nothing. ZERO dollars, and zero cents… because since 2023, Spotify quietly changed their policy to eliminate paying ANY royalties whatsoever for a song with less than 1000 streams!

I won’t argue that streaming isn’t the future of music consumption. It absolutely is. But if the business model continues as-is, that future is going to sound increasingly bleak. Sure…
technology has democratized and cheapened (literally and metaphorically) the process of recording, mixing, and releasing music. Any half-assed hack can take a $200 laptop into their bedroom and churn out some “songs” and throw them up on Spotify. Tens of thousands do so literally every day. And the overwhelming majority of it sounds like that’s precisely what happened. It’s disposable, amateurish tripe. Hell, now you can even get AI to do it for you, and it will probably sound better!

And you’re right… Music is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. And increasingly…  they’re going to be getting their fraction of a fraction of a penny’s worth. More and more truly creative and talented people will continue to abandon music for other pursuits… tech, etc… because they can’t feed and house themselves on f*cking thin air.

I’m not a stuck-in-the-past dinosaur who longs for the days of horrible record deals, the expensive and tedious logistics of physical distribution, or any of the other BS from that era.
But something about the current status quo has to change.
We are letting “cheap and convenient” suffocate creativity and creators.
And that’s sad.

Mike Froedge
Step Up to the Mike Productions, LLC

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Mike Froedge really doesn’t get it, does he? Bravo to him for trying to score points with “creatives” and his clients, but thank god more people are becoming clued-in. It’s been said before: Keep up or get out of the way.

-Hugo Burnham

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Bob:

Let’s do the math and follow the money

– The following approximations are for purposes of this illustration:

– The minimum basic artist royalty is calculated on retail not wholesale sales;

– From 1958-1968, the average artist royalty fluctuated from a low of 3% to a high of 8%;

– Most if not all major label recordings were produced by in-house producers (until 1969 when independent producers producing recordings for majors started to emerge);

– Most, if not all of these in-house producers did not receive a royalty from the artist’s gross royalty;

– In 1972 the average independent producer royalty was approx 3%;

– Discounted retail sales prices are not taken into consideration;

– In 1985, with the advent of the CD, the average artist royalty rates starting increasing deom 12% to 15% net 12% after deduction of the 3% producer royalty;

– The most significant standard deductions are used for this illustration;

-In 1968, the growing audience for stereo FM rock radio stations combined with the additional $1.00 price for Stereo helped accelerate the phase out of selling mono record pressings;

The retail list price for an album and the artist’s net:

1958-1968: The average List Price of a record (vinyl) went from $2.98 to $3.98 (mono) and $3.98 to $4.98 (stereo) for 10-12 tracks;

From 1958-1968, the average artist royalty fluctuated from a low of 3% to a high of 8%.

$4.98 x 90% (10% breakage deduction) = $4.48 x 75% (25% packaging deduction) = $3.735 x 7% (average artist royalty of 10% minus additional deductions) = $.26145 per album = $.0217875 per track

In 1972, the retail list price of LPs increased to $5.98
$5.98 x 90%  = $5.382 x 75% = $4.065 x 9% (average artist minus 3% producer royalty)  = $.363285 per album = $.03027375 per track

In 1973, the retail list price of LPs increased to $6.98
$6.98 x 90%  = $6.282 x 75% = $4.7115 x 9% = $.424035 per album = $.03533625 per track

In 1976, the retail list price of LPs increased to $7.98
$7.98 x .90% = $7.182 x 75% = $5.3865 x 9% = $.484785  = $.04039875 per track

In 1978, the retail list price of LPs increased to $8.98
$8.98 x 90% = $8.08 x 75% = $6.06 x 9% = $.5454 = $.04545 per track

In 1984, the retail list price of LPs increased to $9.98
$9.98 x .90% = $8.982 x 75% = $5.7365 x 9% = $606285 = .05052375 per track

Compact Discs:

In 1985 the CD was introduced and the initial CD prices were as high as $20+, before settling into a range of:

1985-2000:  $13.98 (average list price)
$13.98 x 75% – $10.485 x 12% = $1.2582 = .10485 per track

CD’s 2000 – 2010: $11.98
$11.98 x 75% = $8.985 x 12% = $1.0782 = $.08985 per track

