I think you partially touched on it already, but IIRC the reason why Spotify pays so very little, is because they're getting screwed over by the same labels and companies the artists signed up for. Not only for the processes you described of getting music on Spotify, but I believe it was WNA/WNE (I cannot recall their proper acronym) who had this shady backwards deal with Spotify that prevents everyone from properly earning enough, because the massive record companies want ALL the money for themselves. So in short, artists are not getting screwed over by Spotify, but by the music industry itself, which I don't think gets talked enough about
There's a book that outlines how traditional corporate greed is worsened by a lot of tech companies (like Spotify, for example). It's called Chokepoint Capitalism, and it outlines the history of the music industry's horrific treatment of artists.
It's always the music industry as a whole. Also it does get talked about a lot.. but falls on deaf ears too. It's because so many are listening to every beat & word so loudly, deaf & numb. People just think about convince or are broke themse like me... so we only steam music. I do buy merch when I can though! Went to FoB/BMTH Show got a shirt & beenie.
Record labels and their executives have absolutely gigantic equity stakes and investments in spotify. It's a symbiotic relationship where labels can now use streams as a reason to not pay artists anything or do any promotional work, but they still make a shitload of money when spotify's stock price/market share goes up.
This is why I'm a solo artist/songwriter/music producer. I put my first album in Spotify in 2011, just thinking wow, I can tell my family I have music on Spotify. I was only 19 at the time. By 2015 it was my full-time job THANKS to Spotify and somewhat people discovering it through TH-cam mixes. I'm now 31, still trying to figoure out this whole music world. I've released around 250 original songs. It would not be possible unless I was independant and solo. It's just me releasing songs through a distributor, hoping for the best :)
@@Shredxcam22 Man, the competitive wages are insanely huge. I think in my area, they make the lower six figures, but that's still more money than we'll see in a year. However, it does get pretty depressing being on the road constantly, checking in for a few minutes to unload, and them going back on the road. Mad respect for everyone who can actually do it.
I have my cdl making 1500 a week. I am local though so i go home every day after 10-14 hours. I have a buddy over the road and he banks 4k a week but he's literally gone for months straight
The heck. It's a wonder we still have bands bringing out music. Tank had a video today about what bands are making (or better make not) from merch on tour.
This is why bands like motionless don't bring a keyboardist around anymore. People get mad about backing tracks for synths but they tryna get paid a little and split the revenue less
I dont think a lot of artists expect to make much from streaming services anyways, its just the place where listeners are so you need to have your music there. Then you convert those listeners to buying your stuff (music/merch/live show tickets). It would be cool if artists could actually make some money from streaming but the big bad capitalists will never let that happen in the first place.
@Aa-hb1rs the Cuban musicians that were asking my in-laws if they were gonna take their flip flops back to Canada because they wanted them probably beg to differ
What would you rather have? Capitalism or communism, where everyone's equally as fucked? Yeah. That's what I fucking thought. Complain all you want, nothing will change cause they don't care.
Major acts care because well they want to keep making their millions. Why do you think M. Shadows said what he did about how Livenation is not that bad.
As an indie distributor whose bands you've supported - your takes are pretty well educated and intuitive. We aren't all high risk high reward dealmakers. Keep up the good work.
I feel sorry for bands but I have no idea what I'd do without Spotify. I remember buying CDs back in the days, I couldn't afford many so I turned to illegsl options - which is worse than streaming services. For me it leaves me with more money for concerts or merch. Personally I turn off recommendations, I just wanna listen to specific music.
I've talked to some bands after concerts and the general consensus is that Spotify is just promotion. Get advertised / recommended so people come out to your shows and buy merch or signature stuff. Also people tend to hate on labels but that also means you would have to do everything yourself. Promotions, advertisements, designing merch, booking tours etc. But all depends on the project
Unless it's a well run independent label, yeah, they hate them because who wants a guy in a suit telling you how to make music when they have never done that?
I think any sane person would rather do that and keep all the profits rather than sign a contract in which you hand all your musical rights in perpetuity over to someone for peanuts while they rake in all the benefits you created with YOUR music. Fuck that.
This is how Bilmuri has been successful and been able to live off the music. No label and independent so say he brings in 100-200k a year, maybe has a manager or someone to pay but thats a middle class income right there. Throw on youtube views, patreon, touring and merch, hes not doing too bad
13:36 on the opposite side of the spectrum (in general…not just streaming revenue, of course) I recently found out what kind of cars Misha and Tosin currently own and have owned and it really took me by surprise.
This is why I like bands like Ankor (cool Le Sserafim cover with them, btw) being independent. They take more risks by not being signed, but they're also more accountable for whatever they may accomplish. All potential success and all potential failure is on them, therefore the bigger bucks (if/when they earn them) belong to them as well. Nowadays it seems that most artistic disciplines (music, acting, painting, etc...) are evolving towards a non middle-men businesses. The more artists can handle and manage by themselves, the better for them.
One of my favorite bands, Bad Religion refuses to tour in the US because the venues basically rape them. The guitarist actually created Epitaph records so bands could sign and not get raped by the big labels.
@@razztastic Exactly what I was thinking. All these "punk" bands complaining about actually having to pay others for renting out space that doesn't belong to the band is ridiculous. In fact, since complaining is now the norm, that's not punk.
When you actually think about what goes into staffing and operating a music venue then you would understand why its so expensive. Bands should still make a lot of money selling merch though.
@evgeniaangelova6556 they do, your most listened to artist of each month gets a cut. Also way better sound quality then spotify. It's a little more expensive though but worth imo
The structure of the music industry is the root of the problem, not streaming services. The music industry is a financial hellscape. Obviously there are people at the top that want good income for themselves, but I wouldn't even say greedy individuals are the main issue. The industry requires a lot of manpower and very high overhead with relatively low levels of profit compared to other industries. That may sound untrue, but the sheer size of the big companies is what makes their net profit so high. In order to keep the profit margins reasonable, they take advantage of financially uninformed artists and charge stupid prices for shows that fans still pay for anyway. A big reason for the monopolization of the industry is a lack of capital and entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. Most indie music labels have trouble finding funding, and (in my experience) have to pick up the slack of bands that aren't willing to throw money down and work hard. The bands that do work hard either sign to major labels and get screwed or go on their own. The next issue is venues refusing to host artists that are outside of the major companies, knowing that the risk of losing money on indie artists often isn't worth it. There needs to be innovation in the market for it to be sustainable. For music to be a profession, it has to be treated as a business. Independence is the name of the game here, and artists need to convince the rest of the industry that they are valuable without the big companies.
