It looks like Spotify has jumped on board the AI music gravy train. It was announced yesterday (21 May) that the Swedish streaming giant has inked a deal with Universal Music that will enable users to create AI covers and remixes of songs from participating artists and songwriters.

The new tool will apparently be a paid add-on for Spotify Premium subscribers and, once tracks have been created, all Spotify users will be able to stream them. However, Spotify has not yet revealed any details about the AI technology that will be used in the new feature, nor mentioned a launch date.

“Solving hard problems for music is what Spotify does, and fan-made covers and remixes are next,” Alex Norström, Spotify’s Co-CEO said in a statement. “What we’re building is grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artists and songwriters that take part.

“Through each technological transformation, we have worked together with Sir Lucian (Grainge, chairman of Universal) and his team to evolve the music ecosystem into a richer, more beneficial experience for fans and a more rewarding outcome for artists and songwriters.”

For his part, Grainge said in his statement: “The most valuable innovations in the music business always bring artists and fans closer together. That principle is at the heart of this pioneering AI-enabled superfan initiative, which is designed to support human artistry, deepen fan relationships, and create additional revenue opportunities for artists and songwriters… this initiative is firmly artist-centric, rooted in responsible AI, and will drive growth for the entire ecosystem.”

It's the latest agreement that Universal has struck regarding AI-generated music. Last October it settled its copyright lawsuit against Udio and agreed to collaborate on a licensed AI music creation platform. The idea of this, it seems, was to create a ‘walled garden’ outside of which AI music cannot be downloaded or distributed. A similar approach seems to be behind the Spotify deal.

It should be reiterated that the Spotify system is opt-in and will only be available for songs from artists and songwriters who have specifically agreed to take part. So, whilst it might well generate a whole avalanche of AI slop, at least it would be legal AI slop that the original artists are being paid for.

Anna’s Archive, the project that aimed to create “the largest truly open library in human history” by stealing copyrighted material and putting it online via BitTorrent, has been ordered to pay Spotify and the major labels $322 million in damages.

It comes after the activist group boasted in a post last year that they had scraped 86 million tracks from Spotify. A statement on their site said: “It’s the world’s first 'preservation archive' for music which is fully open.

"A while ago, we discovered a way to scrape Spotify at scale. We saw a role for us here to build a music archive primarily aimed at preservation,” adding, cheerfully, that “Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start.”

In reply, Spotify and three major record labels – Warners, Sony and Universal – launched a lawsuit against Anna’s Archive for a truly flabbergasting $13 trillion. At a preliminary hearing in January, Anna’s Archive failed to turn up in court, so a judge filed an injunction against the group, requiring hosting platforms such as CloudFlare to prohibit access to any of their possible domains.

Quite brazenly, in February Anna’s Archive released a portion of the 86 million files. The plaintiffs then accused the group of "blatant disregard of the Preliminary Injunction."

So the judgment last week in New York’s Southern District Court can’t have come as any surprise to the defendants. Anna’s Archive has been found guilty of copyright infringement, breach of contract and the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Of that $322 million, a reported $300 million will go to Spotify, with the record labels sharing the remaining $22 million. The only fly in the ointment is who exactly is going to cough up that amount? Anna’s Archive was run anonymously and it’s unclear what – if any - sort of trail can be traced to named individuals.

At the very least, the case proves that modern tech dictum’s of ‘move fast and break stuff’ doesn’t always lead to vast riches.

Liquid Death, the achingly-cool purveyors of fizzy drinks, and Spotify have teamed up to create the Eternal Playlist Urn, so you can groove to your favourite tunes – from beyond the grave.

No, it’s not April 1 (yet). This is absolutely for real. It’s an urn, you know, for the ashes of your dead loved ones. But with a Bluetooth speaker attached.

The urn is 11 inches tall, 7 inches wide, and weighs 2.4 pounds. The one catch is that you will be dependent on your surviving chums to charge up the speaker and operate the playlist. At that point, the burnt remains of your body will be in the actual urn. Still, you can’t have everything...

“What’s the worst part about being dead?” asks the launch video. “You can’t listen to music. Now you can enjoy all your favourite jams – for eternity.”

“Upload remains and you’ll upgrade any post life experience,” they say, tongue firmly in their collective cheeks. “Research shows that if you keep the dead happy, then they’re less likely to haunt you. Music has been shown to reduce hauntings by up to 47%.”

Hand on heart, we’re not completely certain of the veracity of that statistic.

Spotify has helpfully rolled out the Eternal Playlist Generator to build a list of songs for the urn. You could even construct a thematic playlist should you wish: There’s A Ghost In My House, Dead by the Pixies, Death Disco and more. Hours of fun await.

The Eternal Playlist Urn isn’t cheap, mind you. Priced at $495, it’s only available in a limited run via the Liquid Death website here.

The three major record labels, and Spotify, are suing Anna’s Archive for a mind-boggling $13.4 trillion, alleging that the site has illegally scraped more than 86 million sound files.

That is a lot of money. For context, the GDP of the whole of the United Kingdom is currently $4.25 trillion. For the US that figure stands at $24 trillion.

So what is Anna’s Archive? Well, they are another, somewhat elicit, startup who seem to be doing what startups do: moving fast and breaking stuff. Initially, this was focused on pirating books and papers, though they deny that term. Instead, they describe what they’re doing as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture” and say they aim to “build a music archive primarily aimed at preservation.”

However, they have since moved on to pirating music, which has brought them into conflict with the record industry. In a statement given to Billboard last month, a Spotify spokesperson said: “Spotify has identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping. We’ve implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring for suspicious behaviour. Since day one, we have stood with the artist community against piracy, and we are actively working with our industry partners to protect creators and defend their rights.”

Anna’s Archive has denied piracy, saying that it does not directly host any files and the music is distributed on peer-to-peer networks. The scraping though, is on an industrial scale – some 86 million files, which is thought to be nearly all the world’s commercial sound recordings.

A class-action lawsuit filed against Spotify alleges that the streaming giant has ignored, and subsequently profited from, billions of fraudulent streams of Drake's music.

The lawsuit, filed to California’s District Court on Sunday 2nd November, was first reported by Rolling Stone and accuses Spotify of having "turned a blind eye" to “mass-scale fraudulent streaming".

“Every month, under Spotify’s watchful eye, billions of fraudulent streams are generated from fake, illegitimate, and/or illegal methods", states the lawsuit. "[This] causes massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers, and other rights holders.”

Although Drake is mentioned, he is not being implicated or sued as part of the case, whose lead plaintiff is reported to be American rapper RBX (also Snoop Dogg’s cousin). Spotify is the sole defendant and is alleged to have overlooked fraudulent streams generated via the use of bots, which in turn has increased the platform's ad revenue.

The lawsuit references examination of Drake's streaming figures from January 2022 to September 2025, which apparently show signs of “abnormal VPN usage", and "a substantial, non-trivial percentage [which are] inauthentic and appear to be the work of a sprawling network of Bot Accounts.”

One specific example identified took place in 2024, where Drake's track No Face was streamed 250,000 times from a location in Turkey, but “falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in attempt to obscure their origins.”

With this in mind, the lawsuit claims that Drake's reported 37 billion streams have been artificially inflated. “For Spotify, more users and music streams means more advertising dollars, so long as the true origin of the streams remains hidden…”

In response to the lawsuit, Spotify has said “We cannot comment on pending litigation. However, Spotify in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming.”

“We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties.”

“Our systems are working: In a case from last year, one bad actor was indicted for stealing $10 million from streaming services, only $60,000 of which came from Spotify, proving how effective we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.”

Spotify Wrapped is just six weeks away. I know. Where has this year gone?

For punters, the platform’s Wrapped week is a mirror showing who or what exactly you’ve spent your time listening to during the last year, but for artists and musicians it’s a chance to engage with your fanbase and keep them informed of what you’ve got coming up in 2026.

Why? Well, according to Spotify, 245 million listeners engage with Wrapped and there are some 435 million shares of Wrapped content. Those figures alone justify the time and effort.

So you could – if you so wish – upload a personal clip for fans. All artists have the opportunity to do so, though keep in mind that the deadline is November 14.

The clip must be 30 seconds or less. That’s not much time to say thank you to your listeners, and perhaps tease what you’ve got coming up next year. If there’s nothing in the immediate pipeline, you could share a milestone from the year just gone, a particularly memorable fan encounter or a moment that you’re especially proud of.

Once you’ve recorded your clip, head over to the Video & Visuals tab on Spotify For Artists and upload there. The video will go live when Wrapped launches towards the end of November and will stay there until the campaign ends a week later.

As well as the clip, it’s important to keep your artist page updated at this time. So make sure your page contains all your upcoming gigs as well as details of ticketing partners.

If you do have a release coming up it might be an idea to create a Countdown Page to your next album or EP, making it easy for fans to pre-save via your artist page. When the release finally does drop , those pre-savers will be notified and your music will go straight into their libraries.

Then there’s your artist profile. The run-up to Wrapped is the perfect time to make it sparkle. You could use Artist Pick to pin your favourite music video of the last year, or add your own best of 2025 track list. Also make sure that fans looking at your profile can easily locate your merch and purchase during the peak Wrapped week. It might even be time to refresh your photo and put a new look front and centre.

Yes, there’s a lot to do. But remember those stats – nearly every Spotify user will engage with Wrapped in some way. It’s a massive opportunity for artists.

Spotify has announced that it’s partnering up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to improve the listening experience. The idea is that the chatbot will be able to make personalised recommendations.

The new service launched yesterday (October 6), allowing Spotify Premium and Free users to link their accounts to ChatGPT, thus allowing it to assist in finding new artists, songs, playlists, albums, or podcast episodes.

Those who are sceptical about AI may be rolling their eyes at this point. But Spotify has insisted that no audio or video content will be shared with OpenAI for training purposes. It should also be pointed out that the feature is entirely optional – Spotify users will be required to opt into this feature, and of course they can disable it at any time.

In a statement, Spotify said that they were “continuing to invest in personalisation technology and the expertise and insights of our human editors, so that we have something that matches every moment.”

