The Latest Artist To Join Spotify? Mother Nature | Atmos

More creators are creating — and succeeding — than ever before. In 2020, over 76,000 artists were added to Spotify playlists for the first time, the large majority of which were discovered through our playlist pitching tool, which is freely available to all artists. Also, as of 2020, 57,000 artists now represent 90% of monthly streams on Spotify — ... See more

The streaming economy doesn't work for artists. In 2019, only 12% of music industry revenues went to artists. And, in Spotify's investor relations reports, payouts to rights holders are labeled as "cost of revenue" or "content costs".

Spotify’s main form of compensation is the promise of exposure. Put your music on Spotify and it’s instantly available to 138 million subscribers, a veritable nation-state of potential listeners. But with that promise comes the relinquishing of even more control. Reaching any of those listeners depends primarily on Spotify’s recommendation systems;... See more

Sound, which lets musicians sell their songs as NFTs to their biggest fans, has been on fire in its first month. Its 5pm daily drops have become appointment internet, and it sold out its first 21 consecutive drops in under a minute each and paid out over $200k to artists (plus a 10% cut of secondary transactions, which have been very active). It wo... See more

Second, creators are already exploited: Spotify is very much like the universal searchable information database for music, it just operates for profit rather than for artists, and rights-holders get a fraction of a cent per Spotify play, an amount that must itself split between the label, the producer, the artist, and the songwriter. The CEO of Spo... See more