For me TH-cam Music is awesome! Even without Premium I can listen to music without interruption, skip as much as I want, love it, the algorithm is ok because I have years of TH-cam, this app knows my taste in music better than me lol. I guess for who makes music spotify is more popular or pays more, don't know. But as a consumer I didn't like it.
I've restarted music as a bit of a hobby this year and the pay rates from all the services (and I mean ALL the services) has been a bit eye-opening. The best CPM that I've had has been ~$10K/mil with the average around $2-5K (it's a hobby and creative outlet at this point, so if it ever gets to the point where I end up with beer money I'll be happy!). As a band who does music for a career though, you'd be needing hundreds of millions of streams a year to get anywhere close to a decent wage once you take out the overheads. The system's busted though and I've got no idea how to fix it.
The insane thing is how much money Spotify make vs how much they pay out. Spotify has approximately 227 MILLION premium subscribers. With each paying essentially 10 bucks a month that's over 2 billion dollars. PER. MONTH. In just subscriptions.
Yet they make very little profit, that mostly goes to the labels. Almost all of that money goes to record labels because it's their lifeline income as CDs no longer sell.
dude, spotify is a public company, you can read their financial reports online, you don't need to guess. the reality is spotify still doesn't make any money, it still has negative earnings (profits) every year. it actively loses money. you are spreading lies.
@@johnnamkeh1290exactly, Spotify doesn’t exactly have a very profitable business model. They’ve been in the red for most of their existence. Then apple comes along, that doesn’t have to care to make a profit here and just wants the user data. It’s a tough market
I'm in a bit of a difficult situation there (like many other musicians). I know that my band could theoratically make a living out of our music if we stay independet but the marketing is pretty much just not there. Labels tho, they want to tear down our pants and love our extended backs with passion. At this point I don't know how to proceed so I try to find bigger bands to ask for any advice which is alos very hard without a label since they also could connect me with other bands n stuff. A label has much to offer but at a pretty high cost. I wish there was an easier way to get any attention than sharing releases on instagram only for my non-metalhead friends to give me 1-2 streams out of pure friendship without actually caring for the music 😄
Lots of outreach. Make a list of current touring bands who have a similar sound, contact their managers/agents, introduce yourself briefly, express interest to open & follow up on potential prompts. Networking & marketing are powerful. Festivals & live shows are great exposure. You could make a book of the festival circuit contacts too. Treat it like a sales job: lots of outbound phone calls, introductions, networking, asking questions, take vigorous notes & come through on your follow ups. Over time you'll have a larger and larger contact book. As it grows, the band grows.
@@Terdfertersen I managed my own bands & self managed as a DJ but if people hustle, they can make it. Biggest obstacles imo were substance abuse and other common non-work related pitfalls of the industry. The music aspects & even networking wasn't the hardest part imo. Patience & steady effort while keeping your purpose long term is. If I was starting from scratch, I'd commit to music 1st, no substance abuse, & I'd give it 7 years of aggressive self-networking & marketing. After lots& lots of study, that's ab how long it takes to "make it" imo. These days, if I were coming up, I'd travel as much as possible and play as many live shows as possible. Aim for maybe 5 per week. After each show I would network the crowd for digital contact info too & expand fan base 1 at a time. Some depends on location & type of music too, but if someone's playing daily and performing often, they'll get better and better over time.
Venue merch cuts blew my mind when I first heard about them. Absolutely nasty. Although sometimes the only way to get certain merch is to buy it at a show. Jinjer had signed copies of Wallflowers (and some of Vlad's drum kit) at the show Monday, can't get those on their merch store.
You could get them when the album first dropped, but not anymore. I actually pre-ordered a signed vinyl and CD package before the album came out but never got it. They never charged me for it so I didn't make a big deal out of it.
The Dani Filth only making $20 yearly from Spotify scenario reminds me of what happened to New Edition (urban boy band from the 80's) during their first tour. They did this tour, put in all this hard work, and after everyone took their cuts, each member of the band received a check for... One dollar and eighty seven cents. They made $1.87 from the ENTIRE TOUR. Record companies been ripping people off since the beginning.
I have never used, signed up for, or listened to Spotify. I don't even know what Spotify is other than it somehow plays music legally. I either buy the CD and then RIP is, or just buy digital albums.
We kind of all have our responsibility in that. I pay 16 CAD per month and I split my account with 5 others. I think i can stream on average 8 hours per day that would be roughly a bit less than 5k streams over a month (8h*60m*30days/3minutes). Lets double that for all the 5 other since I'm not sure how much they listen, I will be conservative. That make 0.0016 $ per streams. No one makes money out of those streams that's for sure . Not even Spotify makes money, their profit margins were negative in the last 4 years. It is that or people go back to illegal download. Spotify is neither good or bad, it is just the product of our society. I hope buying tangibles such as merchs, going to concerts and festivals helps a bit, but to be honest it is hard to know if we are a positive or not for the bands.
It is really insane these days. You did not count the cost of album production. It is crazy to think that you can spend more than $75K on audio production and not make it back in a year from streaming. This is why everyone has their own studio these days. The economics just don't work out for bands these days. It is much easier if you are the single band member.
1) I feel like we're increasingly getting to a point where it's like... what exactly do record labels do again? You essentially gave me a loan and now you own my shit forever? I have to make the music, I have to record the music, I have to promote the music... Nowadays fucking anybody can just make music in their closet. It's more affordable than it's ever been. 2) Nik's right, bands don't generally split revenue equally. The reason System of a Down stopped making music was because Daron gets most of the money since he wrote all of the music, Serj wanted a bigger cut but Daron was like "you're not getting a bigger cut if you don't write and i don't like what you want to write," so they hit an impasse and decided they would just play shows and more evenly split from that.
Nightwish had a similar problem. Pretty much all the songs are written by the keyboardist so it's only natural he got a bigger cut. Guitarist wasn't happy with it but after a few years he came around and understood why. Guitarist contributed maybe 6-8 songs over their soon to be 30 year old career, and that's without lyrics and probably before arrangements and stuff.
Why do bands even need the/a label anymore? If you and your band hustles and works and doesn't look at just showing up to play a gig as "hard work," which it is but it isn't soley that. I am talking about the band and a band's manager who isn't from a label just does all the work from everything to graphic design, finding vendors for merchs, create your own merchs. All that stuff. Yeah, a band can make good money. You can even book your own shows/tours.