“Spotify’s vision has always been to be everywhere you are,” Sten Garmark, Spotify’s Global Head of Consumer Experience, said, somewhat-terrifyingly. “By bringing Spotify into ChatGPT, we’re creating a powerful new way for fans to connect with the artists and creators they love conversationally, whenever inspiration strikes.”

This announcement comes a couple of weeks after the streaming platform said that it was cracking down on AI ‘slop’ and had removed 75 million ‘spam’ tracks that have come from fraudsters using AI to game the system. These have resulted in AI songs appearing on the pages of both deceased and living artists, as well as this summer’s most notorious fake AI ‘act’, The Velvet Sundown.

It remains to be seen whether ChatGPT will indeed be a useful addition to listeners’ experience, or if the OpenAI partnership will benefit the people Spotify really should be looking after: the musicians and artists.

The Online Safety Act has now become law in the UK and it is having consequences that go beyond its purpose of shielding children from pornography and harmful content. For one it is having an impact on Spotify users.

The Act came into effect last Friday (July 25). It now means social media companies and search services now have 'legal duties to protect their users from illegal content and content harmful to children.'

Users must now prove their age to access websites that host ‘adult’ content. Users can usually do this by uploading pictures of Government-issued ID such as passports or driving licences or take a video selfie, which the system will then use to ‘estimate’ your age.

Unfortunately, a whole swathe of fairly benign content has now fallen foul of the act.

Music with lyrics that might just contain the odd swearword for one, which is why Spotify users are now having to prove their age and are having to verify their ID to access certain songs.

But would you trust any tech giant with your private information and photo?

Not if you remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal of the mid-2010s when the UK-based consulting firm harvested data from millions of Facebook users without their consent. It was data which was then used to fuel the Brexit campaign and Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential bid.

Civil liberties groups aren’t happy.

"I don't doubt the intentions of those who are supporting this act,” said Matthew Feeney, Advocacy Manager at Big Brother Watch. "The fact is that it's unclear that this will actually make children safer because they can just drive themselves to parts of the dark web to access this content anyway.

"In addition, adults are going to find themselves in a position of having to upload biometric data or identification in order to access completely legal speech. I think that's a significant cost to incur in a liberal democracy."

And as is the way with anything on the Internet, there are always ways round it.

Since Friday there has been a spike in VPNs or virtual private networks being downloaded to bypass the new rules - indeed according to Digi.watch, half the Top 10 apps on Apple’s app store are VPNs.

These, however, come with their own risks. You could be importing malware or, ironically, you could have your data scalped nefariously.

It seems that barely a day goes by without someone somewhere having yet another dig at Spotify. And if the globe-conquering Swedish music service isn’t being named directly, then it’s the entire business of music streaming that’s coming under fire.

And – it seems – Spotify has finally had enough.

It’s safe to say that every music lover loves music streaming. The convenience. The ease. The availability of and access to tracks you otherwise might never have heard. But it remains a guilty pleasure for many.

Firstly there are memories of vibrant record stores, and eagerly-awaited release dates. Of listening to and knowing a carefully managed top 40 chart inside out. And the tall tales of lucky (frequently hapless) rock and pop stars making vast fortunes only to wind up in the dumper as tastes changed and fashions came and went.

All of which – arguably – just doesn’t happen these days.

But most of all there’s the guilt that, in exchange for your (once again ‘arguably’) totally-worth-it tenner a month, you’re giving the artists you love fractions of pennies in exchange for ALL of their fire and skill.

Meanwhile your money goes somewhere you probably don’t want it to.

Something's got to give

Compared to the old days (and this is as recently as 20 years ago), when you think about it, modern music streaming IS just too good to be true.

And it’s this dawning epiphany that’s growing increasingly prominent in the minds of today’s music makers. For while their audience sympathises, tuts and moans while continuing to stream music like there’s no tomorrow, they see their income increasingly diminish and the desire of new artists to follow in their footsteps evaporate completely.

And now, after weathering years of minor gripes and snipes, Spotify has been increasingly in touch with us and wants to set this record straight. And while they’re obviously biting their lip slightly, the real culprit preventing your favourites from making money is hiding in plain sight…

Take our Gavin Rossdale story for example. In it Rossdale worries: “How do young bands get paid? I can’t work it out. I don’t know… Maybe you get one song with loads of streams? And we know that Spotify barely pays.

“And whatever they do pay, the record companies make sure they siphon off most of it before it goes to the artist. So it’s the same deal – artists getting screwed, record companies making a fortune and getting all the money. So same shitty business, but if you love it, what are you gonna do?”

Contacting us shortly after publication Spotify said:

“As Gavin correctly points out, streaming services do not pay artists or songwriters directly. They pay rights holders, who in turn pay artists and songwriters based on their individual agreements. Once that revenue leaves a service like Spotify’s hands, how much money goes to artists and songwriters depends on their own contracts with their rightsholders.

"It’s a misconception that Spotify ‘doesn’t pay well’ – as we’ve proved time and time again. The $10B we paid out in 2024 and $60B all time is industry-leading and record-breaking - the largest contribution to the music industry.

“The music industry is healthier than ever.”

Likewise when Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth said that “Spotify are the biggest criminals in the world. I think we had 25, 26 million plays last year, and I think personally I got about 20 pounds, which is less than an hourly work rate,” Spotify spoke up.

“£20!? Spotify has paid out around a million dollars in revenue to Cradle of Filth’s rights holders for fans’ streams of their catalogue," they told us. "We’re disappointed to hear that Spotify’s payments are not making it through to the band.”

See a pattern forming here?

Is the real villain at play the record companies who – upon seeing their dollar slipping away – signed away the streaming rights for their artists' music for pennies AND THEN keep (around) 80% of Spotify’s incoming cash?

And with no records to press, and shops to supply these days, one has to ask: What is it they do again?

Indeed, artists such as James Blake would argue that modern record companies are redundant and – speaking in Spotify’s favour – that artists willing to cut out that middleman and truly take control of their destiny will find Spotify (and similar services) willing and lucrative partners.

"It looks like peanuts, right? But when you are not splitting it with a label you can make serious money as an independent artist through streams," he promises.

You reckon that the advent of streaming was a big deal? Maybe it’s time for an even bigger shake-up in music.

Cradle Of Filth's Dani Filth has become the latest big name to slam music streaming service Spotify, saying that he "owes it" to his fellow musicians to not even possess a Spotify account because, "I want my bands to be paid because if they’re not paid, they’re not bands anymore.”

Filth’s railing against the increasingly dominant platform comes as part of a new interview with the Sonic Perspectives YouTube channel, in which he voices an increasingly widespread opinion that streaming – with the finger being pointed as Spotify in particular – is responsible for the decreasing amount of cash being invested into new artists and subsequently delivered to musicians.

See Kate Nash’s bum for further evidence…

Filth’s hot take comes hot on the heels of similar complaints from new artists struggling to make ends meet all exacerbated by the revelation that Spotify’s founder and CEO is now richer than any music artist that he hosts on the platform (and thereby any music artist in history).

"This is real. This isn't a Zoom background," he says pointing to his physical turntable and CD player in the background, at the 19 minute mark.

“I owe it to my brethren in metal and music not to have a f**king Spotify account because they don’t pay people. It’s not just them – it’s just platforms in general,” he said.

“I appreciate the fact that people could discover you from another band and whatever; I’ve heard it a million times. But I’m old school… I want my bands to be paid because if they’re not paid, they’re not bands anymore.

“I know so many people from big bands that since the pandemic have gone, ‘You know what? I’m taking a proper job. So you’ll see me less often',” he explains. “'We’ll still be doing albums, but probably once every five years,’ because it just seems like daylight robbery.”

Streaming is 'killing music'?…

Taking an extreme angle Filth even goes as far as to compare streaming with straight-up shoplifting: "If you owned a delicatessen or a supermarket even, people aren't allowed to just come in and help themselves to free produce, which is what people think they're entitled to do with music because it's a peripheral thing and it's in the air.

"You can't physically touch music. But how do you expect bands to survive without that?"

Additionally Filth compares streaming directly with piracy. “In England, we used to have this whole advert they had before the movie starts where 'video piracy is killing the movie industry', and they even go to the point where they'd have this slamming prison doors, in IMAX quality sound. 'You're going to prison if you watch a bootleg movie.' I know back in the day they said ‘home taping is killing music,' but nowadays it's like a f**king free for all."

And it’s not the first time Filth has aired his disapproval of the service. In 2023, he dubbed Spotify "the biggest criminals in the world".

Speaking with Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece, he said: "It's been deteriorating ever since… I think 2006 was the year that everything swapped from being comfortable for musicians – well, not necessarily comfortable, it was never comfortable – but [it went to] just being a lot harder with the onset of the digital age, the onset of music streaming platforms that don't pay anybody.

“Spotify are the biggest criminals in the world. I think we had 25, 26 million plays last year, and I think personally I got about 20 pounds, which is less than an hourly work rate."

After this story was originally published, a Spotify Spokesperson contacted us to query this latter point: “£20!? Spotify has paid out around a million dollars in revenue to Cradle of Filth’s rightsholders for fans’ streams of their catalogue," they tell us. "We’re disappointed to hear that Spotify’s payments are not making it through to the band.”

It’s not just you…

Earlier this month Bush’s Gavin Rossdale pondered: “Obviously, when I began, if you made something good, people might buy it,” Rossdale explained. “Now, if you make something good, people might stream it. I have two sons that are poised to make music their lives, and I couldn’t be more concerned for them.

“I’ve been a musician my whole life and I’m at a loss to explain to someone how to do it. How to build from the ground up, how to get a career in that? It’s just terrifying because how do musicians, how do young bands get paid? I can’t work it out. I don’t know.

“Maybe you get one song with loads of streams? And we know that Spotify barely pays,” Rossdale reckoned. “And whatever they do pay, the record companies make sure they siphon off most of it before it goes to the artist. So it’s the same deal – artists getting screwed, record companies making a fortune and getting all the money. So same shitty business, but if you love it, what are you gonna do?”