CD’s 2006-2020: $10.98
$10.98 x 75% = $8.235 x 12% = $.9882 = $.08235 per track

ITunes:
$9.99 x 75% (net of iTunes Distribution Fee) = $7.4925 x 12% = $.8991 = $.074925 per track

.99 cents per track x 75% = $.7425 x 12% = $.0891 per track

Royalty success in the record business has always been a function of small numbers (the royalty rate reduced to cents) times a large number (millions of sales)

Mechanical Royalties:

Starting in 2010, the statutory mechanical royalty rate payable to songwriters for for each composition embodied on each physical product sales and digital downloads was $0.091 per song or $1.092 for each album sold in the US

1/1/23: 12 cents per song for physical product and downloads.

1/1/24: 12.4 cents

1/1/25: 12.7 cents

Streaming:

Songwriters:

Songwriters typically earn fractions of a cent per stream, with the exact amount varying based on the streaming platform, listener location, and subscription type.

Generally, this falls within the range of $0.003 to $0.008 per stream while the current statutory mechanical royalty rate in the U.S. for each composition embodied on each physical product sald and each digital download is 12.4 cents per each download or physical copy sold per composition.

The MMA (Music Modernization Act) was supposed to help correct the songwriter streaming rate imbalance but it was all smoke and mirrors and the NMPA and the administrators of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) have enriched themselves at the expense of the songwriters who don’t have a union or guild to represent them and lobby on their behalf to adjust the inequitable streaming rate they are being paid.

Successful writers who fell out of vogue were able to live off their catalog based on statutory rate payments but the low streaming rate payments forced many of those writers to sell their catalogs

Artists:

Over the past 20 years from physical and downloads sales artists earned approx 10 cents per track vs the average artist payment per track from streaming is now between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream on Spotify or $.036 to $.06 per 12 tracks

Over the past 20 years from physical and downloads sales artists earned approx 10 cents This begs the question of whether people were willing to pay more to hold the artist’s work in their hands or have it on their hard drive or is that Spotify leveraged the success of their EU and Scandanavian beta test and in exchange for equity, the US major label sold the artists out, (the artists who didn’t have the leverage of worldwide success or a union or guild lobby and negotiate on their behalf) when the steaming rate concrete was being poured.

If AFM took up the mantle negotiated for artists as a block against the DSP’s for better artist streaming rates got the artist organized like the SAG-AFTRA members did then perhaps they would have had a chance of improving the per stream rate.  Unfortunately artists are independent by nature and while they will come together for a cause – to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa, Live Aid, 9-11, Hurricane relief,  and the LA Wildfires, they will not combine their leverage and lobby for themselves as a block.  The 1% – the highest streaming artists get better rates for themselves but will not use their capital to help get better streaming rates for other artists. THIS rising tide is only limited to a few boats!

The current rates make streaming a loss leader which at best might hopefully help drive people to see the artist live where only little money can be made, until the artist either develops into a great live performer and/or has a breakthrough streaming track.

The low royalty per stream issue may also be more emphasized by the massive number of artists on the low/no royalty end of the spectrum while the  percentage of artists on the royalty earning side may be not that different from what it’s always been,

Inevitably, the classic artist complaint of not getting any royalties from their record company had a ring of truth to it since many albums never recouped and for those that did, the smart artists pulled advances against royalties that wouldn’t be paid for months putting their royalty account back into an unrecouped state.

The few artists that had multiple albums with sustaining sales over many years overcame the cross collateralization hump and were likely the ones that had continual positive royalty statements.

Once again the lesson may be the more things change the more they stay the same

George Gilbert

In 1985 Bobby came to L.A. and told his manager he wanted to co write songs with someone and could he please have the billboard chart for that week.  I think Stevie Wonder had the number one song so he called him but did not get through.  I had the number two song, You Belong To The City, that I had co-written with Glenn Frey.  Bobby called me.  I had no idea who he was, but he was only a few blocks away so I said come on over.

I can’t think of anyone else in the world that would have found a co-writer in that bold way.

When he got to my house we smoked a joint and sat around the kitchen table.  We wrote a song called Someone That You Use To Know.  We thought it was great and Bobby said “George Jones should do this.”  Of course every songwriter thinks the greatest country singer of all should do the song they just wrote.