@@evacody1249 I get that. It was more a statement than a question. The old model is dead and sort of has been since Terresttrial radio gave up on heavier music and I am not talking about Disturbed, Godsmack and others. I mean real, heavy music. You would never hear Wage War or Fit For A King on the normal rock radio. You could. Hell, you might but I doubt it. What Covid did to the industry is much the same as when downloading mp3's or records through torrent sites changed the industry in the early 2000s. You just have to be interested in working really hard on your craft, be creative with how you run the band as a business, surround yourself with good people who troubleshoot and problem solve as a lifestyle and be consistent with all that. It isn't that much different in thinking processes than for fitness. The hardwork and consistency parts tend to scare many a person away from even trying it with a serious intention. Music might even be a little easier than fitness because of how TH-cam, Twitch and Social Media can really help independent artists. My main example would be el estepario siberiano. The short version is be ultra creative at how your attack the logistical issues that will arise.
It’s crazy to see how little most artists make on Spotify then you turn around and see the Joe Rogans of the world somehow getting 200 mil contracts, bananas
@@JoinMeInDeathBaby Point is Spotify clearly has the means of paying their artists better. Wouldn’t it make more sense if instead of giving Rogan 200 freaking million, he got 50? Then you can spread out 150 million over thousands of other creators. I know mega corporations don’t look at things that way but that’s why it’s bananas.
I don't get why do so many people bitch about spotify when it's clearly not a problem. this video itself goes at length explaining that the real problem is all the middle man taking a cut off the band's revenue. bitch about labels, management and agents.
Spotify was never meant to be a musicians sole income. Getting on Spotify gets you heard, which promotes if you tour or have merchandise. No music groups were ever making their money off being on the radio, radio was promotion. Spotify and other streams are the new radio. If a musician got into music to make money, then I don't mind if they fail. True artists would just want to be heard. From there, if they have talent, the cream rises to the top. If you tour and you're good, you'll make money in merch. But thinking a company who streams music should supply more money to the artists is ridiculous. You know what happens if pay out more to the artists? The more payout, the higher the subscription costs to balance it out. Yet the higher the subscription, the less people who will subscribe and the less people those musicians have to get new fans. Spotify is a tool for being found, it is not your employer, musicians.
I think people forget that prior to Spotify, music piracy was way more common. So it's not like every stream would generate income in the absence of Spotify. At least Spotify gives musicians exposure that they might not have gotten in the past.
Alls I can think about is the South Park episode where Lars ulrich is sad he can’t afford a gold plated shark tank mini bar by his pool next to his mansion. Dani, shut the heck up lol
It’s good when it’s not making fake bands to siphon views and money from independent artist, and having labels cheat the system, when the independent artist get punished for the same shit.
My band suddenly had blown up in Indonesia recently and guess how much I got in DistroKid for 24,000 streams on one song .98 cents, which is basically a dollar, you can't even live off that for a day in Indonesia lol
It makes so much sense why many bands don't have a management and they do everything on their own ending up burned out. But it gives them a bit more money. Also 2 more things...spotify pays the less. Some other services pay a bit more but they are not as popular and they might cost a bit more than Spotify. But spotify recently increased it's price again so I think soon it will cost as much as better streaming services (for music) and still pay the musicians less. Secondly Spotify a few years ago admitted how they pay bigger artists more. So even if you don't ever listen to Justin Bieber, he will get a bigger cut of the money cause more people like him than your niche metal band.
Technology now simultaneously allows for a glut of high quality music in the market that is also very easy to access (I.e.:streaming). This massive supply has caused an incredible drop in the $ value for jobs that used to pay quite well. The only way to make any money now (outside of being a mega-star) is to do everything yourself, thereby performing the same amount of work that used to be performed by large teams of people. Even if you make money these days, don’t lose sight of the fact that you are being grossly underpaid vs. what your talents would have been worth 30 years ago. I don’t see a solution, just pointing out the truth.
I look at it this way, if it was Napster or Lime Wire artists would be getting anything at all. Google says that Spotify has never turned a profit, so if true how much they pay out could be valid. I'm an indie artist with a band, we do everything ourselves and have zero expectations of streaming being a primary source of income.
In my studies we call this structure manager capitalism or class of project members. If the jobs/exercises get an equal or optimal ballance and don't hire man for every little exercise it can work very well but the hipotetical part is not reality i know. Maybe one time it will be great for every creator and musician.
ya, this is just spotify though. Cradle of filth is huge and plays festivals and shows and sells merch and records etc. I'm pretty sure they're doing fine. Not to mention, unless you're metallica or slayer, there is a good chance you have a day job as a carpenter or something. Metal in general doesn't pay as well
I would put ticketmaster as the #1 criminals in the world, then a former president and then Spotify.. Personally, I subscribe to TH-cam premium for 12 bucks which comes with TH-cam music which is almost exactly like Spotify! A much better deal, music and no commercials in TH-cam✌️
I think Spotify needs to have a group vs solo act clause as long as you can verify that your band has additional members. Like it's .003 cents per 1k streams for an individual but it doubles if you're a two person act, triples for a three person act, quadruples for a four piece, and so on and so forth. A verification process for groups would be so you don't have one shitty solo recording artist say that he has a band of like 20 people when he makes everything himself on his pirated software, stolen beats, and budget microphone he bought at Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what the process would be but I'm sure someone smarter and more experienced in the industry could figure something out.
Imaging how much Tom MacDonald makes. He also doesn't have a label, doing everything by himself with help of his family and even sends signed CD disks himself. And he is often #1 in American charts
Long Comment Alert: You may wonder how much Taylor Swift has brought in from Spotify this past year? Well I am gonna try to figure that out here using the same metrics that nick used to COF. COF has 550k monthly listeners, with 25 mil steams last year that comes out to 45 streams per 1 listener that year. I am assuming that every month last year they had the same number of monthly listeners. Taylor Swift has 98 mil monthly listeners, using COF 45-1 ratio, which I can guarantee is far different then the ratio for Swift, that comes to…. 4,410,000,000 streams. Almost 4.5 billion streams. The 3 grand for 1 million streams number comes to: 13,230,000. I’ll assume her record label and percentage cuts would be better for her than COF, being she’s a solo artist, so I’ll just say a 1/3 is taken. So by my crude and almost unintelligible math she made 8,731,00 from just Spotify. After going through this idk how I got to this point and I don’t feel like redoing it.