Spotify speak out

Our Rossdale story prompted Spotify to contact us directly, stating: “As Gavin correctly points out, streaming services do not pay artists or songwriters directly. They pay rightsholders, who in turn pay artists and songwriters based on their individual agreements. Once that revenue leaves a service like Spotify’s hands, how much money goes to artists and songwriters depends on their own contracts with their rightsholders.

"It’s a misconception that Spotify ‘doesn’t pay well’ – as we’ve proved time and time again. The $10B we paid out in 2024 and $60B all time is industry-leading and record-breaking - the largest contribution to the music industry.

"We’ve also seen the number of artists “making it” grow from hundreds competing to be in the Top 40 to hundreds of thousands vying to be among the top thousand. There are now over 66,000 artists generating at least $10k from Spotify payouts, and the number of artists generating at least $1M, $100K and $10K, has nearly tripled since 2017. Industry analysis suggests that these artists’ total overall revenue is x4 that when you take into account their additional revenue streams. The music industry is healthier than ever.”

“Healthier than ever”, or “daylight robbery”? It seems that with Spotify only just turning its first year of profit and having forged a bundled content deal with Universal Music Group that will effectively pay its artist even less, this chasm of opinion looks only likely to get wider.

In an announcement that will have plain-thinking normal folks scratching their heads and penniless musicians punching themselves in the face, Spotify has today announced their latest financials… And it’s good news… They’ve just turned a full-year profit for the first time. Ever.

Yes, the streaming giant, famous for having a CEO who is now richer than any of the artists whose music he serves, has finally made some money.

"I’m not sure that journey is fully understood. And frankly, we probably haven’t done a very good job of explaining it," admitted Daniel Ek in his statement.

It’s a scenario that’s hard to believe, but the fact is that, for the last 18 years, Spotify has simply been finding its feet.

The battle has been in the delicate balancing act of paying record companies and rights holders for use of their music, while also paying the logistic and technical costs to deliver it, while keeping the company’s brave and genius owners and investors fed and watered, while delivering a service that was reliable and keenly priced enough to keep a steady flow of users signing up, and then staying on board.

And 2024 was the first time, since the company was founded in 2006, that they got that balance right.

Now with the tough nut of ‘will streaming ever be a viable business?’ finally cracked, it’s safe to say that Spotify is truly in the money.

In fact, with all of the hard work out of the way (getting record companies to hand over their IP and users to happily part with a direct debit each month), with 675 million monthly users and 263 million paid members, the sky is now the limit. Spotify just beat expectations for revenue, profit and user growth, news which sent their shares up 13% yesterday.

The company financial report features record net income of €883 million, operating income of €477 million, free cash flow of €877 million and a gross margin 32.2% for the fourth quarter of 2024.

And with profits for 2024 being €1.37bn ($1.42bn) compared to a loss of €446m in 2023 it’s safe to say that Spotify’s endless money tap is now officially open.

Wha?… When?… How?…

The company cites the popularity of Spotify Wrapped – with artists and users sharing what they’ve been listening to (more often than not it’s themselves…) – as a key booster for the period.

And with all that great music on board and paying punters lapping it up, it’s no surprise to find that their ad revenue was through the roof too. Last year ads brought in €2 billion up nearly four times from 2018.

It’s round about now that you’re probably shouting “give artists more money” at the screen. And don’t you worry. CEO Daniel Ek knows he’s got a price to pay… but all in good time…

"If we grow, the music industry benefits," says Ek in the report pointing out that Spotify paid out a record $10 billion to the music industry last year, a figure that’s considerably up from around $1 billion a decade ago.

He also highlighted Spotify’s new multiyear deal with Universal Music Group, a deal which will see the two firms working on new subscription tiers, adding podcast and audiobook collections and paying artists even less money.

In fact, with Spotify’s war against music now effectively won, it’s this new bundling and ‘non-music’ content that’s becoming the focus for their next payday and the closer ties with UMG only put more content within their reach.

"With the world’s top talent and hundreds of millions of engaged listeners, this gives Spotify the ability to attract the best brands and product partners," teases Ek.

"And we will keep on evolving and keep on adding more verticals over time and expanding our business models to allow for more types of content and let artists and creators monetize them.

"This is the Spotify Machine."

For now, therefore, it seems unlikely that musicians will be getting any more money. And perhaps artists in every entertainment medium had best start watching those pennies.

Spotify has just won in a US court case regarding claims that an attempt to add extra value to their customers was simply a move to reduce payments to artists on the platform.

The bundling of an audiobook service into the already millions of music tracks available had been seen as a clever tactic that hugely increased the volume of minutes of content that the platform offered, thus further watering down the amount per stream that an artist could earn.

Having introduced the audiobook option into their premium streaming service Spotify was able to invoke a settlement they’d made with music publishers in 2022 that agreed that streaming services are allowed to pay less on music subscriptions when they are bundled with other services.

The theory goes that if there’s a finite amount of money coming in (i.e. all the monthly subs paid by Spotify's subscribers) and a portion of this money is then divided equally on a per-stream basis between all of the parties providing content, then an influx of new content would dilute revenue further. Thus taking on audiobooks (with durations far longer than any song or album) could be seen as a smart means to pay out less money to any artist.

That’s the theory at least, and spotting what they thought was Spotify’s gambit, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, the nonprofit agency responsible for issuing mechanical (i.e. playback) licenses to streaming services, sued Spotify in May of 2024 citing the ‘bundle’ as a loophole that allowed the service to “unilaterally and unlawfully” begin reducing the rates they’d agree to pay for music playback by as much as 50 percent.

Throw the (audio) book at them

However, in a memorandum filed last Wednesday 29 January the court has come down in Spotify’s favour and that the wording of their bundling agreement and the change to payable fees agreed within it was “unambiguous.”

“The only plausible application of the law supports Spotify’s position,” judge Analisa Torres wrote in her closing statement. “Under the facts as alleged, audiobook streaming is a product or service that is distinct from music streaming and has more than token value. Premium is, therefore, properly categorized as a bundle, and the allegations of the complaint do not plausibly suggest otherwise.”

This result is, of course, not great news for music artists who have long complained about the unfairly low amount being paid to the creators of the music on streaming platforms while their executives, such as Daniel Ek, the founder and CEO of Spotify, become richer than any music artist who has ever lived.

“The MLC brought this action to address the unprecedented steps taken by Spotify to significantly underreport royalties to The MLC,” the MLC said in its statement. “We continue to be concerned that Spotify’s actions are not consistent with the law, and that today’s decision does not align with the facts and legal principles central to this action. We are reviewing the decision and evaluating all available options, including our right to appeal.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for Spotify said that the company was “pleased with this outcome, which demonstrates that, after careful review by the court, Spotify’s Premium service is appropriately categorized as a bundle and offers valuable content alongside music.”

Too late to say sorry

Prior to this win Spotify had, last week, signed a new deal with Universal Music Group and its publishing arm UMPG that – according to insiders – improved some of the agreed payments within this controversial ‘bundling’ agreement. At the time David Israelite, the CEO of the trade group the National Music Publishers’ Association, called the new deal “a clear sign that Spotify felt the backlash to its bundling scheme.”

However, it seems likely that despite the new agreement and Spotify’s win, it’s likely that the issue of unfairly low payments to artists will be a controversy that won’t simply go away.

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Best of 2024: First published in 2010, Byron Sharp’s seminal book, How Brands Grow has become a marketeer’s bible. In it, Sharp used empirical research conducted at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science to challenge widely held industry beliefs about marketing effectiveness. In this article, Mark Knight, the founder of Major Labl Artist Club considers how Sharp’s principles of brand growth could equally be applied to band and artist growth and questions why the music industry has been so slow to adopt his learnings…

Byron Sharp had several key findings about how brands generally grow. These are:

1. Don’t waste time trying to grow loyalty in isolation as it doesn’t drive growth

2. Grow the number of people that buy your brand and loyalty will come as a result

3. Increasing market penetration is crucial; most buyers are light users

4. Targeting is overrated! Reach as many people in the most cost-effective way possible

5. Brands grow by increasing both their physical and mental availability

Social media is full of so-called music marketing experts trying to sell courses to new and emerging audiences with the promise of developing super fans through email marketing. But rather than being led with romantic notions of 70s fan clubs, how about we look at the empirical evidence of marketing effectiveness?

This is the first myth that Sharp’s research bursts. His Double Jeopardy Law states that smaller brands (artists, in our context) not only attract fewer customers but also experience lower loyalty.

Quite simply, if you are promoting a new artist, focus your time and money on acquiring new customers, not trying to retain fans that won’t be loyal. You’ll never fix the leaking bucket!

Byron Sharp’s law of ‘Buyer Moderation’ finds a natural tendency for extreme consumer behaviour (both high and low) to regress toward the mean over time. Just because they are a super fan this year, doesn’t mean they will be a super fan next year.

Sharp’s data concludes that as a small brand (artist), it’s far easier to get someone new to buy your product once than to get the same person to buy it twice. This is because smaller brands (artists) have fewer loyal buyers (listeners) and are more likely to split their purchases (streams) among competitors.

Spotify data shows users listen to 30 to 100 times more individual tracks than artists each year. People are spreading their listening across a wider range of songs and artists. If you’ve ever been surprised by the 'Top' songs in your Spotify Wrapped, it might be because the difference between your top 5 and top 100 streamed songs is just a tiny number of plays.

If you grow the number of people that buy your brand, loyalty will come as a result

Back in the brand world, data from Coca-Cola, arguably the biggest FMCG brand ever, highlights the importance of reach and growth from light buyers.

Their data shows how the ‘average buyer’ is different from the ‘typical buyer’ because a few heavy users skewed the ‘average buyer’.

In reality, half of all Coke buyers, purchase only one or two cans or bottles per year. Very few buyers purchase around the ‘average’ of 12 times annually.

This isn’t just a quirk of Coca-Cola, it’s clear all brands have many light buyers who purchase infrequently. Despite occasional purchases, these buyers are so numerous that they significantly contribute to overall sales.

