Spotify - anyone heard of it?

It sort of waters down the significance of the Wrapped data. I mean "Red Clay" starts auto-playing every time I finish listening to a Jazz album, but if "Red Clay" ends up as my top track then what value is that info?

you can turn off autoplay for the pure wrapped experience

It's super weird. For example, it says I listened to the Cure more than any other single artist, putting me in the top 3% of Cure listeners. I did listen to them a bunch this year, because the band was touring, but I'm kind of surprised they were the top act I listened to all year. Likewise, toward the top of my songs of the year, there's a track by Justin Townes Earle that I've literally never played on purpose (afaik). So sure, it's possible the automatic player played it multiple times throughout the year, but you'd think there would be songs I played on purpose that I heard more, asleep or no, than songs picked for me.

3108 different songs played this year, the majority of them probably only once or twice, but out of that number surely songs I've played on purpose would place higher than songs I accidentally heard. Right? The most played songs list doesn't say how many times I listen to each song, does it? I assume the vast majority of them are tied at one listen.

I will say that I've spent the last two days investigating Wrapped complaints, of which "my top x is wrong" is a common form, and the data is always what it says it is. The real-world explanations are various, including one person who concluded their phone was left playing Spotify in the purse of their bridesmaid during their wedding.

One weird thing--my kid has been playing a Spotify playlist of Dan Bull minecraft raps over and over for months through the Alexa device. I was certain those would be my top songs, but they weren't. Thank god. Still, odd.

re: The most played songs list doesn't say how many times I listen to each song, does it?

it does if you pay attention to your Spotify Wrapped promo results, only for Number 1 though

x number of plays starting on X date

xpost That's the sort of thing I wonder about, too. There are a few songs I'm pretty sure I played a bunch this year as a joke/punchline, like Uptown Funk. (I actually still like that song a lot, but I find it funny to interrupt/disrupt my daughter's Taylor Swift listening with it.)

I wonder if anything is thrown off by the fact that I mostly listen to albums? If I listen to two albums by one band, and each of those albums has 20 songs, and listen to three other albums by a second band, and each of those albums only have 10 songs, will the data say I listened to the first band more than the second?

many clients send songs to other users playing songs you've recently heard, right? I wonder if sometimes there's a glitch counting those transmissions as plays.

my top 5 songs are from Jessy Lanza's new record. It's great and all but I must've fallen asleep with it on repeat. Top .05% fans! <3

I'm no longer using spotify, but back when I did wrapped was never particularly interesting to me mostly because the top tracks were inevitably always whatever songs my kids were obsessed with + a bunch tracks kept being being pushed by auto-play. I don't tend to listen to some track or album obsessively so my own personal favorites can't ever really compete.

"What Is Love (7" mix)" by Haddaway made my top 20 thanks to my partner's habit of asking the smart speaker in the kitchen (linked to my account, not hers) for that tune as a recurring joke. (I think she actually loves Haddaway). Slips in nicely next to Harold Budd, Pye Corner Audio and Christina Vantzou.

Wait. People actually complain to Spotify that their Wrapped top songs are wrong?! xps

And to ILM!

My Wrapped is always skewed by ambient/drone artists as intend to listen to them every night to fall asleep and sometimes forget to set a sleep timer.

That said, Selfish Soul & 18 and Over made my top 5 which feels right as they've been two of the constants on my 'current' playlist the entire year

ILM seems perfectly valid, like you might discuss/bitch about them to your mates too xp

But actually emailing Spotify to complain seems sheesh. Assume it's people wanting to share their exemplary music taste.on social media being ruined by Baby Shark or whatever appearing in their Top 5

I wonder if people think someone's hacked their account. I had to change my password after I noticed all this Latin Trap music in my recently played songs.

People complain about everything. Just, in general.

Automatic plays are a form of marketing, and Spotify Wrapped is a form of marketing. You are being advertised to. It's not a scientific study of anything. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the data from Wrapped Top Tracks to demonstrate the effectiveness of Autoplay as a marketing tool.

Really don't need you giving "them" more ideas.

this is an interesting idea from Amelia Fletcher:

In a user-centric model, “each subscriber’s payment would be shared proportionally between the tracks that individual listens to,” explains Fletcher. “So if you have someone who’s really enthusiastic about indie music, that money would get shared out among the artists that they listen to. More would be allocated per track if they listen carefully to fewer tracks than if they just have music playing all the time in the background.”

seems fair!

How would you measure that, though?

"Spotify should pay artists more" is not in itself a substantive assertion.

yeah it is actually

just admit that the company you work for has a business model of exploiting the artists who provide the majority of the value of the service. really simple and obvious point irrespective of how we might differ in terms of a solution.

i work for an evil company too, okay? it's okay.

otm, just because the laws "as written" let the company rip their content creators off doesn't mean it's the right thing for the company to be doing.