Im still trying to figure out how to get to a healthy place with music financially. I know i need to get more consistent with uploads, but other than that ... 🤷🏻 And im riding solo too.
Realistically, IF and that’s a big IF… if at every show each person that comes to a live show would give 1$ dollar directly to the band at the entrance… bands would not have been so screwed… and what is a dollar for an individual? Nothing really. So if you do a show for like a thousand people that would make things waaay better… maybe somehow this needs to be implemented. Don’t know how to do it legally… but can it be considered a tip? You don’t pay taxes for tips.
I think this is probably one of the reasons why the band model fir making music is getting obsolete. Other than hanging out with mates it's just like punching against concrete nowdays. Everything is against you. Being sn independent artists on the other hand allows you to be more flexible in this jungle. You have to learn how to micro manage Everything that a label would provide you though. That's the game
While everything you said is technically correct, the bigger picture here is that Spotify's business model (and any other outside-generated media streaming service) is just not sustainable. The economics doesn't work. And artists seem to be widely misinformed (being generous about this). If Spotify paid Cradle of Filth $3k/1mm plays, this means it made $175k in revenue from *all the 25mm listeners* for the band. Even if Spotify just handed out the whole amount to the artist, this is a fraction of gross earnings from what CoF makes a year in albums sold - 4mm albums *lifetime* (30+ years) so 130k a year which gives $1-3mm grossed with record sales. Artists like to think about streaming compared to traditional revenue in the industry, when they really should have as counterfactual in mind piracy and torrent streaming - which perhaps not surprisingly were almost killed by IP protection, which is enforced by labels expensive lawyers. In 10+ years, Spotify has never made any profit. That is in part because of the way recording artists are organized under labels, even though TH-cam creators (without labels etc.) get paid more generously - $2-15k/1mm views -, TH-cam also has never made any profit. Truth is, while labels extract probably too much economic rent in a world where they are no longer fully needed to distribute and promote an artist's work, labels are also the reason why music copyright is by far the most extensively protected form of artistic production in any media (try suing someone for copying your TH-cam creation style). This idea that eliminating labels so that everyone "puts their music out there like TH-cam creators" may sound appealing but is also impractical because artists create intangible IP. In purely monetary terms, artists always have some option over exit value - selling perpetual rights to their musical catalog, or set of songs, to a label company. By the way, loved the beginning of the video when you talked about general equilibrium effects and overcrowding from everyone paying for the booster - spoke like a true economist (I'm an econ professor)!
Spotify pays fine. 25million listens a year is super little. If this was all the streams they got they should definitely not quit their day job. When everyone wants to make music the industry becomes saturated and the listens get spread out. Plus there is other streaming platforms they get money from as well. This is passive income. Something you would not have had in the past.
I just love the irony of the music industry: Big industry people bitch about Spotify(not you Nik) and how little they pay out, yet they use it as a standard to see what bands are good enough to fuck with lmao
Should Spotify pay out more? Probably? Buuut... at least Spotify is publicly traded. Anyone who thinks Spotify are "stealing all the money" could buy shares and get a cut of that cash flow going forward. It's like big banks; If you can't fight them, join them.
This is a prime example of how the bands/artists do all the heavy lifting and get little to nothing in return. Best thing to be in the music industry is anything BUT the musician. But hey, for the love of the game, right?
*HIT THE SUB BUTTON - IT'S FREEEEE*
poop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! balls!!!!!!!!!! fart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I did it
@@FarhanAryanNiazi YOU DID WHAT? BALLS? POOP? FART?
PLEASE TELL ME IT WAS BALLS
Please make more content about the music industry! I love hearing your insights about it :)
@@eggiifypxl8853 all of them
I think you partially touched on it already, but IIRC the reason why Spotify pays so very little, is because they're getting screwed over by the same labels and companies the artists signed up for. Not only for the processes you described of getting music on Spotify, but I believe it was WNA/WNE (I cannot recall their proper acronym) who had this shady backwards deal with Spotify that prevents everyone from properly earning enough, because the massive record companies want ALL the money for themselves. So in short, artists are not getting screwed over by Spotify, but by the music industry itself, which I don't think gets talked enough about
There's a book that outlines how traditional corporate greed is worsened by a lot of tech companies (like Spotify, for example). It's called Chokepoint Capitalism, and it outlines the history of the music industry's horrific treatment of artists.
dude what? that's all *anyone* talks about, people just don't give a shit cause they don't realize the severity cause they've never made music lol
It's always the music industry as a whole. Also it does get talked about a lot.. but falls on deaf ears too. It's because so many are listening to every beat & word so loudly, deaf & numb. People just think about convince or are broke themse like me... so we only steam music.
I do buy merch when I can though!
Went to FoB/BMTH Show got a shirt & beenie.
Record labels and their executives have absolutely gigantic equity stakes and investments in spotify.
It's a symbiotic relationship where labels can now use streams as a reason to not pay artists anything or do any promotional work, but they still make a shitload of money when spotify's stock price/market share goes up.
Yea, nothing has changed. Just their tactics
This is why I'm a solo artist/songwriter/music producer. I put my first album in Spotify in 2011, just thinking wow, I can tell my family I have music on Spotify. I was only 19 at the time. By 2015 it was my full-time job THANKS to Spotify and somewhat people discovering it through TH-cam mixes. I'm now 31, still trying to figoure out this whole music world. I've released around 250 original songs. It would not be possible unless I was independant and solo. It's just me releasing songs through a distributor, hoping for the best :)
When Tank did that breakdown of touring costs, one of the biggest reactions was "man, I should look into getting my CDL"
Idk about bus drivers but 18 wheeler rate is really competitive and big companies are taking all the money from drivers.
Tank is a fraud. He actually supports venues and streaming services taking all of their money.
@@Shredxcam22 Man, the competitive wages are insanely huge. I think in my area, they make the lower six figures, but that's still more money than we'll see in a year. However, it does get pretty depressing being on the road constantly, checking in for a few minutes to unload, and them going back on the road. Mad respect for everyone who can actually do it.
I have my cdl making 1500 a week. I am local though so i go home every day after 10-14 hours. I have a buddy over the road and he banks 4k a week but he's literally gone for months straight
This is the reason I buy merchandise from my favorite bands! I want my favorite musicians to be able to live off their art and support them.