From Coca-Cola's perspective, a heavy buyer is defined as anyone who purchases three or more cans or bottles of Coke annually. Even for a large brand like Coca-Cola, the market is dominated by very light buyers.

What can artists learn from this? That increasing penetration is the key to growth.

Now let’s bring it back to music. What if we imagine Taylor Swift as the Coca-Cola of music? As a big music brand, she has undoubtedly attracted some loyal fans these ‘Swifties’ represent the heavy buyers, but just like Coca-Cola her phenomenal growth and success has ultimately been driven by increasing penetration among the long tail of light listeners.

Millions of Spotify users have listened to her music at least once in the last 12 months and it’s this incremental penetration that has been crucial to her growth.

Targeting is overrated! Reach as many people in the most cost-effective way possible

Taylor Swift’s success has not been driven by niche targeting, she’s become a mainstream star by reaching the widest possible audience.

This jibes well with Sharp's point - it proves the key to maximising devotion is broad reach to a mass audience. Precise audience targeting just limits your chances of finding your audience. Remember just because we can segment audiences with data, doesn’t mean we should.

While your music may exist in a niche, most audiences don’t. On average, Spotify users listen to around 55 genres of music, with some listening to as many as 174.[MIDiA Resarch].

The lesson for promoting new artists is simply to keep your audience as big and broad as possible, you really can’t afford to rule out possible audiences, especially at the start. So the next time you are promoting a social post or running an Instagram ad widen your audience beyond ‘fans of a similar sounding artist’.

Brands grow by increasing both their physical and mental availability

Quite a statement, but what do we mean by that? Physical availability refers to the ease with which a brand's products can be purchased by consumers whenever and wherever they are ready to buy. In the brand world, there are several key considerations.

1. Breadth of distribution: Ensuring products are stocked in as many retail locations as possible

2. Shelf placement: Being prominently displayed on the shelves, to catch the attention of shoppers

3. Stock levels: Ensuring the product is always available for purchase

4. Format and channels: Offering products in a variety of sizes both on and offline

This can equally be applied to music. As a promoter of music, it’s important to ask yourself; How can I make my music more physically or digitally available?

Breath of distribution: Is your music available on all key music streaming platforms, independent record shops or big stores? Will listeners be able to find you on the platforms they use or the stores they visit?

Shelf placement: How do you improve the prominence of your music by getting your music on a key playlist, or the front page of Spotify or YouTube? How do you appear at the end of the aisle or within a staff pick section in record shops?

Stock levels: How do you ensure your physical product is always in stock and conversely how do you create and leverage the perception of scarcity in digital to create demand?

Formats and channels: What can you sell at gigs or in your online store so it feels like there is something for everyone at a range of price points?

I once heard a story about an artist who sold framed record sleeves (containing no vinyl record) as she realised most fans were buying them to hang on their wall, not to play.

The key to physical availability is about making it easy to buy and removing purchase barriers and blockers. With music that starts by ensuring the links in your bios or on your website are working.

So, what about 'mental availability'? Brand awareness is knowing your name, mental availability is about thinking of your name in a purchase moment. The acid test is to go to Spotify and hover by the search bar - which artist name comes to mind first? This artist has mental availability, now how do you get some?

To enhance mental availability, Sharp concluded brands should focus on:

Building strong and distinctive brand assets: Elements like logos, colours, and slogans that are easily recognisable and consistently used.

Logos, colours and fonts equally play a key role in effective music marketing. While you can replace slogans with catchy lyrical hooks or riffs that stay in your head.

Creating and reinforcing associations with various buying moments: Ensuring the brand comes to mind in multiple contexts where a purchase decision might occur.

For musicians, this means attaching your music to moods or moments. The Christmas song is the ultimate example of this. When you think Christmas, you think The Pogues, or Mariah.

But equally, your music could be the ultimate Friday night going out anthem, or the ultimate chilled Sunday soundtrack. Give people entrance points and reasons to listen to your music.

Maintaining consistent and widespread advertising: Keeping the brand top-of-mind through regular and broad-reaching marketing efforts.

This is where social media comes into its own. Maintaining a consistent presence can mean regular new releases or regular social media posts but it doesn’t always need to be new content. Remember new followers find you every day, so resurfacing great content from your past can be just as powerful.

You also don’t need to be a slave to social media. Going away on tour or holiday? Why not set up an ad or promoted post to maintain momentum while you are away?

Sharp’s findings provide a ready-made blueprint for music marketers to follow. Ditch the targeting, focus on broad reach to find new listeners, loyalty will come automatically so don’t force it, show up consistently and remove the barriers by making it easy to find and listen to your music.

Spotify has fired back at claims by Drake that it helped to artificially boost Kendrick Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us, describing the allegations as “false” and the rapper’s legal action a “subversion of the normal judicial process.”

You may recall that Drake filed a legal petition last month saying that Universal Music and Spotify had colluded to artificially inflate Not Like Us, by using bots, undisclosed payments and biased recommendations. Not Like Us went straight in at Number One in the Billboard chart in May, breaking a number of chart records along the way.

In a motion filed at a Manhattan court on Friday, Spotify have responded, saying that they have found no evidence of a bot attack and flatly denying that there was any collusion between themselves and Universal to promote Not Like Us.

“The predicate of Petitioner’s entire request for discovery from Spotify is false,” the company’s lawyers write. “Spotify and UMG have never had any such arrangement.”

The filing repeatedly criticises Drake for going to court in the first place, calling his claims of a conspiracy “far-fetched” and “speculative,” and questioning why Spotify (a “stranger” to the “long-running feud” between Drake, Kendrick and Universal) is even involved.

It also defended itself against claims that it used bots to artificially inflate the track in question. In an affidavit attached to Friday’s filing, Spotify’s Vice President of music offered sworn testimony that the company “invests heavily” in efforts to “mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.”

“When we identify attempted stream manipulation, we take action that may include removing streaming numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty fees,” David Kaefer wrote. “Confirmed and suspected artificial streams are also removed from our chart calculations. This helps us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists.”

Drake doesn’t appear to be backing down. After Spotify’s motion was filed, Drake’s legal team responded in a statement they gave to Billboard: “It is not surprising that Spotify is trying to distance themselves from UMG’s allegedly manipulative practices to artificially inflate streaming numbers on behalf of one of its other artists. If Spotify and UMG have nothing to hide then they should be perfectly fine complying with this basic discovery request.”

It’s been a year to forget for Drake, who came a distant second place in the battle of the diss tracks. At the end of 2024, his standing in hip hop is not what it was, with many figures including Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Hed criticising his decision to go down the legal route in his beef with Kendrick Lamar. One thing's for certain – the only winners from this latest round are likely to be the lawyers.

In the modern music landscape, getting your track placed on an editorial playlist, curated by a streaming platform's in-house team can be all that is required to send it (and you) into the big leagues. Or so the theory goes. This 2020s equivalent of getting playlisted on the radio is now such a hot ticket that several paid services offer cleaner, fast-tracked routes in to the inboxes of said curators.

These genre-aligned playlists then, are - or so we've been led to believe - carefully assembled by expert listeners and sequenced for our listening pleasure.

But, as journalist Liz Pelly, has revealed, the biggest streaming platform on the market might have been supplanting real artists with craftily assembled 'fake' artists in an effort to reduce royalty payments to bona-fide music-makers.

In a lengthy extract from her new book, 'Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist', published in Harper's Magazine, Liz details that she first heard of this worrying shift away from real human artists way back in 2017.

As she recalls, "Spotify, the rumour had it, was filling its most popular playlists with stock music attributed to pseudonymous musicians - variously called ghost or fake artists - presumably in an effort to reduce its royalty payouts. Some even speculated that Spotify might be making the tracks itself. At a time when playlists created by the company were becoming crucial sources of revenue for independent artists and labels, this was a troubling allegation."

Pell explains how subsequent journalistic pressure over the following years provoked Spotify to speak out against the allegations; "A Spotify spokesperson, in turn, told the music press that these reports were 'categorically untrue, full stop': the company was not creating its own fake-artist tracks. But while Spotify may not have created them, it stopped short of denying that it had added them to its playlists," states Pell.

In 2022. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter did some research of its own into the worrying world of 'fake' artist playlist-stuffing, and uncovered some truly astonishing statistics; when comparing streaming data alongside data compiled via Swedish copyright collections society STIM, it indicated that just 20 songwriters were behind the work of more than 500 artists - and thousands of their tracks had been streamed millions of times.

Said artists, Liz Pell's book says, had been given obviously fake bios, to disguise the fact that they were fabricated. Pell then spent the next year devoting herself to uncovering the truth.

"For more than a year, I devoted myself to answering these questions," writes Pell. "I spoke with former employees, reviewed internal Spotify records and company Slack messages, and interviewed and corresponded with numerous musicians. What I uncovered was an elaborate internal program. Spotify, I discovered, not only has partnerships with a web of production companies, which, as one former employee put it, provide Spotify with 'music we benefited from financially,' but also a team of employees working to seed these tracks on playlists across the platform." Alarming stuff.

The scheme, Pelly reveals, is defined internally as 'Perfect Fit Content' (PFC). The whole idea is to replace real independent artists with functional music designed to fit a niche, while those writers and artists who might be contracted to make the PFC-music will often abdicate any rights and royalties that, in other circumstances, could bring them a significant income. Either way, it seems that genuine artists draw the short straw in this dynamic.

As Pelly states; "It puts forth an image of a future in which - as streaming services push music further into the background, and normalize anonymous, low-cost playlist filler - the relationship between listener and artist might be severed completely."

In the course of her extensive investigation, Liz Pelly spoke to various former Spotify curators and staff, many of which recalled that the internal pressure to add this type of 'PFC' content grew as the years progressed. "These higher-ups were well versed in the business of major-label hitmaking, but not necessarily in the cultures or histories of genres like jazz, classical, ambient, and lo-fi hip-hop - music that tended to do well on playlists for relaxing, sleeping, or focusing." One source told Pelly. "[the idea was] If the metrics went up, then let’s just keep replacing more and more, because if the user doesn’t notice, then it’s fine.”

