The Musical Monster under our Bed

Music streaming service Cyclopes continue to turn their greedy vision away from the cries of the musicians and towards the 24-karat gold sheep. Artists time after time have reached out to services like Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube asking for improved compensation for their work that continues to not be delivered. Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Aloe Blacc, and Nora Germain have been publically voicing their disapproval towards financial decisions these streaming services have been making– like underpayment. These musicians are the ones who create the music through tens or hundreds of hours of work to perfect it, but their main source of revenue comes from things unrelated to the music itself. The stake is not to the heart of the producers like Taylor Swift and Aloe Blacc who already have a steady income from other sources, but it is to the smaller and less popular artists just getting started. If new artists cannot afford to make a living off their music, who will continue to add to the astonishing array of music choices that we have now. Music streaming services have repeatedly underpaid and undervalued today’s musicians causing popular songwriters to voice their disapproval in defense of their fellow musicians’ financial livelihood and the fate of the music industry itself.

Most of society is ignorant to the fact of how little streaming services like Pandora pay, assuming it to be around 1 cent per play. According to Aloe Blacc, however, “it takes roughly one million spins on Pandora for a songwriter to earn just $90” (Blacc). Surprisingly, that equates to only .009 cents earned per play on Pandora. The most streamed song on Spotify and 13th most played song on Pandora “Wake me up!” that Aloe Blacc helped co-write only earned $12,359 in total from Pandora. These royalties where then split multiple ways earning him less than $4,000 for a hit song. Payments made to these artists are sadly not as cookie-cutter as led on unfortunately. Nora Germain explains this issue in her Medium article saying how often large amounts of the money goes to record labels, co-writers, producers and any other members who assisted on the project. The tiny pot of money is split so many ways that Germain says, “We don’t even know what the official rate is” (Germain). It is difficult for the artists to find the true amount they are owed because of how many people have hands in the cookie jar. She also goes on to say that services like Spotify “hand a large portion of their gains to record labels” (Germain). Equating that the artists who produce the music receive the lowest reward for their work they produce out of everyone. Songwriters are earning less money through their music than they have ever before and “the irony of the situation is that our music is actually being enjoyed by more people in more places than ever before” (Blacc). The demand for music is scraping the sky but the payment for these songwriters music is rolling in the dirt and the artists — especially the new writers — are not happy because they cannot afford to continue to make new music.

The crumbs that these songwriters and producers are receiving from these streaming services gives off the impression that their work is extremely undervalued. Aloe Blacc and other artists are aware that “our work clearly has value, of course, or else it would not be in such high demand”, but their revenue stream for their music says otherwise (Blacc). Taylor Swift took to Tumblr to call out Apple Music, another music streaming giant, to call attention to their three month trial period sham. Apple Music was going to allow new users to take part in a free three month trial period by not paying any of the artists any revenue for their streams during that time. Swift says in her letter to Apple Music:

Artists work tireless hours to provide their music and often cannot afford to go unpaid for months at a time because dominating music outlets undervalue their work. For this reason, Swift decided to withhold her album, 1989, as a sign of rebellion to Apple Music’s decision in hopes to change their minds. Artists continue to stand their losing ground in the face of the streaming giants in hopes that they would change their ways for the fate of smaller musicians.

Artists now make their profits to sustain themselves through other mediums to compensate the lack of income the music they create brings in. Consumers spend far more money on devices to receive music like headphones, concerts, and speakers than they do on actual music. In 2019 it is projected that iTunes will be shutting down which will essentially be the death to the last music store. You will still be able to purchase artists music, but no longer in a simple, centralized manner. Songwriters are no longer able to make ends meet with album sales anymore like they could in the past; the digital wave has drowned out almost all hardcopies of music including the digital hard copy, iTunes. Germain states that “if you’re an artist and you want to make a middle class or higher than middle class living, you’re going to have to tour a lot” (Germain). Music streaming services practically organized this shift, putting songwriters in their back pocket by making their services nearly the only way to distribute their music. Thus these massive streaming companies are able to pay small and large artists alike whatever wage they would choose. No longer can small artists support themselves off music that they put hours into. They must expand their outlets to things like T-shirt sales and tours to continue making music because of how little streaming services pay them.

Artists’ work do have value and they do deserve to be fairly compensated for the hours of work they put into producing their music. Streaming services have capitalized the market and seem to only care about pushing profits past the artists and into their own pockets. Aloe Blacc stormed the internet with his powerful post exposing how little streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube really pay. Taylor Swift outed Apple Music’s scam to not pay artists for three months on Tumblr, and Nora Germain detailed how artists must find other means of compensation through outlets outside of their music. These popular artists are relaying the voices of younger songwriters and one another that they are all being underpaid and undervalued by streaming services. If these new artists cannot afford to make ends meet in their daily life, how will they afford to make the world new music? The musical bubble will burst soon, who will have the last verse?

Works Cited

Germain, Nora. “You Have No Idea How F****d Streaming Is — Nora Germain — Medium.” Medium.com, 10 Dec. 2018, medium.com/@norafrancescagermain/you-have-no-idea-how-f-d-streaming-is-afabc7706e65.

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