The heck. It's a wonder we still have bands bringing out music.
Tank had a video today about what bands are making (or better make not) from merch on tour.
Dean Lamb from Archspire recently did a really, really good breakdown of their income and costs from a recent US tour with Whitechapel.
This is why bands like motionless don't bring a keyboardist around anymore. People get mad about backing tracks for synths but they tryna get paid a little and split the revenue less
Motionless!! Favourite band with Lorna.
I dont think a lot of artists expect to make much from streaming services anyways, its just the place where listeners are so you need to have your music there. Then you convert those listeners to buying your stuff (music/merch/live show tickets). It would be cool if artists could actually make some money from streaming but the big bad capitalists will never let that happen in the first place.
@@AA-hb1rsit's not just Cuba, man. Cold war musicians made more in First world countries.
@Aa-hb1rs the Cuban musicians that were asking my in-laws if they were gonna take their flip flops back to Canada because they wanted them probably beg to differ
@@AA-hb1rsnot sure what the food comment has to do with this but yes, we all agree
What would you rather have? Capitalism or communism, where everyone's equally as fucked?
Yeah. That's what I fucking thought. Complain all you want, nothing will change cause they don't care.
Major acts care because well they want to keep making their millions.
Why do you think M. Shadows said what he did about how Livenation is not that bad.
As an indie distributor whose bands you've supported - your takes are pretty well educated and intuitive. We aren't all high risk high reward dealmakers. Keep up the good work.
I feel sorry for bands but I have no idea what I'd do without Spotify.
I remember buying CDs back in the days, I couldn't afford many so I turned to illegsl options - which is worse than streaming services.
For me it leaves me with more money for concerts or merch.
Personally I turn off recommendations, I just wanna listen to specific music.
I've talked to some bands after concerts and the general consensus is that Spotify is just promotion. Get advertised / recommended so people come out to your shows and buy merch or signature stuff. Also people tend to hate on labels but that also means you would have to do everything yourself. Promotions, advertisements, designing merch, booking tours etc. But all depends on the project
Unless it's a well run independent label, yeah, they hate them because who wants a guy in a suit telling you how to make music when they have never done that?
I think any sane person would rather do that and keep all the profits rather than sign a contract in which you hand all your musical rights in perpetuity over to someone for peanuts while they rake in all the benefits you created with YOUR music. Fuck that.
This is how Bilmuri has been successful and been able to live off the music. No label and independent so say he brings in 100-200k a year, maybe has a manager or someone to pay but thats a middle class income right there. Throw on youtube views, patreon, touring and merch, hes not doing too bad
I always try to thank artists for all their time. Creating music in this modern era is such a massive investment to compete.
Cradle of filth also has albums across multiple labels and a shit tonne of former band members who played on various albums.
Yup
13:36 on the opposite side of the spectrum (in general…not just streaming revenue, of course) I recently found out what kind of cars Misha and Tosin currently own and have owned and it really took me by surprise.
This is why I like bands like Ankor (cool Le Sserafim cover with them, btw) being independent. They take more risks by not being signed, but they're also more accountable for whatever they may accomplish. All potential success and all potential failure is on them, therefore the bigger bucks (if/when they earn them) belong to them as well. Nowadays it seems that most artistic disciplines (music, acting, painting, etc...) are evolving towards a non middle-men businesses. The more artists can handle and manage by themselves, the better for them.
Note, though, if not for TH-cam and other streaming music apps, you would never have heard of them.
One of my favorite bands, Bad Religion refuses to tour in the US because the venues basically rape them. The guitarist actually created Epitaph records so bands could sign and not get raped by the big labels.
I’d imagine tours are even worse now considering the post-pandemic economy. It’s practically being screwed to death.
so what you're saying is north american concert goers aren't really losing anything
@@razztastic Exactly what I was thinking. All these "punk" bands complaining about actually having to pay others for renting out space that doesn't belong to the band is ridiculous. In fact, since complaining is now the norm, that's not punk.
When you actually think about what goes into staffing and operating a music venue then you would understand why its so expensive. Bands should still make a lot of money selling merch though.
6:00 , The Band Cradle Of Filth Has 6 Members Not 7 🤣🤣🤣🤣
This is why i switched to Tidal I like to support my artists. They should be rewarded for the music they've made, not some big corporation
same, also better sound quality!
So does Tidal pay the artists? I might switch too if it's better for artists than Spotify.
@evgeniaangelova6556 they do, your most listened to artist of each month gets a cut. Also way better sound quality then spotify. It's a little more expensive though but worth imo
The structure of the music industry is the root of the problem, not streaming services. The music industry is a financial hellscape. Obviously there are people at the top that want good income for themselves, but I wouldn't even say greedy individuals are the main issue. The industry requires a lot of manpower and very high overhead with relatively low levels of profit compared to other industries. That may sound untrue, but the sheer size of the big companies is what makes their net profit so high. In order to keep the profit margins reasonable, they take advantage of financially uninformed artists and charge stupid prices for shows that fans still pay for anyway.
A big reason for the monopolization of the industry is a lack of capital and entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. Most indie music labels have trouble finding funding, and (in my experience) have to pick up the slack of bands that aren't willing to throw money down and work hard. The bands that do work hard either sign to major labels and get screwed or go on their own. The next issue is venues refusing to host artists that are outside of the major companies, knowing that the risk of losing money on indie artists often isn't worth it.
There needs to be innovation in the market for it to be sustainable. For music to be a profession, it has to be treated as a business. Independence is the name of the game here, and artists need to convince the rest of the industry that they are valuable without the big companies.
Nik out here flexin his money AND his math skills
For me TH-cam Music is awesome!
Even without Premium I can listen to music without interruption, skip as much as I want, love it, the algorithm is ok because I have years of TH-cam, this app knows my taste in music better than me lol.
I guess for who makes music spotify is more popular or pays more, don't know. But as a consumer I didn't like it.
I've restarted music as a bit of a hobby this year and the pay rates from all the services (and I mean ALL the services) has been a bit eye-opening. The best CPM that I've had has been ~$10K/mil with the average around $2-5K (it's a hobby and creative outlet at this point, so if it ever gets to the point where I end up with beer money I'll be happy!). As a band who does music for a career though, you'd be needing hundreds of millions of streams a year to get anywhere close to a decent wage once you take out the overheads.
The system's busted though and I've got no idea how to fix it.