The extract is well worth giving your full attention, as Pelly details several other alarming findings from her research into PFC. The extract concludes with a warning about the looming risk of AI, and Spotify's willingness to embrace it potentially fuelling this marginalisation.

Liz Pell's full length book, Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist will be published in January 2025 by One Signal Publishers, an imprint of Atria Books and can be ordered via Amazon here.

Streams of drum 'n' bass have risen by 94% since 2021 in the UK, Spotify has revealed.

Over the last three years, the genre has returned to the mainstream thanks in part to the popularity of tracks like Chase & Status and Stormzy's BACKBONE, which went to No 1 in the UK earlier this year. Spotify says BACKBONE is the most-streamed DnB track on the platform.

The streaming service has also shared a list of its top 10 DnB artists that includes Chase & Status, Rudimental, Bou, goddard, Sub Focus, Charlotte Plank, Skepsis, Hybrid Minds, Shy FX and Nia Archives.

Spotify has released a mini-documentary, DnB: In for Life, that explores the history of the genre and its impact on the wider music scene. Featuring a number of influential artists and DJs that includes Flight, S.P.Y. and Bou, the film traces drum 'n' bass' development from its roots in underground raves through to mainstream domination.

In the documentary, Flight says that DnB's enduring popularity is down to its independent ethos. "No-one's managed to get hold of it," she says. "It's been DIY since the beginning and it's stayed that way. Whether you're an artist, a label owner or a raver, we're really protective over it. Once you're into the music, that's it: you love it for life."

Drum 'n' bass' resurgence has been driven by a renewed interest in the genre among younger listeners; Spotify reports that 68% of listeners are below the age of 34.

Watch our In The Studio With... video with Skepsis below.

This opinion-based format allows a range of writers a platform to speak about the topics that are important to them. Their views are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of MusicRadar as a whole.

In case you didn’t already know it, facts and figures put together by Forbes show that Daniel Ek, Spotify’s CEO and founder is currently worth $7.3 billion. That’s richer than their musical top three of Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Jay-Z combined. Richer, therefore, than any music artist in history.

It’s news that'll doubtless put a broad, beaming smile onto the face of any musician. Yes, whether you’re Elvis Presley, your choice of ex-Beatle or just that struggling guy or girl with a guitar looking for a lucky break, raise a [probably empty] glass to the fact that the CEO and founder of Spotify is the guy who’s really taking making money from music.

And, in their latest moves to stay on top, the legal team at Spotify have just successfully taken down Spotify Unwrapped, a site – perfectly timed to mark the release of their own Spotify Wrapped – that cleverly allowed users to enter a few details and see just how much they’ve given to Spotify and just how much of their money went to the artists they love.

The page now directs would-be viewers and supporters to the Union of Musicians’ Justice At Spotify page highlighting their desire for a flat rate of one US cent per stream (up from an average streaming royalty of $.0038) and make all deals transparent and public, so all artists are equal and ending “practices that resemble payola”.

Meanwhile, the man who spotted the gap and pushed the miraculous (and earth-shiftingly destructive) business of music streaming – in which we pay him first and he passes pennies to the artists that are making the music – is making more money than any musician on his platform.

So what went wrong?

It was never meant to be like this, of course. Music streaming was just another example of ‘the great leveling’, the internet taking power away from ‘the man’ and giving an opportunity to anyone talented enough to win hearts and minds. In the case of music, of course, that meant an end to ‘big labels’ controlling artists' fates and fortunes and charging music lovers £14.99 for a clunky physical CD that contained the one song that they wanted.

Certainly, after years of being pumped controlled mind-sapping pap while being charged the earth for it, followed by a piracy and peer-to-peer fuelled wild west in which all existing music would be free forever (thus killing all future music), the arrival of streaming – paying a fair price and getting the music you want while supporting the artist that made it – looked like the genius solution.

But – it can be argued – it didn’t quite end up that way. Spotify, rather than sticking it to ‘the man’, instead became ‘the man’. New artists piled onto the platform and even big names such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Taylor Swift had to relent as the physical (and nascent digital download) audience fled town.

In the rush, somebody forgot to do the maths and make sure that they were getting their fair share on their Spotify contract. Somehow, somewhere never-disclosed deals for fractions of pennies per play were signed and sealed and became the norm.

This made sense at the time – you try doing deals with every artist on the planet and then operating servers to stream millions of tracks to millions of users – but when the world and its Mum got on board, the disparity between the amount Spotify were raking in and the measly amount they were paying out stopped making sense.

And when giants (and iPod and iTunes innovators) Apple jumped on board with Apple Music rather than offer competition, they only created a two-horse town whose landscape looks increasingly unlikely to ever erode.

So what next?

Recently Kate Nash shone a light on the problem by elegantly explaining that she is now selling photos of her bum on Only Fans in order to finance her tour.

And – equally elegantly – bands such as Benefits have taken to social media to publicly shout out where it’s all gone wrong.

Fact is, right now, if you’re a musician wanting to ‘make it big’ in 2024 and beyond you’re frankly better off cultivating your social media presence and T-shirt printing skills (while gigging 24/7) than waiting for your Spotify payout.

And if you’re a music lover who wants justice done, there’s an ever-increasing number of places you can find out more and play your part, while Spotify looks set to play whack-a-mole close behind.

This week is Spotify Wrapped week, the week where the world’s biggest music streaming service gifts new playlists to all its subscribers based on all the music they’ve been listening to each year.

Your Wrapped playlist is therefore always both a joy and a bit of a head-scratcher, revealing everything that you love and some things that you didn’t quite realise that you loved quite so much… Baby Shark? Again? Really?

It’s all very personal and provides deep insight into your musical taste that you’ll probably want to keep to yourself… Although, increasingly (and brilliantly) big name artists now take the opportunity to share their lists, not only showing us what trend-setting, forward-thinking musical geniuses they are but providing an interesting insight into what’s currently making their musical brains tick.

Charli XCX was quick off the mark, broadcasting a screenshot that showed that Drain Gang member Bladee was her most-played artist of the year with the rest of her top five panning out as Air, A.G Cook, Clairo and Mk.gee. Interesting juxtaposition of Bladee and Air there… Obviously she likes to wind down after too much hardcore hip-hop.

So-hot-right-now US vocalist Chappell Roan, perhaps unsurprisingly, listened to a lot of Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, Heart, Justice and Kacey Musgraves. Her top song was Heart’s Barracuda.

Olivia Rodrigo’s gave her BFF Chappell Roan a double high five, revealing that Roan was her top artist and her top song was Roan’s Good Luck, Babe.

Similarly Maisie Peters, an artist who opened for Taylor Swift on her Eras tour, revealed that Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department song Down Bad was her number one.

And also paying her old school respect, Miley Cyrus’s top artist was Britney Spears (this despite her not releasing a new album since 2016’s Glory with a single Mind Your Business release in 2023).

Camila Cabello on the other hand branched out, revealing a taste for Afrobeat this year with top three tracks: Ijo (Laba Laba) by Crayon, Kontrol by Maleek Berry and Charm by Rema.

Playlist payola?

Of course, such an opportunity to reach out to (potentially) millions of fans to promote music they might not have heard is now a bit of a business opportunity. Thus we see unheard of artists suddenly getting a vast boost through a high profile endorsement and – perhaps – there’s a little gamesmanship at play with labelmates, tour buddies and BFFs all getting the appropriate corporate approved props and love.

And special mention to artists whose playlist feature themselves… Or is even entirely comprised of themselves…

So while Addison Rae went old school, revealing a top most-played five artist list packed with classics - Madonna, Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, Britney Spears - there’s – oops – herself at number five.

More dramatically, the only artist that Lil Nas X listened to more than himself was Camila Cabello. (Cabello at number one, Nas X at number two…)

Likewise Clairo confessed that while her top artist was the rather off-topic Lana Del Rey, her number two choice was… [cough] Clairo…

Of course, the queen of self-appreciation was Ice Spice, who last year famously posted that her top artist was herself, with her top five comprising entirely of songs by herself…

Fortunately this year it seems she’s broadened her horizons, instead listening to Cash Cobain, Drake, Future, Bktherula and Partynextdoor (in that order).

Phew.

Apple may have beaten them to it, dropping Apple Music’s 2024 Replay playlists into subscribers accounts yesterday, but the real year-end big news remains today’s release of Spotify’s Wrapped 2024 charts. The increasingly relevant and popular annual Spotify list of most streamed songs and artists on the platform has become the benchmark metric for “How was your year?” for every musician.

And while Wrapped drops tailor-made lists of what you’ve been listening from across the year for its users, it’s the year-end charts – a chance for the industry to get an angle on an artist’s success in an age where ‘record sales’ mean nothing – that are the hot topic.

A good showing in Spotify’s Wrapped is your passport to festival headline slots, movie soundtrack offers and cameos and celebrity endorsements from soft drinks to soft play. Basically, everywhere you can make money from music, that isn’t actually music, because – ironically – nobody makes money from music except for Spotify.

So who are this year’s winners and losers?

It’ll perhaps come as no surprise to find that Taylor Swift has had a great 2024. In fact, she had a great 2023 too, meaning that today’s anointment as the most streamed artist on the platform means that it’s the second year in a row that she’s won it. Hardly surprising considering the level of hard work and promotion she’s put in globally, with her Era’s tour spanning the planet since March 2023 and still in progress.

Swift scored 26.6 billion streams globally with The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Drake and Billie Eilish (in that order) rounding out the top five.

Swift similarly won the prize of Spotify’s most streamed album with The Tortured Poets Department coming in ahead of rival releases by Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Karol G and Ariana Grande. Worth noting that female artists were responsible for eight of the top ten albums this year.

Worth mentioning that Swift won most streamed artist and album on Apple's Replay charts too.

Women score eight out of ten of the top slots

“It’s been a standout year for female artists,” Sulinna Ong, Spotify's global head of editorial at their press conference. “In all my time at Spotify, I’ve never seen women dominate the eight spots for global albums of the year. So long may this continue.”

