Spotify CEO Daniel Elk talked in an interview with Music Ally about the complaints that the platform is not paying the musicians enough for their songs. He said that artists shouldn’t make new music only every 3 to 4 years and think that’s enough. Some rockstars reacted criticizing his statement.
Spotify CEO Daniel Elk said about the streaming platform not paying musicians enough:
“It’s quite interesting that while the overall pie is growing, and more and more people can partake in that pie, we tend to focus on a very limited set of artists. Even today on our marketplace, there’s literally millions and millions of artists. What tends to be reported are the people that are unhappy, but we very rarely see anyone who’s talking about…”
“In the entire existence [of Spotify], I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single artist saying, ‘I’m happy with all the money I’m getting from streaming. Stating that publicly. In private, they have done that many times, but in public they have no incentive to do it.”
He continued, saying:
“But unequivocally, from the data, there are more and more artists that are able to live off streaming income in itself. There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that. Obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape. Where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough.
“The artists today that are making it realize that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans.”
“You are an obnoxious greedy little shit Daniel Ek”.
Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider said:
“While you (the listener) benefit & enjoy spotify, it’s part of what’s killing a major income stream for artist/creators. The amount of artists “rich enough” to withstand this loss are about .0001%. Daniel Ek’s solution is for us to write & record more on our dime?! Fuck him!”
Sebastian Bach also said:
“When this guy puts out an album himself I will listen to him tell me about my albums”.
