Aug 21, 2020 Dope s--- antman! You did a great job breaking down your major concerns/issues with today’s musical landscape. I hope artists figure out ways to maximize their creative process which leads to their best possible musical output without this added pressure to crank out “content”. Have you written for Okayplayer in the past? Or is this your first time with them?
Aug 21, 2020 I wrote some excerpts for a SOTY list, and had a Ghostface piece published on Sunday, and this just got published today
Aug 21, 2020 This was a great read. Unfortunately I think this landscape will lead to more artists taking worse deals in an attempt to maximize their capital. Mainly via shortsighted moves to boost their immediate selves without focus on the long term. Without touring right now, a lot of artists are going to be starving.
Aug 22, 2020 who? like n----- 200k views in what amonth? so its like she put that s--- out got 7-8 hundj, like yeah true not that big a deal, but hustle harder. you add that $700 to her income + other music platform revenues and b---- makes more than you or me my brah
Aug 22, 2020 yeh i'm thinking about this more now as well... the artist is independent what would 200,000 spins equate to when calculating $ from an independent artist's CD sales in a pre-streaming era? 1 album = ~1,500 streams 200,000 streams = 133 albums 1 album independently recorded & released = ~$10 in the artist's pocket after physical (CD/inserts) production costs 133 albums = $1,330 she took a 44% hit, but gained a platform & an audience i duno... @Antman thoughts? any idea what spotify's overhead is? or how their revenue / costs break down?
Aug 22, 2020 I was thinking maybe the right way to view Spotify and platforms like that as free marketing where you get paid marginally. It's not a replacement for touring or merch or the other s---, but it lets you reach and find an audience and carve some minor profit in the making. Imperfect system but food for thought
Aug 23, 2020 I'm curious of ways people are managing, cataloguing their music these days...I messed around with Pandora, Spotify,and music saved to hard drive and physical copies for a while, but it feels fragmented. As well people use Soundcloud, Youtube Music, Apple Music etc. There was something appealing about having it saved on a drive, custom artwork, and visualizations. I'm probably overcomplicating it, or not approaching it right.
Aug 23, 2020 The thing I most don't like about streaming is that the music is in the hands of a company. You don't actually own a copy of any of the music, it can be pulled any time for any reason they feel like pretty much. And then there's older stuff that's being effectively erased from rap canon because it's not available on streaming due to label issues (De La Soul), as well as newer stuff that were free mixtapes and the label doesn't wanna pay producers or clear samples (Mac Miller's Faces, Rich g---).