Years later George Jones recorded the song.

In the years we worked together Bobby told me the most amazing stories.  He told me things he was going to do.  He said he would put on a benefit concert for Ricky Nelson who was having financial problems and I would play.  He said Carl Wilson, Graham Nash, John Sebastion, Rick Danko and Chris Hillman would play.

About two months later the concert happened at the Spreckles theatre just as he said it would.

After a while I realized that every story he told me was true and everything he said he would make happen happened.

We worked together in Hollywood and I went to his wedding in Mississippi.  He took me way back in the woods to a small deserted church where he first started playing hammond B3.

We wrote a lot of songs together.

His autobiography is the best music biography I have read.

His playing and singing were like no one else, just amazing.

I was so lucky to know him.

Jack Tempchin

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Just a word on Clapton.  He is one of the most guileless people I have ever met. He was never about money or credit. Derek and the Dominoes was named that because he wanted to be out of the spotlight.

As you know, current producer agreements provide for producers to get their share of Sound Exchange royalties. Of course, back in the day, this was not anticipated and the way the laws read, you need a letter of direction from the artist in order to get Sound Exchange royalties.

I have, of course, requested these letters from all the artists I worked with as a producer. Most of them just referred to their lawyers (of course). None of them, not Dionne Warwick, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, the Bee Gees, etc. agreed to give me any Sound Exchange royalties. The one exception was Eric. He was, “Sure, you deserve them.”

—albhy galuten

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Bobby Whitlock

First met him on the Layla Sessions with Duane. Tom Dowd had brought Eric and band members to an ABB concert in Miami and next thing we knew everyone was playing together back at Criteria Studios.  Duane actually came very close to ditching the ABB and accepting an offer from Eric to join him. If he had there would not have been the ABB  Live at Fillmore East album. Yikes!  Bobby later did two albums for Capricorn. He was a kind, gentle and very talented man. RIP.

Willie Perkins

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Hi Bob,

Lovely thoughts on the great Bobby Whitlock. In my opinion, the performance that really illustrates Bobby’s talent is his performance of Bell Bottom Blues with Eric Clapton on Jools Holland. Whitlock has said that it was the experience of seeing Clapton exhibit such serenity and comfort in his own skin at those sessions that motivated him to get clean. In the performance, Whitlock handles the lead vocals and inhabits the song in a profound way with his soulfully overwrought vocals making an ideal match for the lovelorn despondency described by the lyrics. This performance illustrates Whitlock’s unique gifts as a performer and his ability to make songs his own – even love laments written by former collaborators about other musicians’ wives :).

Thanks for all of the insightful and thought-provoking messages, Bob.

Best,

Christopher Cwynar

P. S. Your point about Clapton doing better with strong collaborators is spot-on. Very incisive observation.

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Hi there Bob,

I’m a “civilian” non industry insider-“just” a music fan who had met Bobby several times. Like many, the Layla LP was the first time I encountered Bobby’s name and likeness.  Layla would be the only constant in my evolving Desert Island collection. Including discs bought as gifts for others or Special Editions (Box Sets) I’ve bought Layla at least 8 times. Bobby and Coco made Austin their home around 2006 and later in the 2010s they had a semi regular gig on Saturday afternoons at a smallish club with a great sounding room in Austin where I’m from.  I wish I’d seen Bobby and Coco more but I saw them about a dozen times over a couple of years. Always wonderful performances and somewhere around my third visit, I started arriving early and when the need arose I’d approach Bobby and offer to assist loading in amps, cases etc. So that was my introduction to Bobby and afterwards when there was time and the club was still empty we’d sometimes sit at a table and drink carbonated water with lemon or lime and chat. Bobby was a storyteller extraordinaire. It’s hard not to be slack jawed when after several sessions and you know each other a bit and he’s opening up and telling you about the state of the fireplace in the kitchen (the only source of heat for a while) at George Harrison’s Friar Park estate when the place was still under restoration. Bobby was dating Patti Boyd’s sister Jenny at the time. As a total Beatles and Clapton fan, it was fascinating to share a table with a man who could count Eric Clapton and George Harrison as roommates. We shared a love for Italian cars and tales of humorous hijinks and Stax Records. I last sat with him in either 2022 or 2023 at an Art Gallery exhibit of his paintings and later at his home in Ozona Texas (pop 2500) where he’d bought a 6000 sq foot 1920s mansion originally built by a “King of the Mohair Ranchers.” I promised to gift him a “spare Hammond organ amp” that I was using as a shelf decoration but I never made it out that way again.  He was a wonderful human; funny, gregarious, kind and deeply in love with his wife. They were a refreshingly happy couple. I feel for Coco-she is quite the home decorator and loved making a house a home for the two of them.   Bobby gifted me a 3/4 sleeve Dominos Tee shirt I happened to wear a couple of weeks ago. We still have the tunes.  We still have the tunes