I know several small-scale musicians who are just so bummed out about the streaming model, just more chipping away at the revenue for people who are on the bottom of the food chain while the revenue moves up to the top ever increasingly.

i can't wait for the worldwide smash by the artist who refuses to record anything and the only time anyone can hear the song is when the artist performs it.

take that, spotify business model.

(but honestly you can't fight it at this point, it's too big. the only way to remedy the situation is for more huge legacy acts like neil and joni to remove their catalogue... but like, from everywhere not just spotify)

budo jero, whoever you are and whatever evil company you work for, do you have a helpful contrasting example of a company that is not ripping off artists?

Really don't need you giving "them" more ideas.

― glenn mcdonald, Friday, December 1, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

haha fair.

I don’t know the intricacies of Tidal’s contract but my understanding is that they at least pay significantly more per stream (still a small amount) and aren’t getting rid of payments to smaller artists. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong! It’s probably still a rip-off run by unsavory people, I just prefer to use them bc I have less of a sense that their business model regards musicians as an unfortunate byproduct of the content delivery game.

I like this idea that the corporate music industry has always been a noble endeavor that cared deeply about the artists until Spotify came along and wrecked everything.

that user centric model needs a lil work imo - somebody who "carefully" listens to one track per month gives $10 to the label that distributed it, and somebody else who listens to 100 different tracks all on different labels gives each label 1 cent

xp I own a copy of Hit Men, that is not what I was implying, but my point was that saying "well it's legal" is a copout

and indie labels can be just as bad *cough* SST *cough*

budo jero, whoever you are and whatever evil company you work for, do you have a helpful contrasting example of a company that is not ripping off artists?

― glenn mcdonald, Friday, December 1, 2023 6:11 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i knew you wouldn't be able to do it. speaks for itself.

I like this idea that the corporate music industry has always been a noble endeavor that cared deeply about the artists until Spotify came along and wrecked everything.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, December 1, 2023 6:19 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

brilliant stuff here

A substantive statement that I make freely is that Daniel Ek should be flayed, and his flesh cooked and force-fed to the Spotify board and primary shareholders, but my pitches for an op-ed proposing just this have had no takers to date

now you're talking

I like this idea that the corporate music industry has always been a noble endeavor that cared deeply about the artists until Spotify came along and wrecked everything.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, December 1, 2023 6:19 PM

good point but i think the big gripe here is that we should have evolved past the ripoff deal being the default. spotify def ain't helpin.

Tidal pays the same way as Spotify (and Apple, Amazon and Deezer): ~70% of revenue as royalties, split up pro-rata. If you just do the global math for the overall average rate per stream, Tidal's is higher because they have a $20 tier and a $10 tier and no ad-supported tier (and they operate in fewer poorer countries than Spotify). But a $10 Tidal subscription generates the same $7 of royalties as a $10 Spotify subscription, and payments are done per-country-per-tier, not from a single global pool. In terms of your personal contribution as a listener, paying $20 is contributing twice as much money to music as $10, but agreeing to let you pay more money is not exactly moral superiority or generosity. Paying $10/month and occasionally buying band t-shirts is also fine.

All the major streaming services operate the same basic way. This is not at all coincidental, since they all have to negotiate with the same 3 major labels for the necessary rights to operate. This idea about a minimum payment threshold, which Deezer and Spotify have so far announced, doesn't benefit the streaming services at all, therefore one has to imagine that the motivation for it comes from the labels, and thus that Apple and Amazon are at least likely to be pressured to adopt it as well.

glenn - does ad revenue from the free tier get factored into royalties somehow, or does that stay in Spotify’s pocket?

The free tier is the same: 70% of revenue paid as royalties. Think of the advertisers as paying for the listener’s subscription.

Thx

so the money for signings like Rogan don't come from that 70% pool?

Nope. Nor marketing, nor salaries, nor offices.

The bitching about streaming is so entitled and annoying. Streaming services provide no effort, passive income for artists. There are artists who make millions off one song on Spotify. Musicians sign contracts. Those contracts include streaming. If the artist wants full control, they need to make that decision before selling out to a label in order to chase fame. Otherwise they would self release, own 100% and decide whether to offer their music on Spotify etc. Without streaming musicians would be worse off. Every musician is responsible for their music being on the platform. They made the choice. They need to shut up about it, write better music, or take control of their fate, leave their labels and DIY. I buy a 20 or so new LPs a month. I pay for Spotify family and Apple Music. The bitching about streaming is so tired and wrong. Get over it. Musicians made their bed, now it’s time they made their music better so more people want to hear it more often.

Bad take!

lol I thought that was a parody

Everyone says that but nobody says why I’m wrong. Are artists not signing contracts? Is their music being stolen by Spotify? If so, they should take legal action. I’m reasonable, and can change my mind. Maybe we need an “artist class” where they all get UBI and can just focus on their art. I love music, I spend a lot of money on music every month. The hate for streaming is just baffling. Take way streaming and what happens? Piracy increases and an overall reduction in the amount of music being pressed and release. Indie artists won’t be more popular or more rich if Spotify shut down.