The insane thing is how much money Spotify make vs how much they pay out. Spotify has approximately 227 MILLION premium subscribers. With each paying essentially 10 bucks a month that's over 2 billion dollars. PER. MONTH. In just subscriptions.
Yet they make very little profit, that mostly goes to the labels. Almost all of that money goes to record labels because it's their lifeline income as CDs no longer sell.
dude, spotify is a public company, you can read their financial reports online, you don't need to guess.
the reality is spotify still doesn't make any money, it still has negative earnings (profits) every year. it actively loses money.
you are spreading lies.
@@johnnamkeh1290exactly, Spotify doesn’t exactly have a very profitable business model.
They’ve been in the red for most of their existence.
Then apple comes along, that doesn’t have to care to make a profit here and just wants the user data.
It’s a tough market
Yet another person that doesn’t understand revenue vs net profit. 😊
false though in my country (turkey) spotify is around $1.5 monthly
I'm in a bit of a difficult situation there (like many other musicians). I know that my band could theoratically make a living out of our music if we stay independet but the marketing is pretty much just not there. Labels tho, they want to tear down our pants and love our extended backs with passion.
At this point I don't know how to proceed so I try to find bigger bands to ask for any advice which is alos very hard without a label since they also could connect me with other bands n stuff.
A label has much to offer but at a pretty high cost. I wish there was an easier way to get any attention than sharing releases on instagram only for my non-metalhead friends to give me 1-2 streams out of pure friendship without actually caring for the music 😄
Lots of outreach. Make a list of current touring bands who have a similar sound, contact their managers/agents, introduce yourself briefly, express interest to open & follow up on potential prompts. Networking & marketing are powerful. Festivals & live shows are great exposure. You could make a book of the festival circuit contacts too. Treat it like a sales job: lots of outbound phone calls, introductions, networking, asking questions, take vigorous notes & come through on your follow ups. Over time you'll have a larger and larger contact book. As it grows, the band grows.
Thank you very much for your advice, I will try my best ^^
@@scoutwithoutclout basically. You want to make it without a label you gotta do the legwork. Nobody said it was easy.
@@Terdfertersen I managed my own bands & self managed as a DJ but if people hustle, they can make it. Biggest obstacles imo were substance abuse and other common non-work related pitfalls of the industry. The music aspects & even networking wasn't the hardest part imo. Patience & steady effort while keeping your purpose long term is. If I was starting from scratch, I'd commit to music 1st, no substance abuse, & I'd give it 7 years of aggressive self-networking & marketing. After lots& lots of study, that's ab how long it takes to "make it" imo. These days, if I were coming up, I'd travel as much as possible and play as many live shows as possible. Aim for maybe 5 per week. After each show I would network the crowd for digital contact info too & expand fan base 1 at a time. Some depends on location & type of music too, but if someone's playing daily and performing often, they'll get better and better over time.
One of my rapper friends gets around 3 million streams between all platforms and brings in $1,400 a month
Came here for a rant video got a maths lesson
Venue merch cuts blew my mind when I first heard about them. Absolutely nasty.
Although sometimes the only way to get certain merch is to buy it at a show. Jinjer had signed copies of Wallflowers (and some of Vlad's drum kit) at the show Monday, can't get those on their merch store.
You could get them when the album first dropped, but not anymore. I actually pre-ordered a signed vinyl and CD package before the album came out but never got it. They never charged me for it so I didn't make a big deal out of it.
The Dani Filth only making $20 yearly from Spotify scenario reminds me of what happened to New Edition (urban boy band from the 80's) during their first tour. They did this tour, put in all this hard work, and after everyone took their cuts, each member of the band received a check for...
One dollar and eighty seven cents.
They made $1.87 from the ENTIRE TOUR.
Record companies been ripping people off since the beginning.
It’s nuts how labels act like artists need them when a label wouldn’t even exist without artists.
Fuck Spotify. That being said, I listen to everything on Spotify
0:34 what band is he talking about here? I don’t use Spotify I use TH-cam music so I don’t really know
That MS paint part had my dying
Nik "Bob Ross" Nocturnal
'Phrost
Seriously though, who writes letters starting from the bottom?
I have never used, signed up for, or listened to Spotify. I don't even know what Spotify is other than it somehow plays music legally. I either buy the CD and then RIP is, or just buy digital albums.
We kind of all have our responsibility in that. I pay 16 CAD per month and I split my account with 5 others. I think i can stream on average 8 hours per day that would be roughly a bit less than 5k streams over a month (8h*60m*30days/3minutes). Lets double that for all the 5 other since I'm not sure how much they listen, I will be conservative. That make 0.0016 $ per streams. No one makes money out of those streams that's for sure . Not even Spotify makes money, their profit margins were negative in the last 4 years. It is that or people go back to illegal download. Spotify is neither good or bad, it is just the product of our society. I hope buying tangibles such as merchs, going to concerts and festivals helps a bit, but to be honest it is hard to know if we are a positive or not for the bands.
It is really insane these days. You did not count the cost of album production. It is crazy to think that you can spend more than $75K on audio production and not make it back in a year from streaming. This is why everyone has their own studio these days. The economics just don't work out for bands these days. It is much easier if you are the single band member.
1) I feel like we're increasingly getting to a point where it's like... what exactly do record labels do again? You essentially gave me a loan and now you own my shit forever? I have to make the music, I have to record the music, I have to promote the music... Nowadays fucking anybody can just make music in their closet. It's more affordable than it's ever been.
2) Nik's right, bands don't generally split revenue equally. The reason System of a Down stopped making music was because Daron gets most of the money since he wrote all of the music, Serj wanted a bigger cut but Daron was like "you're not getting a bigger cut if you don't write and i don't like what you want to write," so they hit an impasse and decided they would just play shows and more evenly split from that.
Nightwish had a similar problem. Pretty much all the songs are written by the keyboardist so it's only natural he got a bigger cut. Guitarist wasn't happy with it but after a few years he came around and understood why. Guitarist contributed maybe 6-8 songs over their soon to be 30 year old career, and that's without lyrics and probably before arrangements and stuff.
That is such a low price. Damn spotify what are you DOIIIIIIIN
If i like a band , i listen to them on spotify. If they are good , i buy the album physically or on bandcamp ... how hard can that be ? 🤷🏼♂️
I like to use tidal since they actually pay the artists fairly. And they pay more from your subscription to the band you listen to most.