Steve Wuertz Austin. Texas

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Really nice remembrance of the great Robert S. Whitlock, consummate singer /musician and absolutely one of the most underrated supporting players of the entire classic rock period.

I had the amazing good fortune as 19 year old undergraduate at Syracuse University to sit front row for the infamous Derek and the Dominos show at the Onondaga County War Memorial show on 12/2/1970. Infamous because it was one of only two Dominos concerts (the other being a show in Florida two days previous) at which Duane Allman appeared with the band…& the opening act was a last minute booking: the unannounced and virtually unknown Elton John.

The War Memorial was a classic post WW 2 sports arena which held almost 10,000 people and which practically all major rock tours of the era played. But incredibly for this show there were only about 800 people in attendance & I know that for a fact because I sold tix on campus to most War Memorial shows and I had very few takers for this one because of several key factors.

First, this Dominos tour was hastily and haphazardly booked and this show was still several weeks or more BEFORE the Layla collection was even released so not many people even knew who Derek and the Dominos were. Second, Elton John had only played a few mostly West Coast US shows previous to this and I believe that the only music he had released here at that time was the Empty Sky UK import album. Third, very typically for Syracuse in December there were ominous reports of a big snowstorm on the way so there were very light “walk up”ticket sales. And fourth, absolutely nobody had any idea that Duane would be joining the band that night.

Not surprisingly show was no less than spectacular.

Elton was pure artistry and energy and Eric and the Dominos were otherworldly.

To see the two legendary guitarists playing both twin leads and counterpoints all night was great enough; but Whitlock and the legendary Carl Radle/Jim Gordon rhythm section were equally amazing. The band was just a machine.

The show was and is one of the very, very best of hundreds I’ve seen over the course of many decades in the industry.

And I’ll never forget the revelation that Bobby Whitlock was as a co-lead singer and B3 player.

He was icing on the proverbial cake.

A truly unforgettable live music experience.

For any other Whitlock fans out there, I urge them to go to YouTube and check out the “at home” interview series Bobby recorded over the past few years with his wife Coco.

The stories he tells- from Clapton and the Dominos to George Harrison to Delaney and Bonnie to Ahmet Ertegun and Tom Dowd-are remarkable vignettes of rock history, and Whitlock is a natural raconteur.

RIP Bobby Whitlock – you were an all time great artist and made huge and essential contributions to some of the very best music of the entire classic rock era.

Stephen Dessau

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Wonderful piece on Whitlock.

Writing to add Tommy Sims as a co-writer on “Change The World”.

Tommy took a rough song idea I had in ‘97 and finished it, gloriously.

Clapton has wisely surrounded himself with outer worldly talent from the start. Rest in power, Bobby Whitlock.

DAMON JOHNSON

guitarist in Lynyrd Skynyrd

founder of Brother Cane

“The Song Was a Hit 20 Years Ago. It Just Got a Video. – Decades-old tracks by artists including Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, LL Cool J and Talking Heads are finding younger fans. Record labels hope new videos will feed their interest.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/arts/music/music-videos-talking-heads-lucy-dacus.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eE8.tKj-.PVDYQPNwr0sA&smid=url-share

The hits of yore still are…HITS!

Now in the pre-internet era it made little sense to promote ancient music, because except for a thin layer of hits, the music was unavailable at retail. However, the internet has completely changed this. All the music of recorded history is at your fingertips! (And for all you lame-o’s complaining that Spotify, et al, don’t have certain tracks, they are seemingly all available on YouTube. Gotcha is akin to internet hate…it’s irrelevant words written to make the creator feel good).

