The Pop Corporation

Streaming is hugely popular and, on the strength of people sharing their Spotify Wrapped graphics to social media platforms, it doesn’t look like it will be going anywhere, anytime soon. Or is it?

In the immediacy, Spotify, Apple Music, and the rest, won’t be worrying too much as they continue to rake in cash, left, right, and centre. However, while consumers are still using the platforms, it might not be the listeners that make the change. See, music streaming is a lopsided affair, which very much favours the listener and the businesses that run them. Musicians are showing signs of wanting to move away, as in 2024, it seems like Spotify is pretty much treated like a flyering service – a loss-leader which acts solely as a promotional tool rather than a source of revenue.

Some fans who, honestly, haven’t weighed up a musician’s life wholly and thoroughly, are gamely assuming that artists can get paid elsewhere. However, with venues closing at an alarming rate, gigging being a prohibitively expensive endeavour in its own right, and the cost of creating and designing merch also out of the question for many groups, the future looks incredibly shaky for those who aren’t in the 1% like The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, et al.

Add to this, the bankrolling needed to be heard on social media platforms who insist on forcing users to ingest algorithmic feeds, where the only artists able to navigate that are those who are willing to pay for expensive ad campaigns and sponsored posts.

Not all musicians can afford the chance to self release physical format music, and record labels – especially smaller, independent labels – can’t release the amount of albums they could in the days when people would buy vinyl, cassettes, and CDs. While there will always be a need for people to create and share music, the artform isn’t dead – however, it is in a precarious position for those who would like to at least aim at doing it full-time.

This year, we’ve seen some artists dodging streaming services altogether, and some of those have been those featuring high in the End Of Year lists in various publications. In the example of Ghetts and Rude Kid, we saw them release music on a new format entirely – it can only be heard on a specially designed bit of hardware. You have to tap a card on your smartphone to hear the music, which is a neat and novel idea, but not one that all bands will be able to employ, if they’re not on a nationwide tour where you can distribute such things to fans.

In the case of Pitchfork’s album of the year – Cindy Lee’s ‘Diamond Jubilee’ – the album wasn’t available on any streaming service. In fact, the album was first shared on YouTube and through a DIY GeoCities site. Users opted to pay for the album, and then, once Lee felt there was enough financial return and interest, only then it began to appear on sale sites like Rough Trade and, of course, Bandcamp, with streamable clips.

Of course, articles and think-pieces about the death of music and the end of streaming appear every 2 minutes online and in the press, and have done for years – however, there’s a number of things in place where the timing right now feels a little different to previous years.

The inequality gap has grown and this has seen young people looking at the way in which they contribute, or at least interact with, big corporations. The murder of a health insurance CEO in New York has underlined that in the most dramatic way – but it is obvious that all sides of the political spectrum are tired of the wealthy getting wealthier off the backs of people lower down the ladder. While those who work in unsalaried jobs and the gig-economy can’t really do anything about it, other than dutifully turn up to work and do the minimum to not get fired, at least in the arts, that is something young people can try and exert some control over.

If you want to listen to my music, then we’re going to have to work out a fair price for you to hear it.

Whenever anyone thinks about it for longer than a minute, the current playing field doesn’t work for the creation of more music you love. If someone’s not getting reimbursed, or at least encouraged, then what’s the point? And if there’s no point, then you’re only going to have music with wealthy backers, or music that is designed to appeal squarely to the middle of the road. While both of these areas of music are of course, no bad thing, it’s not good when it is the only thing available. No-one in their right mind thinks pop is bad – but pop that’s being influenced by some weird, gonzo fringe is definitely needed too – and with a diminishing fringe, then the pop culture landscape is less rich.

While she has since softened her approach to Spotify, back in 2014, Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify, saying: “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.”

Swift renegotiated with Spotify, and bigger artists are now paid more than smaller artists – it’s a debate for another time what this means for the growing inequality in the world of tech – but the content of her words still ring true, and seeing as the renegotiation hasn’t served the majority of musicians, it would appear that this art is, ten years later, still being undervalued.

The small labels trying to carve out their own unique niche have been having a rough ride, and Spotify’s change in royalty rates last year has seen labels and artists footing the bill. Big distributors aren’t dropping their prices, the smaller distributors are closing, and if you do break the 1,000 streams within a calendar year, you’ll be getting paid a pittance per play – if you have 999 plays in a calendar year, Spotify will keep that money for themselves.

Spotify Wrapped and the like has shown that the appetite for music and sharing your tastes with others is as popular as ever – however now, musicians may increasingly look toward other ways of sharing their music. Maybe we’ll see bands selling music through Bandcamp for a few months before sharing it to streaming services, so effectively fans will be rewarded with early access? Maybe groups will look away entirely and just leave it to those that can afford it? If someone re-releases something like the iPod or another bit of hardware that has a touchscreen and operating service like Spotify, where it is easy to create playlists and downloading music to it, then that would be a game-changer – will Apple dare to bring it back? Will Google see any value in hardware that isn’t easily shaped by the algorithm or AI?

It feels like wholesale change is some way off, but as 2024 closes out, there’s a whiff of something in the air that this can’t continue the way it has been.