Great article. It certainly underlined for me the reasons why I never use Spotify. I think it would be interesting to see what effect a boycott by indie labels would have, but I fear not much good would come of it and, like you, I don't see it happening. An alternative platform would be something I could get behind, however, even if I prefer downloading whole albums from Bandcamp to streaming. If it helped support more independent artists I might be willing to give it a try. Talking of Bandcamp, I always struggle to understand why many indie artists seem to prefer releasing their music for download through Amazon Music rather than Bandcamp, and I stopped using Amazon nearly 10 years ago.
It would be interesting also to consider this question from the point of view of bands, as well as from labels. For a lot of smaller bands - say, those receiving <100k average plays per track - the streaming revenue will always be terrible, but (and I say this cautiously) Spotify's easy access means it can potentially be a good marketing tool, particularly helping sell tickets to gigs and merch?
Ease of Spotify has become key I think. Any alternative would need to be as usable, but I guess with a good alternative bands would use it in much the same way the MD was talking about labels using it – still put your music on Spotify by all means, for people to find if they can, but build a platform that is better suited to discovery and smaller artists to really do the job
Great article. It certainly underlined for me the reasons why I never use Spotify. I think it would be interesting to see what effect a boycott by indie labels would have, but I fear not much good would come of it and, like you, I don't see it happening. An alternative platform would be something I could get behind, however, even if I prefer downloading whole albums from Bandcamp to streaming. If it helped support more independent artists I might be willing to give it a try. Talking of Bandcamp, I always struggle to understand why many indie artists seem to prefer releasing their music for download through Amazon Music rather than Bandcamp, and I stopped using Amazon nearly 10 years ago.
It would be interesting also to consider this question from the point of view of bands, as well as from labels. For a lot of smaller bands - say, those receiving <100k average plays per track - the streaming revenue will always be terrible, but (and I say this cautiously) Spotify's easy access means it can potentially be a good marketing tool, particularly helping sell tickets to gigs and merch?
Ease of Spotify has become key I think. Any alternative would need to be as usable, but I guess with a good alternative bands would use it in much the same way the MD was talking about labels using it – still put your music on Spotify by all means, for people to find if they can, but build a platform that is better suited to discovery and smaller artists to really do the job