Why do bands even need the/a label anymore? If you and your band hustles and works and doesn't look at just showing up to play a gig as "hard work," which it is but it isn't soley that. I am talking about the band and a band's manager who isn't from a label just does all the work from everything to graphic design, finding vendors for merchs, create your own merchs. All that stuff. Yeah, a band can make good money. You can even book your own shows/tours.
Some don't know the business side of don't know someone who can deal with that side which would make life really easy for them.
@@evacody1249 I get that. It was more a statement than a question. The old model is dead and sort of has been since Terresttrial radio gave up on heavier music and I am not talking about Disturbed, Godsmack and others. I mean real, heavy music. You would never hear Wage War or Fit For A King on the normal rock radio. You could. Hell, you might but I doubt it. What Covid did to the industry is much the same as when downloading mp3's or records through torrent sites changed the industry in the early 2000s. You just have to be interested in working really hard on your craft, be creative with how you run the band as a business, surround yourself with good people who troubleshoot and problem solve as a lifestyle and be consistent with all that. It isn't that much different in thinking processes than for fitness. The hardwork and consistency parts tend to scare many a person away from even trying it with a serious intention. Music might even be a little easier than fitness because of how TH-cam, Twitch and Social Media can really help independent artists. My main example would be el estepario siberiano.
The short version is be ultra creative at how your attack the logistical issues that will arise.
This is a very accurate video of how it is to be in a band right now
Once got offered a record deal from a label, they wanted 95% of all streaming revenue...
It’s crazy to see how little most artists make on Spotify then you turn around and see the Joe Rogans of the world somehow getting 200 mil contracts, bananas
Joe is a biggest podcaster in the world though. Basically bold, elk meat eating Taylor Swift.
@@JoinMeInDeathBaby Point is Spotify clearly has the means of paying their artists better. Wouldn’t it make more sense if instead of giving Rogan 200 freaking million, he got 50? Then you can spread out 150 million over thousands of other creators. I know mega corporations don’t look at things that way but that’s why it’s bananas.
“Id rather be heard than paid” - Henry Rollins
I hate buying a shirt at a concert and seeing the Venues name in my chargers, rather than the bands merch store :(
This is why i have an entire closet full of band tshirts, as well as cds (i dont even have a cd player), and a ton of stickers.
That’s like buying a speed pass at Sixflags and everyone else has a speed pass so the line is still 4 hrs.
I don't get why do so many people bitch about spotify when it's clearly not a problem.
this video itself goes at length explaining that the real problem is all the middle man taking a cut off the band's revenue.
bitch about labels, management and agents.
Do all streaming services work the same way - TH-cam Music, Tidal, Apple, etc?
Nice edit zoom 12:49
Spotify was never meant to be a musicians sole income.
Getting on Spotify gets you heard, which promotes if you tour or have merchandise.
No music groups were ever making their money off being on the radio, radio was promotion. Spotify and other streams are the new radio.
If a musician got into music to make money, then I don't mind if they fail.
True artists would just want to be heard. From there, if they have talent, the cream rises to the top.
If you tour and you're good, you'll make money in merch.
But thinking a company who streams music should supply more money to the artists is ridiculous.
You know what happens if pay out more to the artists?
The more payout, the higher the subscription costs to balance it out.
Yet the higher the subscription, the less people who will subscribe and the less people those musicians have to get new fans.
Spotify is a tool for being found, it is not your employer, musicians.
Thanks for this vid
Dani Filth is a very smart dude. That guy is the real deal. Deep knowledge
I think people forget that prior to Spotify, music piracy was way more common. So it's not like every stream would generate income in the absence of Spotify. At least Spotify gives musicians exposure that they might not have gotten in the past.
Nik, the lion share for bands is still touring. That still doesn't stop bands for complaining for getting a fair amount of money from streaming.
Alls I can think about is the South Park episode where Lars ulrich is sad he can’t afford a gold plated shark tank mini bar by his pool next to his mansion. Dani, shut the heck up lol
It’s good when it’s not making fake bands to siphon views and money from independent artist, and having labels cheat the system, when the independent artist get punished for the same shit.
My band suddenly had blown up in Indonesia recently and guess how much I got in DistroKid for 24,000 streams on one song
.98 cents, which is basically a dollar, you can't even live off that for a day in Indonesia lol
It makes so much sense why many bands don't have a management and they do everything on their own ending up burned out. But it gives them a bit more money.
Also 2 more things...spotify pays the less. Some other services pay a bit more but they are not as popular and they might cost a bit more than Spotify. But spotify recently increased it's price again so I think soon it will cost as much as better streaming services (for music) and still pay the musicians less.
Secondly Spotify a few years ago admitted how they pay bigger artists more. So even if you don't ever listen to Justin Bieber, he will get a bigger cut of the money cause more people like him than your niche metal band.
Technology now simultaneously allows for a glut of high quality music in the market that is also very easy to access (I.e.:streaming). This massive supply has caused an incredible drop in the $ value for jobs that used to pay quite well. The only way to make any money now (outside of being a mega-star) is to do everything yourself, thereby performing the same amount of work that used to be performed by large teams of people. Even if you make money these days, don’t lose sight of the fact that you are being grossly underpaid vs. what your talents would have been worth 30 years ago.
I don’t see a solution, just pointing out the truth.
"Really looking forward to releasing a song every hour for you guys"
Huh, isn't Nik already doing that?
Jared Leto did a movie that touched on how artists are screwed over by their labels. Worth a watch
Artifact, if anyone wants to watch. It opened my eyes for sure.
I look at it this way, if it was Napster or Lime Wire artists would be getting anything at all. Google says that Spotify has never turned a profit, so if true how much they pay out could be valid. I'm an indie artist with a band, we do everything ourselves and have zero expectations of streaming being a primary source of income.
Aren't touring and concerts the main source of income for bands?
With about 200k listeners and an unsigned a band, in amonth, we still make like $300 a month. So I think it’s pretty good. Free income
In my studies we call this structure manager capitalism or class of project members.
If the jobs/exercises get an equal or optimal ballance and don't hire man for every little exercise it can work very well but the hipotetical part is not reality i know. Maybe one time it will be great for every creator and musician.
What is your opinion on Tidal?