Anyway, if there’s a buzz online, people can immediately find the original track and stream it and KACHING! A payment is rendered. Which is another reason why you should never ever sell your publishing. Because you’re just one lightning strike away from its value going into the stratosphere. Queen sold its publishing rights to Sony for $1.27 billion. What would the price have been without the feature in “Wayne’s World”? Even half?

Yes, that was the paradigm of the late nineties and the first part of the twenty first century, get a sync. But now movies are dead, however, are you following the story of Huntrix, the fictional act that stars in the animated Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters”? Their track “Golden” just went to number one. And so far, has reached the Top 10 in 93 countries. That’s the power of Netflix. Meanwhile, all we hear about is the power of YouTube, how it eclipses other streamers. But YouTube can’t make a star, never ever. Stars, hits, are made on Netflix.

Now the great thing about a fictional act is you don’t have to pay them and they don’t complain. Not everything is so easy. Then again, have you even heard “Golden”? I have, it’s not for everybody. But those hits of yore ARE!

“Smoke on the Water”? Maybe the most iconic riff in hard rock history.

Now “Smoke on the Water” is not hidden, there are videos all over TikTok of people playing the song, or teaching you how to play the song, or video of Deep Purple. Kudos. But as far as original work? BUPKES!

The major labels survive on their catalogs. All paid for, it’s pure profit. But they also don’t put any money into them. There used to be compilations, but with streaming you can just pick the hit you want and anybody can create a playlist. Catalog is seen as a backwater, when in truth it should be FRONT LINE! If private equity bought a label they’d cancel new music production and milk the catalog. Does Primary Wave sign wannabe songwriters? OF COURSE NOT, THAT’S NOT WHERE THE MONEY IS!

The music labels are run by small-minded people, worried most about their salaries and bonuses. They never want to rock the boat. They’re loath to spend. But NOW is the time to maximize the catalog. NOW is the time to make new videos of classic hits that cannot only be seen online, but imitated…

Control is history. Obscurity rules. Let anybody do anything with your music. Otherwise it will languish. This is the era of personal creation, don’t hamstring the younger generation. Which is hungry for the hit music of yore because so much of today’s hit music is so damn lame.

Once again, it’s all about TikTok. Period. Too many hire a social media team which employs a firehose to send the same damn bland content to all platforms. That doesn’t work on TikTok. On TikTok it’s not so much about information as the essence, the riff. There are so many that young people would cotton to if they were just exposed to them.

You’ve got Matador making videos for ancient Lucy Dacus material, but nobody at Warner is promoting the iconic intro of “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” never mind the Gordon Lightfoot song being superior to anything Dacus has never done, never mind her group boygenius.

The riff of “Purple Haze”? I think kids today know of Hendrix, do they know the material?

These are iconic hits, but there are some songs of yore that only have double digit million streams on Spotify BECAUSE NO ONE IS MARKETING THEM!

It’s kind of like the sixties, but instead of hiring a house hippie, you should hire someone young who is fluent in TikTok, maybe a student in animation at a university. They’re plugged in and looking for opportunity.

The story of the summer is how there is no song of the summer. That oldies are dominating the chart. What this definitively proves is how damn hard it is to break a record these days. But the hits of yore, they’ve already been broken, they’re certified, and people want to hear them! Hell, there was a buzz on early Dylan after the movie, but most of his greatest material was absent and is ready for promotion. Right now “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” only has 16 million streams on Spotify. How about taking a verse and doing a “Subterranean Homesick Blues” video for it? You know, with the cards?

How about:

“While one who sings with his tongue on fire

Gargles in the rat race choir

Bent out of shape from society’s pliers

Cares not to come up any higher

But rather get you down in the hole

That he’s in”

There’s more truth and honesty in this verse than anything in the Top 10, the words still apply today, but the younger generation is mostly oblivious.

Or how about cutting just the intro to “Just the Way You Are”?

“Don’t go changin'”

That’s a viral hit just waiting to be exploited. The words fit so many situations.

