The Music Industry and Spotify are Bonkers (A Warning To All Musicians)

I’m gonna try something new today. Instead of straight teaching about music, I want to talk about something that really grinds my gears. I came across an article by a music journalist, all but outright defending the minuscule payout of streaming platforms, especially Spotify. This guy goes out of his way in the most lazy way possible to gaslight struggling musicians into thinking the status quo is anything but a disaster for most musicians. So let’s rip this article apart, find some catharsis, and prevent musicians just getting into the game from falling for this guys BS.

In this video, we’ll go over:

• Why the status quo of the streaming world is unacceptable, even for artists who are working at the top of the industry.
• Some of the numbers reported by Spotify themselves, which somehow this guy thinks are fine.
• How the dangerous rhetoric this journalist throws around is actively bad for musicians and is low-key diabolical.

This is definitely not my normal kind of video, but I felt really really strongly about this and thought the only ethical path forward was to make this video and call this guy out. Let me know what you think about the current state of streaming, this guy, or call me out on my BS (of which I’m sure there’s lots) in the comments below.

Thanks for being here. You rock. DFTBA.

Avi