There’s also multiple streaming platforms… if you’re getting 25mil a year, you doing aight… you gotta remember this is SOLEY streaming income
ya, this is just spotify though. Cradle of filth is huge and plays festivals and shows and sells merch and records etc. I'm pretty sure they're doing fine. Not to mention, unless you're metallica or slayer, there is a good chance you have a day job as a carpenter or something. Metal in general doesn't pay as well
Who's that on the poster behind Nik?
not sure , but I think, his wife
Man, to think that I used to daydream about being in a band. This is rough
Let’s do this properly!
*opens MS paint for his calculations*
its true , spotify pays very decently to independent artists. The problem rises when labels and other "middlemen" basically get in the way
Good take
Mary spender just put out a video about how much she makes per play and how many plays she would need to make minimal wage
I would put ticketmaster as the #1 criminals in the world, then a former president and then Spotify.. Personally, I subscribe to TH-cam premium for 12 bucks which comes with TH-cam music which is almost exactly like Spotify! A much better deal, music and no commercials in TH-cam✌️
How does Spotify compare to apple 🍎 Music? ❤ good video
I think Spotify needs to have a group vs solo act clause as long as you can verify that your band has additional members. Like it's .003 cents per 1k streams for an individual but it doubles if you're a two person act, triples for a three person act, quadruples for a four piece, and so on and so forth.
A verification process for groups would be so you don't have one shitty solo recording artist say that he has a band of like 20 people when he makes everything himself on his pirated software, stolen beats, and budget microphone he bought at Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what the process would be but I'm sure someone smarter and more experienced in the industry could figure something out.
Imaging how much Tom MacDonald makes. He also doesn't have a label, doing everything by himself with help of his family and even sends signed CD disks himself. And he is often #1 in American charts
He's a legend
Label gets paid pre tax. Idk how it works tho state to state since states have different rates
Long Comment Alert:
You may wonder how much Taylor Swift has brought in from Spotify this past year? Well I am gonna try to figure that out here using the same metrics that nick used to COF. COF has 550k monthly listeners, with 25 mil steams last year that comes out to 45 streams per 1 listener that year. I am assuming that every month last year they had the same number of monthly listeners. Taylor Swift has 98 mil monthly listeners, using COF 45-1 ratio, which I can guarantee is far different then the ratio for Swift, that comes to…. 4,410,000,000 streams. Almost 4.5 billion streams. The 3 grand for 1 million streams number comes to: 13,230,000. I’ll assume her record label and percentage cuts would be better for her than COF, being she’s a solo artist, so I’ll just say a 1/3 is taken. So by my crude and almost unintelligible math she made 8,731,00 from just Spotify.
After going through this idk how I got to this point and I don’t feel like redoing it.
Has there been any discussion on if Apple Music pays better, worse, or the same?
isnt some calculated with 0.004 and 0.005 ?
Wow, that is brutal for bands, but great for independent artists
I have all the bands I like written down,so I can remember
Im still trying to figure out how to get to a healthy place with music financially. I know i need to get more consistent with uploads, but other than that ... 🤷🏻 And im riding solo too.
And Spotify is raising their rates again. Got the email yesterday. The reasons they state is so they can continue to innovate. Bullshit.
I'll probably be using another service once my annual sub is up next year
Realistically, IF and that’s a big IF… if at every show each person that comes to a live show would give 1$ dollar directly to the band at the entrance… bands would not have been so screwed… and what is a dollar for an individual? Nothing really. So if you do a show for like a thousand people that would make things waaay better… maybe somehow this needs to be implemented. Don’t know how to do it legally… but can it be considered a tip? You don’t pay taxes for tips.
‘Thrown’ slides into the chat
I think this is probably one of the reasons why the band model fir making music is getting obsolete. Other than hanging out with mates it's just like punching against concrete nowdays. Everything is against you. Being sn independent artists on the other hand allows you to be more flexible in this jungle. You have to learn how to micro manage Everything that a label would provide you though. That's the game
While everything you said is technically correct, the bigger picture here is that Spotify's business model (and any other outside-generated media streaming service) is just not sustainable. The economics doesn't work. And artists seem to be widely misinformed (being generous about this). If Spotify paid Cradle of Filth $3k/1mm plays, this means it made $175k in revenue from *all the 25mm listeners* for the band. Even if Spotify just handed out the whole amount to the artist, this is a fraction of gross earnings from what CoF makes a year in albums sold - 4mm albums *lifetime* (30+ years) so 130k a year which gives $1-3mm grossed with record sales. Artists like to think about streaming compared to traditional revenue in the industry, when they really should have as counterfactual in mind piracy and torrent streaming - which perhaps not surprisingly were almost killed by IP protection, which is enforced by labels expensive lawyers.
In 10+ years, Spotify has never made any profit. That is in part because of the way recording artists are organized under labels, even though TH-cam creators (without labels etc.) get paid more generously - $2-15k/1mm views -, TH-cam also has never made any profit. Truth is, while labels extract probably too much economic rent in a world where they are no longer fully needed to distribute and promote an artist's work, labels are also the reason why music copyright is by far the most extensively protected form of artistic production in any media (try suing someone for copying your TH-cam creation style). This idea that eliminating labels so that everyone "puts their music out there like TH-cam creators" may sound appealing but is also impractical because artists create intangible IP. In purely monetary terms, artists always have some option over exit value - selling perpetual rights to their musical catalog, or set of songs, to a label company.
By the way, loved the beginning of the video when you talked about general equilibrium effects and overcrowding from everyone paying for the booster - spoke like a true economist (I'm an econ professor)!
I think abracadaver is Danny's label.
Spotify pays fine. 25million listens a year is super little. If this was all the streams they got they should definitely not quit their day job.
When everyone wants to make music the industry becomes saturated and the listens get spread out. Plus there is other streaming platforms they get money from as well.
This is passive income. Something you would not have had in the past.
I just love the irony of the music industry: Big industry people bitch about Spotify(not you Nik) and how little they pay out, yet they use it as a standard to see what bands are good enough to fuck with lmao
Dude who wrote from the bottom up? That’s insane
Spotify is cool as long as you are 1 person musician working independent
Should Spotify pay out more? Probably? Buuut... at least Spotify is publicly traded. Anyone who thinks Spotify are "stealing all the money" could buy shares and get a cut of that cash flow going forward.
It's like big banks; If you can't fight them, join them.
This is a prime example of how the bands/artists do all the heavy lifting and get little to nothing in return. Best thing to be in the music industry is anything BUT the musician. But hey, for the love of the game, right?
But there are more streaming services than Spotify though