All it takes is a bit of innovation and effort. This is low-hanging fruit. Do I expect everything to go viral on TikTok? Of course not, odds are low. But if you’re not playing on the service you can’t succeed.

“The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys”? That only has 11 million streams on Spotify. That haunting sound is ready to be exploited. But the label is dominated by whiners and diners trying to exploit today’s dreck, MOSTLY UNSUCCESSFULLY!

It’s your move.

LOL.

I understood perfectly, Bob.

Spotify produces nothing.

It creates nothing.

It is software designed purely for the purpose of using the work of others to generate enormous profits for its owner.

As with most large corporate entities, its business model is an exploitative one.

Its owner has become a deca-billionaire on the backs of ACTUAL creators. If paying out 70% of its revenues to artists and writers isn’t enough for their payouts to compare to Apple, Tidal, etc, then it needs to be an even higher percentage.

Or they simply aren’t charging subscribers enough.

I’ve actually been saying since day one that a lousy ten bucks or so for unlimited 24/7/365 access to basically the entire recorded history of music is an absurdly-low fee, and is ultimately unsustainable. And the more music that gets added to the service (a staggering average of 100,000 songs per day, according to many sources), the more inadequate and unsustainable it becomes.

Not sure what your personal motivation is for pretending that Ek isn’t the enemy, and that those of us standing up for fair artist compensation are, but…

It is what it is.

Mike Froedge

Step Up to the Mike Productions, LLC

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Has Napster been forgotten already? Never mind the era of Tower Records, Peaches, King Karol, ad infinitum?

Somebody needs to distribute music. And even CBS (now Sony) realized that it couldn’t do an adequate job of this, that their focus should be production, nor retail, and the company sold Discount Records.

Oh, the acts could do it by themselves… Just like the Grateful Dead with “Wake of the Flood,” an utter disaster financially, it wasn’t long before the band went back into the system. You see there’s more to distribution and retail than just manufacturing records, never mind shipping them. There’s getting retailers to buy them and then PAY FOR THEM! Those with occasional releases had hell getting paid. You’d need a steady stream of product in order to get your invoices paid, and the retailer was always behind. To the point when they went bankrupt, which they frequently did, they owed even the major labels millions. Did the owners declare personal bankruptcy? No, most had the companies incorporated and walked away with their wealth.

Now in the old days you needed a physical space with its attendant costs of water, electricity and air-conditioning as well as employees… Which is why it was always about the margins. The difference between what you paid the distributor/wholesaler versus what you charged the customer. Same deal with Spotify.

However, Spotify has the advantage of being an internet company, with little physical space cost. Kind of like the people making the music, who can do so on their computers, costs have gone down. Also, Spotify can scale around the world relatively cheaply, as can your music. Good luck getting your music in a retail store in Uzbekistan or Chile, hell, here’s a list of the nations where Spotify operates:

https://www.spotify.com/us/select-your-country-region/

But they’re not the only ones. You’ve got Apple and Microsoft and Facebook and…the list of tech companies operating around the world is huge. And many of their creating entrepreneurs have become billionaires, some the richest people in the world. But if you make your money by distributing music, YOU’RE THE ENEMY! Never mind Daniel Ek single-handedly saved monetized music distribution, before Spotify piracy ruled. As for competing companies, none could come up with a solution, hobbled by limits from copy protection to price.

As for price… Venerated hero Steve Jobs refused to raise the price at the iTunes Store when implored to do so by the money-hungry/greedy labels. He said he was building a business and they wanted to kill it. There comes a point at which people say no. Otherwise everybody would be driving a Mercedes-Benz. The value of music is what people are willing to pay for it, not a penny more.

And here we have America in a nutshell. Everybody gets their information from a different source and believes they’re right. And if you’re Ticketmaster or Spotify or anybody dealing with the public today you know that the customer is not always right, and should be ignored. This is kind of like the Democrats…you’re better educated with greater powers of analysis, luxuriate in this instead of constantly tearing out your hair trying to convince people of the truth, enlighten them when they prefer to live in the dark.