However, while Swift bagged artist and album wins, the coveted prize of the world’s most streamed song went to another artist… And 2024’s winner is… Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter. Hardly a surprise given that it’s been practically everywhere all year, scoring an impressive 1.6 billion streams on Spotify’s service alone.

Beautiful Things by Benson Boone, Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish, Gata Only by FloyyMenor and Cris Mj, and Lose Control by Teddy Swims round out the five.

Notably Swift only just made the top ten, with her best track – Cruel Summer – sliding in at number nine.

Special mention (and explanation) to Spotify’s ‘Most Viral’ charts at this point. Not to be confused with streams, Most Viral measures how often a track was shared to social media (and thereby spread to a wider audience) indicating those tracks that users want to broadcast their endorsement of or which carry a more personal connection (rather than tracks simply enjoyed as guilty pleasures in private). Yes, of course Spotify can see (and measure) such a thing.

Top Viral track was Die With A Smile by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, with the rest of the five panning out as Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish, Beautiful Things by Benson Boone, Lose Control by Teddy Swims and Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan

Here, in full, therefore are those vital 2024 Top Tens:

Most-Streamed Artists Globally 2024

1) Taylor Swift
2) The Weeknd
3) Bad Bunny
4) Drake
5) Billie Eilish
6) Travis Scott
7) Peso Pluma
8) Kanye West
9) Ariana Grande
10) Feid

Most-Streamed Songs Globally 2024

1) Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter
2) Beautiful Things by Benson Boone
3) Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish
4) Gata Only by FloyyMenor and Cris Mj
5) Lose Control by Teddy Swims
6) End of Beginning by Djo
7) Too Sweet by Hozier
8) One Of The Girls by The Weeknd, JENNIE and Lily Rose Depp
9) Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift
10) Die With A Smile by Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga

Most-Streamed Albums Globally 2024

1) The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology by Taylor Swift
2) Hit Me Hard And Soft by Billie Eilish
3) Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter
4) Mañana Será Bonito by Karol G
5) Eternal Sunshine by Ariana Grande
6) 1989 (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift
7) SOS by SZA
8) Lover by Taylor Swift
9) Fireworks & Rollerblades by Benson Boone
10) Starboy by The Weeknd

Most Viral Songs Globally 2024

1) Die With A Smile by Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga
2) Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish
3) Beautiful Things by Benson Boone
4) Lose Control by Teddy Swims
5) Good Luck, Babe” by Chappell Roan
6) Too Sweet by Hozier
7) We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) by Ariana Grande
8) End of Beginning by Djo
9) Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter
10) Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar

The diss tracks war between Drake and Kendrick Lamar continues to rumble on, with Drake starting legal action against Universal Music Group and Spotify. The Canadian rapper is accusing them of “illegally” boosting streams of his rival’s diss track Not Like Us, by allegedly using bots, undisclosed payments, and biased recommendations.

Attorneys for Drake’s company Frozen Moments allege that: “UMG did not rely on chance, or even ordinary business practices. It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”

They also accuse UMG of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), implementing deceptive pay-to-play business practices, and using false advertising under New York state law. In court documents, the attorneys claim they tried to “meet and confer with UMG” for the past several months,” but the label “declined to enter into substantive negotiations” and instead allegedly insisted that they take it up with Lamar directly.

Among the specific claims made is that UMG offered Spotify compensation to recommend the song to Spotify subscribers: “On information and belief, UMG charged Spotify licensing rates 30 per cent lower than its usual licensing rates for ‘Not Like Us’ in exchange for Spotify affirmatively recommending the song to users who are searching for other unrelated songs and artists.” UMG has denied the allegations in the court document are true.

Elsewhere it is claimed that Universal paid Apple to have their digital assistant ‘Siri’ “purposely misdirect” users to Not Like Us when they ask it to play Drake’s 2021 album Certified Lover Boy. It should be pointed out that Not Like Us does actually include Kendrick’s lyric/slur ‘Certified Lover Boy?/ Certified pedophile.’

It should noted however the dispute is technically not a full lawsuit. Instead it has been filed as a ‘pre-action’ petition, which under New York law is a procedure filed to secure information prior to a formal lawsuit. In hip-hop parlance, sh*t hasn’t yet got serious. But it could well soon.

As you’d expect Universal have strenuously denied Drake’s claims, putting out a statement saying: “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”

Not Like Us, of course, went straight in at Number One in the Billboard chart in May, breaking a number of records along the way. Lamar unleashed GNX, a surprise new album on unsuspecting punters last week and in all likelihood that too will go straight in at Number One this Friday.

Most MusicRadar readers will be aware that music-making tools powered by generative AI have seen dramatic progression in recent years. Having allegedly hoovered up the entirety of recorded music without legal authorization, platforms like Suno and Udio are now capable of generating entire songs at the click of a button.

Generative tools like these have presented the music industry with a catalogue of urgent questions both ethical and practical - questions which artists, labels and streaming platforms are only beginning to grapple with.

Should artists be compensated by platforms that have trained their AI models on copyrighted music? If someone makes a song with AI, do they deserve the same kind of rights and compensation as a traditional musician? Should music be labelled as AI-generated on streaming services, so that listeners are aware of its origin? In the long run, is AI going to amplify creativity - or replace people?

It's this final question that Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström answered during a recent episode of the Big Technology podcast, giving us a clearer picture of how the world's most popular streaming service intends to face the issues raised by the development of generative AI.

"It's amplifying creativity," Söderström tells host Alex Kantrowitz. "It's giving more and more people access to be creative. You need even less motor skills than on a piano. You need less technical skills than their own [digital audio] workstation. So I think of them as tools."

After Söderström makes a distinction between completely AI-generated music and music that uses AI only for specific elements of a song, Kantrowitz asks him directly if Spotify wants to host music on its platform that is 100% AI-generated.

"We're a tool for for creators," he replies, "and if creators want to use A.I. to enhance their music, as long as we follow the legislation and copyright laws, we want them to be able to monetize their music and pay out, right?"

Kantowitz suggests that Spotify could eventually fill up with songs that are entirely AI-generated, in the same way that AI-generated images are fast becoming some of the most popular content on social media platform Meta. "If these songs are generated by AI music generators become engaging, and they follow the rules, is that good for Spotify?" he asks.

Söderström's view is that AI-generated music, as long as it's created in such a way that it doesn't violate copyright law, should be welcomed on the platform. "If creators are using these technologies — where they are creating music in a legal way that we reimburse and people listen to them — and are successful, we should let people listen to them."

Where Söderström draws the line, however, is the possibility of Spotify generating and hosting its own AI-based music; music that the platform would own and thus not be obliged to pay royalties for. "I don't think it's our job to generate that music instead of the creators," he says.

"There's the question, should we generate all the music ourselves? And that's where we're saying, 'No, we're not going to generate that music.' But maybe other platforms will, because it's cheap content, right? We decided what we want to be in this world, and it's a platform for creators."

Spotify's decision not to produce its own AI-generated music is a welcome one; many have speculated that this might be an option that the streaming giant chooses to explore, considering its profit-boosting potential. However, as Söderström says, there's nothing stopping other streaming platforms leveraging AI to generate this kind of "cheap content" while taking money out of the pockets of real artists.

Before we congratulate Spotify too warmly, though, we should recall that earlier this year, the platform adjusted its royalty model so that all tracks receiving less than 1000 plays annually (around two thirds of its entire catalogue) would be completely demonetized, with no royalties paid to their creators.

Late last year, Spotify announced that it would be cutting 1,500 jobs, around 17% of its workforce. Earlier this month, the streaming service reported record profits for Q3 2024, with an operating income of €454 million and total revenue of €4 billion.

Read the full interview over at Big Technology.

Spotify has come out on top in a long running court case in which it was accused of streaming Eminem’s music without his permission.

The complex case dates back to 2019 when the rapper’s publisher Eight Mile Style sued Spotify for $30 million, claiming it had failed to correctly license Eminem’s work, which had by that point been streamed billions of times.

Initially Spotify responded by blaming Kobalt Music, which administers the rights for thousands of songs and collects royalties for artists. It went on to allege Kobalt had misled them into believing they controlled the administration of Eminem’s catalogue when that was not the case.

Spotify also pointed out that in the eight years from 2011 Eight Mile Style had “never once questioned” their rights to stream Eminem tracks and had been accepting royalty payments from them all that time. "Eight Mile’s story defies logic," the company's lawyers insisted.

Lawyers have batted arguments back and forth for over five years and now at last a judge has published her opinion – Spotify are not liable for any damages.

Judge Aleta A Trauger highlighted that although Kobalt was authorised to collect royalties on Eminem – its rights did not cover the US and Canada. It seems that those had been transferred in 2009 to a company called Bridgeport Music, which is affiliated to Eight Mile Style.

Bridgeport "never formally notified any third party that it was taking over" the licensing of Eminem's music, Judge Trauger wrote. She described this as "inexplicable", unless it was a "strategic" attempt to extract money from Spotify by claiming copyright infringement. She also noted that Eight Mile never once sent Spotify a ‘cease and desist’ letter and thus was not the “hapless victim” it was claiming to be.

"Eight Mile Style, had every opportunity to set things right and simply chose not to do so for no apparent reason, other than that being the victim of infringement pays better than being an ordinary licensor," she wrote.

The whole case highlights how messy the whole issue of administration and collection of royalties now is in the streaming world. One of the key issues seems to be the definition of the word ‘administration’. Judge Trauger concluded it that includes things like control over licensing, including synch licensing and collecting royalties. However, she pointed out that it doesn’t necessarily include any of those things.

And the contract between Kobalt and Spotify didn’t nail down this meaning of the word ‘administration’, leading to a situation where Spotify did not even know that control of licensing for Eminem’s catalogue was no longer in Kobalt’s hands for the US and Canada.

It may be some time before the implications of the ruling become clear. But what is clear is that the question of who administers, who collects royalties and who licenses, needs simplifying. The only people benefiting from the current confusion are the lawyers.

