Thank you for the music
A few years ago, I made an annoying discovery in my Spotify ‘year in review’ email: I’d listened to just two albums. Even worse, I already owned both of them on CD. That meant I’d paid £120 to rent them. Possibly the artists (Skunk Anansie and Queensrÿche) got a little extra money, but it’s unlikely. In 2024, Spotify stopped paying artists for tracks with fewer than 1,000 streams. That accounts for 81% of musicians on the platform. It’s hard to know how much the other 19% receive, but estimates suggest around $0.003 per stream. Meanwhile, Spotify enjoys $700m in quarterly profits. Although I left Spotify a long time ago, I succumbed to Apple Music not long after. They pay artists twice as much as Spotify, but that’s still flap-all. Where are the alternatives?
Well, Brian Merchant published a detailed post in which he not only explains how to leave Spotify, but also reviews the other options. Thanks to him, I now subscribe to a French platform called Qobuz (no, I don’t know how to pronounce it either). The monthly fee is similar to other platforms, but they compensate artists fairly. Their public report quotes an average of $0.01873 per stream, so almost $19 for a thousand streams. As if that weren’t enough, the audio quality is much better. It takes an extra few seconds for tracks to download, but goodness it’s worth the wait. Oh, the joy of stoating around the lounge to a remastered edition of Dio’s Holy Diver 🤘Qobuz gives you free access to Soundiiz, which automatically imports your playlists from Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, and others.
As Merchant points out, it’s best to support artists directly where possible. Platforms like Bandcamp allow us to buy both physical and digital albums direct. And buying music from independent record shops, if you have access to one, contributes to the local economy and even more livelihoods. I’m now weaning myself off streaming. I’ve bought an MP3 player and am slowly loading my CD collection. While it won’t give me access to millions of tracks, it means I’ll be buying more music and also getting more intimately acquainted with it. Also, I’ll still have access to all my tracks if the internet goes tits up. Most importantly, I won’t be renting CDs I already own 🙈
💬 Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions. Or if you've paid a lot of money for something you already own 😬