If you want to enlighten someone, employ art, it’s the most powerful tool. It’s based on speaking truth. But where is said truth today? Other than purveyed by people who can’t sing, write or play who e-mail me their songs telling me that the public needs to hear them. No, you have to make the music so irresistible that people pull it, don’t have it pushed upon them. And in order for your message to be believed, you must be trustworthy and honest, credible, you cannot take money and be a tool of the Fortune 500. But just like with Napster, people have forgotten about the sixties and the golden era of classic rock, and how music moved the world.

People are clamoring for great music, great art. If they find it they tell everybody they know about it, they believe in it. How many can excite the populace? Very few, but that’s the artist’s job, not making a living…making a living comes AFTER!

One more thing… If you’ve got a problem with Spotify and Daniel Ek, create your own music distribution platform, no one is holding you back. So far, no one has been able to compete with Spotify, which keeps nimble and innovative, since there’s no royalties from other enterprises to keep the company afloat. People CHOOSE to subscribe to Spotify.

And you can choose to become a business person. And most make more money than the artists. Then again, Clive Calder, who had the biggest financial victory in the history of the music business, is unknown to youngsters today, whereas the songs he purveyed…hell, Backstreet Boys are still playing the Sphere!

You make your choice. If you want to make bank, you probably shouldn’t become a social worker. Then again, being a social worker can be extremely fulfilling.

But everybody wants what everybody else has, someone is holding them back…when the dirty little secret is you are holding yourself back.

Do you have the wherewithal to complete umpteen years of schooling? The networking ability to make things happen? I believe in a social safety net, everybody is entitled to a roof over their head and food on the table. But not everybody is entitled to be rich. That’s your responsibility. Life isn’t fair, but if you want to be wealthy just don’t sit at home and do the same thing and complain, CHANGE! Never mind work harder and sacrifice. Or be happy where you are.

But seemingly nobody is.

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You need to keep repeating your message.  There is a false narrative that needs to end.

The music industry is a popularity contest.  Always has been.  It doesn’t matter the genre, format, or monetization model.  If you are popular, you make money.

Sinatra, Elvis, Beatles, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Madonna, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and on and on.  Popular = $$$

Scott Cohen

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I can’t tell you how often I’ve explained the “no-such-thing-as-a-streaming-rate” thing to songwriters and, as simple as the concept is, they can’t/won’t accept it. In their minds they are being cheated. And don’t get me started on what they think about Spotify taking a cut for operating costs.

Michael Battiston
Previously Director of Copyright and Music Usage at ASCAP.

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Seeing these responses to your articles about Spotify reminded me of something…. a few years ago I was teaching part time at a college for recording arts. I had students for music production, songwriting and engineering, some music business, etc. Every single quarter I’d ask the same question… “what do you think is the reason most artists fail in their goal to become successful in music, in this case let’s define successful as being able to quit your day job and make a living solely from music”?

I would listen as each student gave their answers….

“bad management”

“drug problems”

“couldn’t get a break”

“not enough promotion”

And on and on and on; I then gave MY answer, which was simple. They aren’t good enough. Never once did I hear that come from a student first and when I said it they all looked a little surprised and maybe even taken aback. I used the example of “if Jimi Hendrix was on the street corner outside playing guitar don’t you think a crowd would probably gather?” I’m not saying talent always wins but true exceptionalism very often does and the lack of it usually doesn’t. Not that every act currently on the pop

charts is oozing with talent, but the ones who aren’t are often working with writers and producers who are, even if the music might not be my thing. I just thought it was important to remind these kids that NOT EVERYONE IS GOOD ENOUGH. Art isn’t democracy, where one person gets one vote. Some people are just better at art than others!

Most work their asses off to be that good, some are just kinda born with it, it’s not fair, get used to it!

I will say as a guy who was a little kid in the ’60’s, my generation is pretty much responsible for this attitude because my generation was the first to grow up with that sense of entitlement… “if you can dream it you can do it!” “everyone gets a medal just for TRYING”, etc. My parents generation was a little different, I think their mantra was “if you work your ass off for your entire life then maybe you won’t starve to death or get killed by the Nazis”. I understand why people are pissed off reading what you write on this subject but the numbers don’t lie. I’m working with a completely independent artist right now, no label, no publisher, we split everything 50/50 just like I do with sync music. Several of our songs are over a million and the money coming in is cool, not like 90’s platinum record cool but cool. If she continues like this it will be amazing- but it’s happening because she’s exceptional and works her ass off and apparently people want to listen to her music.