Instagram and Spotify are testing out new software that they hope will encourage people to share what they’re listening to on the social app.

The test has been spotted by mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi who has posted on Threads about it. (See below). However, this doesn’t mean that the feature will definitely be launched at some point – Spotify and Instagram test new concepts all the time and often these go unnoticed.

If it does go ahead, the feature would build on a development launched a little over a year ago, when Instagram added the ability to share small song clips to Notes. The Notes feature allows Instagram users to share their status or other quick updates in a message that appears right above their Instagram inbox. 

The song clips feature in Notes has been supported in all territories where Insta has music licensing rights, the company said around the time of its introduction in 2022.

It would benefit Spotify, which has added more social features over time, most recently with commenting on podcasts. However, the company knows that a lot of music discovery still takes place on dedicated social networking sites where people tend to build and curate their own friend networks and more regularly check in.

Meta – the parent company of Instagram - and Spotify have worked on developing music features before. In 2021, they teamed up on a series of initiative that included the introduction of a miniplayer on Facebook that streamed Spotify directly from the app.

Of course there is hard business at the centre of this. Both companies share a common enemy in Apple. And each are irked that Apple’s App Store monopoly prevents them from managing their own in-app payments and handling their own app distribution. Instead they have to share their app revenue with Apple via commissions on in-app purchases. 

To add to this Apple’s addition of a privacy feature called ATT (app tracking transparency) effects Meta’s ad business, and of course Apple Music is a market rival to Spotify.

The other competitor for both of them is TikTok which has assumed a central place in terms of the sharing of and indeed the shaping of new musical trends. And this new feature could be seen as a shot across their bows

Neither Meta or Spotify have commented on Paluzzi’s post or the tests. But don’t be surprised if the new feature gets rolled out at some point in 2025.

Remember Clean Bandit, the Cambridge graduates who mixed strings with perky pop and found a winning chart formula in the early 2010s? In a new interview with the BBC the trio have revealed how they fell out with their record company and how they’ve adopted a new approach this decade.

The falling out seems somewhat bizarre. The band were a constant presence in the UK singles chart between 2014 to 2018, scoring four Number Ones with a string of guest vocalists. 

Their signature hits were the Jess Glynne-fronted Rather Be, which was a huge global hit in 2014 and Rockabye with vocalists Sean Paul and Anne Marie, which ended up as 2016’s Christmas Number One. But this, it seems, wasn’t what their record label, Atlantic, really wanted.

“There was a push for us to stop having strings in our music,” cellist Grace Chatto says.

“We were told to stop making pop music, as well,” adds her bandmate Jack Patterson. “We were sent dance music playlists on Spotify and told ‘your music has to sit on here - only Harry Styles can make pop music’.”

The problem was that being, essentially, a production trio, Clean Bandit didn’t have much of an image. Because of this Atlantic were worried that their pop success would soon dry up. “We were told ‘you don’t have a face, you need to make club music',” recalls Patterson.

In a bid to do just that they ditched the violins and made their sound ‘darker’. Result: the pop success did dry up. They haven’t had a Top Ten hit since 2020. “The music didn’t feel like our music,” says Chatto. “Our fans were feeling it. We were feeling it. In the end, we were like, what's the point in doing anything?’

They left Atlantic and moved over to the Sony-backed B1/Ministry Of Sound imprint and as they explain in the interview the trio now have a more global approach to creating music. In 2024 alone writing sessions in Miami, Jamaica and Lagos have produced ‘two entire records’ of material.

“I hate to keep coming back to it, but our previous label was based in the UK,” explains Patterson, “so their priority was always what would work over here. If it wasn’t going to be played on Capital (Radio), they weren’t interested. Now, if we work with someone in Mumbai, that’s ok. The fact that we don’t have a singer means we can be light on our feet and work anywhere in the world.”

Indeed the band recently collaborated with Colombian singer Piso 21 and released Mar Azul to Spanish markets.

Back in the UK, the band’s new single is very much a return to their early sound. But Cry Baby only entered last week’s chart at a lowly 78. Clearly Clean Bandit still have some catching up to do...

It’s been reported that, in the last 12 months, Spotify founder Daniel Ek he has earned more from the platform than any artist has ever.

Drake, Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish, even Taylor Swift can’t beat the $345 million that Ek has made in the last year. Essentially, it feel like every musician on Planet Earth (or at least those that are on Spotify) is working for him.

This startling statistic has been revealed by royalties accountant Hunter Giles in his IC Newsletter. In it, he calculates the cashout value of the shares the top executives at Spotify own and calculate how many streams it would take for a musician to accumulate that wealth in a year.

Ek comes out on top with a figure it would take 115 billion streams to make. To put that into context, Taylor Swift is the top streamed artist on the platform with a total of 76 billion to date in April 2024.

Second to Ek is another Spotify exec, Martin Lorentzon, whose $166.8 million worth of shares is equal to 55.6 billion streams. This would make him the ninth most streamed artist on all time.

It comes after Spotify announced record profits of some €3.81billion (£3.2billion) in the second quarter of 2024, which came after a 17% cut to its workforce at the end of 2023 and the news in April that it had decided to ‘de-monetise’ all songs that have had less than a thousand streams, a decision that has already affected thousands of struggling musicians.

However, Giles is careful to point out that his analysis is not in itself intended to vilify Spotify executives. “I personally don’t think that Ek and the Gang are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as people,” he says, “and the point of this isn’t to shame them…The bad actor here imho [in my humble opinion] is the same as always: misaligned incentives that fail to appropriately share the wealth amongst stakeholders, AKA late-capitalism. These people are just doing a good job of hitting the misaligned marks, and I don’t feel it’s true or useful to think of them as evil geniuses out to steal money from artists.”

In other words, that’s capitalism, folks!

Those of us with memories that go back to the last century may recall that there was a time when it was argued that the Internet was somehow going to ‘liberate’ artists from those nasty, greedy record companies. Just saying...

The ongoing controversies over its stinginess towards musicians doesn’t seem to have affected Spotify’s bottom line. In its second quarter figures for 2024 it reported a record profit of some €3.81billion (£3.2billion) – an increase of some 20% since the first quarter. The platform’s net profit for this period was €274 million (£230 million), which is some turnaround from the same period in 2023, when they made a loss of €302million (£253m).

This huge leap in profits can be put down to a number of factors. Firstly, subscribers to its Premium service have increased by 7 million during this period. Ad-supported revenue also grew by 13% in this time and shares have increased by 12% too. Prices of both individual and family plans have also increased – up from £9.99 to £10.99 per month in the UK for an individual.

And Spotify have shed a lot of costs. It cut 17% of its workforce at the end of 2023, which came on top of a 6% cut in mid 2023 that founder Daniel Ek claimed at the time was done to promote “speed”.

It should be noted that the record profits come even before Spotify rolls out its supposedly 'deluxe' service, Spotify HiFi. Ek has said that the service with its improved sound quality, is "coming soon", but as yet there has been no firm date for its launch. 

Another factor is surely the decision taken in early April to ‘de-monetise’ all songs that picked up less than a thousand streams, thereby cutting off a crucial revenue stream for many up and coming musicians.

Spotify rightly drew a lot of criticism for that move, which was compounded by Ek’s subsequent gaffe on Twitter/X in which the bearded billionaire mused that: “Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content.”

There was a swift backlash to Ek’s comments from musicians across the spectrum. Promoter and ex Visage man Rusty Egan wrote “Cost of time to write music, cost of equipment to record music, cost to master and to upload to all platforms is not zero.” Meanwhile Primal Scream bassist Simon White Butler was more succinct: “Fuck off you out of touch billionaire.” Dance producer Deadmau5 even said he’d pull his catalogue from Spotify though it’s unclear whether he has since gone through with this threat.

None of this seems to be enough to dampen the public’s enthusiasm for Spotify. At present the platform has some 626 million monthly active users, of which 246 million are subscribed to Premium. It’s by some distance the most successful streaming platform out there. Musicians are well within their rights to ask if these vast profits might be now distributed a little more evenly to the people without whom there wouldn’t be a Spotify: themselves.

Deadmau5 has issued a rallying call to artists, and is threatening to pull his entire catalogue from the streaming giant he is now calling “those damn vultures”.

He comes a few weeks after the Spotify founder caused a backlash when he mused on Twitter/X: “Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life.”

“While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.”

As any musician will tell you, ‘creating content’ doesn’t come cheap. Either in time, or in money. Ek’s comments angered a number of artists, Deadmau5 included. 

The EDM producer took to his Instagram account to reply to Ek personally: “Incorrect. The cost of creating content was 25+ years of my life and much of those proceeds going to your company you complete f*cking idiot.”

When one fan replied that he hated Spotify too, Deadmau5 went further, posting: “I’m about to pull my catalog from these f**king vultures, enough’s enough.”

His catalogue – for what’s it’s worth – is an extensive one. Deadmau5, aka Canadian producer Joel Zimmerman, first rose to prominence in the mid-Noughties. He’s released nine albums under his Deadmau5 banner and was one of the producers at the forefront of the EDM movement that swept North America in the latter part of that decade. He’s probably as well known for his stage gear – a giant illuminating mouse head – as for his music.

It remains to be seen whether Deadmau5 follows through on his promise. The few Spotify refuseniks that there are tend to be heritage artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell who at this stage in their careers have little to lose from boycotting the platform. 

Both those artists announced they were pulling their music from the site in the wake of the Joe Rogan podcast furore early in 2022. But the only artist under the age of 50 to follow them was nu-soul singer Indie.Arie who, announcing her boycott, said “Paying musicians a fraction of a penny? And HIM $100M? This shows the type of company they are and the company that they keep.”

Could Deadmau5, in Ian Dury’s words, be the catalyst that sparks the revolution? What will it take for his fellow artists to rise up in solidarity with him against their oppressor? Musicians of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your... er, pennies.

After years of rumours, Spotify’s Supremium subscription looks set to arrive “later this year” according to reports.

It’s been coming for a long time. Spotify first announced that it was looking into setting up a ‘CD quality streaming’ premium service as far back as 2021. Then last year it was announced that it was imminent. 

After a presentation, Spotify co-president Gustav Soderstrom told The Verge website that Spotify “are going to do it [HiFi], but we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners. The industry changed and we had to adapt.”

Now according to Bloomberg the service will arrive later this year and will be priced at “at least $5 more per month”. It looks likely that it will be an add-on for existing customers.

Last year the Independent reported that the new service would retail at $19.99 per month. However, if Supremium involves an extra $5 then that would bump it to around the $16.99 level.

It’s a move that many would argue is long overdue, as the one of the downsides regarding the streaming service remains its sound quality compared to rival streaming platforms, let alone old skool physical formats such as CD and vinyl. 

Currently, when you listen to music on Spotify, the stream is compressed to make better use of the available bandwidth. This means that bits of the music file are thrown away in an attempt to reduce the amount of data being sent. Spotify Hi-Fi would offer CD-quality or lossless streaming.

In other Spotify-related news, the streaming behemoth last week released its European Loud and Clear data report, which details royalty payments across the continent and follows on from their global report’s publication in March; so far they are the only major streamer to release any information regarding artist remuneration. 

The report showed that European artists generated nearly €1.5 billion in royalties in 2023, an increase of 16% from 2022 and more than three times the level that was generated in 2017.

Spotify also claimed that more than 15,000 European artists earned over €10,000 per year from the platform and that more than 25,000 earned over €5,000 or more, “enabling artists to live off their art.”

Many artists would doubtless claim that €5,000 per year is hardly enough to live off in 2024. Spotify’s royalty rate currently averages between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek caused a stir on social media over the weekend by claiming that the "cost of creating content" was "close to zero", angering musicians by suggesting that making music requires little to no financial investment.

Many interpreted Ek's comments as devaluing the creative process, pointing to the considerable "human effort, hard work and creativity" that goes into writing and recording music, in addition to the cost of instruments, equipment, and music education.

Ek has now clarified his comments in a post shared on Twitter/X on June 2. "It’s clear I was far too vague in the post, including with my clumsy definition of content," he said. "I understand how it came across as very reductive and that wasn’t my intent. Just to clarify - my original point was not to devalue the time, effort, or resources involved in creating meaningful works, whether it’s music, literature, or other forms of creative expression. 

"What I was most interested in exploring was how, in this environment of constant creation, we can identify and ensure that the bold, exciting, world-changing ideas and pieces of art don’t get lost in the noise," he continued. "The significant drop in the cost of creation tools (microphones, laptops, cameras) has led to an unprecedented explosion in the volume of what people are able to produce. 

"Creation is only part of the equation. My focus was on exploring the staying power of the most creative, most thought-provoking ideas. That didn’t come across, and that’s on me."

Ek's clarification has prompted a number of responses from musicians and music fans. "What have you ever created to give you any insight into this?", asked @_willthompson. "Good microphones, outboard gear, instruments have stayed at the same prices for years. Plugins are expensive. It takes years to become a good musician, engineer, producer and good ones cost money to hire."

Others pointed to Spotify's royalty rates, which many believe do not give artists fair compensation for their music, arguing that "world-changing ideas and pieces of art" will not be created if their creators are not rewarded financially. "You know what will ensure the creation of timeless work?", asked producer and YouTuber Jonwayne. "Incentive, which your company has no interest in providing". 

Ek's comments appear particularly tone-deaf as Spotify recently announced record profits of over €1bn in Q1 2024, following a year in which the company laid off 1500 employees, 17% of its global workforce. This week, the streaming giant also announced it would be raising its subscription prices across the US from $10.99 to $11.99.

Musicians and music fans have hit back at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek this weekend after the head of the Swedish streaming giant shared a post on Twitter/X claiming that the "cost of creating content" is "close to zero". 

"Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life," said Ek in a post shared May 29. "While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries." 

"For example, we’re witnessing a resurgence of Stoicism, with many of Marcus Aurelius’s insights still resonating thousands of years later," Ek continued. "This makes me wonder: what are the most unintuitive, yet enduring ideas that aren’t frequently discussed today but might have a long shelf life? Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?"

Ek's oddly philosophical post provoked fierce reactions across social media, with many questioning his claim that making music requires little to no financial investment, pointing to the considerable costs of instruments, equipment and education, in addition to the time involved in the creative process.

"I created my Grammy-nominated album on a cross-country train, completely produced and mixed it myself," said New Age artist Cheryl B. Engelhardt. "I was able to do that because of the thousands of $$ spent on quality sounds, my education, my gear, etc. Please get a clue and maybe talk to REAL musicians."

"Our albums did NOT cost 'close to zero' to create although you pay us zero for making money off them," added @_Traviata, manager of Welsh folk duo Songdog. "These took hundreds of hours of human effort, hard work and creativity. Our art is not your fucking 'content'."

"Even at the most basic level you need a DAW and VSTs," said @JonTInfinity. "No one can do a decent mixdown without owning decent monitor speakers or paying someone to do it. Those are the most basic costs and it's still a fair amount for most. Then on top of that some of us have instruments as well."

"The cost of creating content is not close to zero, you just want to frame it that way so that you can pay as close to zero for it as possible," added @edzitron. 

Spotify announced record profits of over €1bn in Q1 2024, following a year marked by cost-cutting and layoffs. Late last year, Ek announced that Spotify would axe 1500 jobs, cutting 17% of its global workforce.

Almost three quarters of the top 100 artists on Spotify in the UK are self-taught musicians - that’s according to new research from piano learning app Skoove and the data crunchers at Crafins Studio.

Their study indicates that 71% of the top artists on the platform didn’t have a formal musical education. Perhaps less surprisingly, only 13% of the top 100 have a music degree, though a further 3% started one but didn’t finish it.

Thanks to the likes of YouTube and TikTok, music learning resources are more accessible and affordable than ever, while dedicated online piano and guitar learning platforms mean that it’s possible to get a good level of tuition without paying for in-person lessons.

That said, this isn’t a completely new phenomenon; there have been self-taught musicians for decades, with many simply learning by ear or another method that works for them.

It’s also worth noting that technology has made it far easier for ‘non-musicians’ to make music. A great many tracks are now made completely in the box, using just a computer and some software, and a lack of playing ability is no longer the barrier to entry that it once was.

Although traditionalists may bemoan the lack of classical training in many of today’s biggest artists, Skoove CEO Florian Plenge sees it as a positive.

“You could argue that learning outside of the regimented structure of formal education may allow self-taught individuals to express their creativity more freely as their learning and engagement with their instrument is unconstrained,” he says. “Without traditional frameworks and support, they have to be resourceful in their learning and stand on their own two feet.”

You can read more about the research on the Skoove website.

It’s already the biggest music streaming service in the world, but if “people familiar with the discussions” are to be believed, Spotify is currently working on tools that will enable you to “speed up, mash-up and otherwise edit songs” from within its own platform. Built-in remixing tools, in other words.

This is the view of The Wall Street Journal, which suggests that Spotify hopes to keep people on its platform rather than have them head off to TikTok, the ‘sped-up songs’ heartland. It suggests that users will be able to show off their edits to friends on Spotify, but that they won’t be shareable to social media platforms.

It’s now common practice for an artist to release multiple versions of a new song - it’s not uncommon for big hits to be available in original, sped-up, instrumental and acapella formats - as stars seek to maximise their streaming revenue. Whether Spotify’s predicted ‘remixing’ tools would be included in the price of a standard subscription or lumped in as part of a new premium tier remains to be seen.

While there may well be a market for these features, we suspect that what a lot of users would really like to see implemented in Spotify is the ability to mix between tracks, DJ-style (there are currently crossfade and automix options, but these are fairly limited). The platform used to be compatible with the likes of Algoriddim’s djay and Serato’s sadly discontinued Pyro, but Spotify removed access to its catalogue by third-party apps in 2020.

Neil Young has announced that his music will be returning to Spotify. In a statement shared to his website, Young says that the move was motivated by Apple Music and Amazon's decision to begin hosting "disinformation podcasts".

Young initially decided to boycott Spotify in 2022 after the platform became the exclusive outlet for Joe Rogan's podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, citing an opposition to Rogan's vaccine skepticism. Following a new deal between Rogan and Spotify, the podcast will now be available on other audio platforms. 

"I cannot leave all those services like I did Spotify", Young says, "because my music would have no outlet to music lovers at all". 

In the statement, Young also slams Spotify for offering only "low-res" music on its platform, describing Spotify as "the #1 streamer of low-res music in the world, where you get less quality than we made". 

"I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it," he continues. 

"Hopefully Spotify will turn to hi-res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone. Spotify, you can do it! Really be #1 in all ways. You have the music and the listeners!!!! Start with a limited hi-res tier and build from there!" 

Spotify announced a lossless streaming tier, Spotify HiFi, in 2021, but the feature has yet to materialize. Currently, Spotify streams at a maximum quality of 320kbps.

‘How can I get my music on Spotify?’ It’s a question we often get asked, with the standard answer being that you need to go through some kind of third-party subscription service such as TuneCore or LANDR. That could be about to change, though, with Spotify now making it possible to upload music directly via its Spotify for Artists programme.

As things stand, this feature is only being offered in beta and by invitation to a few hundred US-based independent artists. However, the plan is to open it up to more people in the future. Using the dedicated tool, artists can preview how their releases will look on Spotify and make metadata edits after they’ve gone live, while royalty payments will be made automatically each month. Uploading is free, and there are no fees or commissions to pay.

All of which sounds great, though it should go without saying that getting your music on Spotify is only a small part of the battle. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean that anyone will actually stream or download it, so while direct uploading might go a small way towards levelling the playing field for independent artists, it’ll still be hard to compete with the marketing might of the major labels.

However, assuming that upload functionality is eventually (or quickly) rolled out to everyone, this has the potential to be a disruptive change, with ramifications for the likes of SoundCloud, which has traditionally been the place where unsigned artists have showcased their music. It remains to be seen whether other streaming platforms will open their gates to unsigned musicians, too.

Find out more on the Spotify for Artists website.