Kevin Bowe

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Living wage or better is for those who actually work in the music business and many do well. I co-own a booking agency here in Florida and we book 300+ shows a month in our area. It’s mainly singles and duo’s, but these guys and girls are making a good living and the market is healthy here for the most part. The other problem is most of these complainers don’t even know how to get their money even if they are getting decent streams. I talk with artists all the time who haven’t registered their songs with a PRO and don’t have a clue about the MLC or SoundExchange. We are flooded with Hobbyists. I have a number of friends in known bands that work other jobs when they are off the road. Look, all the great songs have been written, all the great movies have been done. Not to say that someone might get lucky once in a while, but everything is a retread. We saw it, we lived it, we’re lucky. Onward.

B Chapin

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Thank you for continuing to fact check these ridiculous, never ending, claims that Spotify pays a worse “per stream rate” than Apple or Tidal.  Same conversation for 20 years now – in spite of Spotify’s efforts to explain their model, most people have no idea how a shared pool model works.

Michael Abbatista

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Hi Bob — I truly do not have much sympathy for musicians who complain that they are not getting paid much for streams.

Back in the “old days,” when a top 40 station, say, WLS, added a record, it would get played, maybe, 12-15 times a day.  Each play reached an audience of, say, 800,000 or more listeners. A chart record would be played on, say, 200 top 40 stations around the country.

Today, one stream on Spotify or any other service, reaches one listener.

Even a spin on a juke box in a tavern or teen club, reached more listeners than one stream on Spotify.

Do the math.

Jim Charne

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Spot on Bob

Again  you hit all the basic data points

that it’s more emotion than fact. That people not only don’t know basic math, but they hate it because it’s neutral to feelings

You also remind us that in this “imaginary golden age”, Mythologized by rock ‘n’ roll movies and stories of trashed hotel rooms, the majority of artists never got royalties and tons of them were ripped off so badly It’s not funny.

The big difference however was the record companies were not yet grabbing touring revenue -360 deals were not even a thought- so many acts that were excellent live (or even just decent), made fortunes, bought their houses & jets , had the rockstar life, but it was touring money they made.

The biggest thing…. You brought this up the other day, there was a time when going to a studio was absolutely Unreachable for the vast majority of Musicians, the expense to just lay down a little 4-song demo was a huge amount of money and inaccessible to most.

What a lot of musicians refuse to acknowledge is that in any other economic venture, for any other commodity, even in any other art; if the costs of production dropped as far as they have for Musicians, while the number of people now creating that commodity exploded —- the remuneration for said commodity would approach zero.

Today with a $200 Mac from a pawnshop, a 10-year-old interface and a couple microphones, you have more studio power than artists During most of the last century. And there are top ten hits done on GarageBand, like it or not

With free synthesizer plug-ins, free compressors and reverb units, free effects processor, free mastering software, free, free, free, free free. Free storage & distro online. Free word processing & spreadsheet software. These were all costs of doing business not long ago. Free Gmail and Instagram to promote with.

Bandcamp Is essentially free, some would argue that taking the percentage is a cost, but that is a debatable concept.

We have all this FREE stuff and yet no one wants to admit that that means the COST of production has shrunk astronomically. Meaning the entry point bar is low, so there are infinitely more people creating the product we are trying to sell, vs “the golden age” of 1975. But people HATE THE MATH.

Basically, if everyone had a brick oven in their house, every single person…. and a cheap or free supply of flour, spices, cheese and tomato sauce……Slices of pizza would be worth a nickel. If that!! Pizzeria owners will understand that the math is the math, but Musicians would complain that somebody moved their cheese

Thank you
Andre´Cholmondeley

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Alright Bob, that was an excellent rant!  I have been reading your blog for years… but this one you spelled it out so clearly…particularly the Spotify math concept… I’m grateful to understand it now.  Thanks!

Cheers,
– Brett Currie

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Good God, Bob, that you have to explain this SIMPLE TRUTH ad nauseum to imbeciles, is truly pathetic.

You have incredible patience, not to mention balls of steel to put up with the blowback.

WAKE UP, PEOPLE.

DG