OPE! Mixtape #20: One banana, two eggs, and cinnamon
Comparing the major music streaming services (to see where all our money goes)
Well, hello there. How are you?
A lot of y’all quite enjoyed last week’s newsletter on the increasingly bitter clash between contrasting music listening services like Bandcamp and Spotify. Between in-person and group chat venting, no one I’m talking to is happy with Spotify’s new decision to pay lesser-known artists fewer royalties.
Spotify’s (I would say noble) attempt to get rid of spam and bot songs might indeed help decrease some of those fake streams. However, they’re going about it in a way that will do more harm than good for younger artists who are trying to build up their fanbase and playlist presence but will instead be punished for not being as famous as Taylor Swift. I feel like I need to take a shot every time I write “as famous as Taylor Swift” in this newsletter—again, I’m not anti-Swift—but it’s easy-to-understand shorthand for expressing the direction that streaming services are increasingly (and intentionally) catering towards.
“Alright,” countered one of my buddies who hasn’t been paying attention to the ongoing music streaming drama. “But how are other places compared to Spotify? Are there any good streaming services?”
It’s a good question.
Throughout this week, I did some research comparing and contrasting the top places where one has access to music. I didn’t overthink all the options—I’m surely missing a few cool streaming services or platforms—but I think I included enough familiar names to paint a picture of today’s music industry ecosystem. I then parsed through a lot of recent studies and royalty breakdowns to get a sense of how each streaming model differs and where all the money goes. There’s a lot of research out on the web, which can be hard considering how quickly some of these models change and how quickly one study can become outdated. I cite my sources below.
I could have worked on this week’s newsletter for months (and I soon want to flesh out all this information into an actual guide) but due to my limited time this week, this is a very basic high-level look at the major outlets for music to find out: Where does our money go?
Some general ground rules:
1 song stream = a user listening to a song for at least 30 seconds
A subscriber’s location and type of plan affect their revenue generation: a premium subscriber may generate more revenue for an artist per stream than a free user’s stream of that same song, though it’ll look different platform-by-platform.
I’m focusing on just the nuts and bolts of each streamer’s plan, but it’s important to be mindful of a platform’s number of subscribers (free and premium) and all the extra features they offer as additional value. Spotify is easily the most well-known among the streamers, so even though they pay artists less, for certain genres, you might end up getting more money from Spotify’s wider net than just being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Spotify knows this, of course, which is why they can afford to brush off most criticisms.
Musicians don’t get all the money for one stream. Instead, artists are a part of what most people call a song’s rights holders. This is the collective of people and entities involved with the funding, writing, recording, execution, and performance of a song. This includes:
The label
All the credited songwriters
The publishers and copyright owners
The owners of the master recording
The performing artist
Getting into the weeds of everyone involved in a song’s rights holders is too much for today’s newsletter. For now, it’s important to know that an artist is just one member of a larger pool of people who make money off a song on streaming platforms. From most musicians and music professionals I’ve interviewed over the years, good and bad music label contracts can be summed up as “How much or how little an artist is involved and counted within the song’s rights holders.”
So an artist is a part of the rights holders, but even for one stream, that stream’s generated revenue is then split between the overall rights holders and the streaming platform itself. Spotify’s split is relatively well known—a 70/30 split between the rights holders and Spotify—but it’s harder to confirm this split with other platforms. If I had more time, I would have included the splits for the other platforms (and I’ll likely do this in a future newsletter). For now, just keep in mind that for a song that generates one dollar in revenue, both the rights holders and the platform split that dollar, and then the rights holders split their share among all participants of the rights holders.
On top of all this math, there are additional factors that go into determining revenue per stream. For example, Spotify also considers its total streaming numbers and revenue pool and then the agreed global payout as a percentage of that revenue over a certain amount of time. A lot of this information is secretive, too. Again, too much to think about for this week.
I’m ordering streaming platformers from lowest to highest paying to rights holders.
In future newsletters, I want to break down other methods of listening to and purchasing music. Future categories include non-streaming online platforms (Bandcamp, watching YouTube clips of songs as opposed to subscribing to YouTube Music); physical (buying CDs, cassettes, and vinyl); music distribution services (DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, Symphonic Distribution, Amuse, etc); and other random categories (SiriusXM, radio in general, social media, and … Peloton?). For now, let’s just focus on streaming.
Again, I tried to vet these recent sources and determine the most accurate pay ranges for revenue generated. I might be off by one or two fractions of a penny, but I think the overall big picture is still accurate.
OK, here’s the dang list.
YouTube Music
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.001-$0.003 (NOTE: YouTube is a little more complex due to what version of YouTube you’re using; we’ll talk more about the different hats YouTube wears in a future newsletter)
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~1,000 streams
Pandora
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.002
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~500 streams
SoundCloud
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.003
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~333 streams
Spotify
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.003-$0.005
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~333 streams
Amazon Music
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.004-$0.007
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~250 streams
Deezer
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.005-$0.007
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~200 streams
Apple Music
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.006-$0.008
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~167 streams
TIDAL
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.0125-$0.015
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~80 streams
Napster Music (formerly Rhapsody)
Revenue generated per song stream: ~$0.019-$0.021
Number of streams needed to generate $1 in revenue: ~53 streams
So OK! The big takeaway from this initial research for me is that Napster Music and TIDAL generate the most revenue per stream and are the only major platforms that generate at least a penny per song stream, while YouTube Music pays the least out of everyone. I knew TIDAL paid better than Spotify (~80 streams compared to ~333 streams to generate $1), though Napster Music was a surprise to me. Napster and TIDAL also don’t have the podcasting infrastructure that Spotify has, which … I mean, if Napster had the same access to podcasts as Spotify does, that would change everything. I do wish it was easier to determine the split of who makes this revenue between the rights holders and the platform. Perhaps an investigation for a future newsletter.
Sources for the above data: LALAL.AI, Decibel Peak, Label Grid, Musical Pursuits, Ditto Music, Louder, and Producer Hive.
Thanks for going on this deep dive with me. Now that we have some data to chew on, let’s get to the dang thing. Here are some links and tunes for the week.
LINKS
Aftershock of the New: Woodblock Prints of Post-Disaster Tokyo, 1928-32. (These woodblocks are stunning.)
Which writers will we remember? (AKA the distinction between the writers beloved and well-read in their own time but don’t age well versus the obscure writers who go on to be known as literary titans)
2023 will be remembered as one of the best years ever in video game history.
From last year but still so good: Brian Eno on why (he thinks) art exists. (The first Q&A paragraph alone is worth the read.)
Shout-out to Kara Cutruzzula (the mastermind behind my favorite daily newsletter, Brass Ring Daily) for introducing me to Rachel Meade Smith’s Words of Mouth: A weekly newsletter sharing more creative-friendly job postings and work opportunities around the world. (As someone who’s become numb to LinkedIn’s job board, this newsletter is a much-needed shot in the arm.)
The Frasier Sleeper Community. (Why yes, I have started watching Frasier.)
THIS WEEK’S MIXTAPE
Listen to this week’s mix on Spotify. (In honor of this week, going forward, I’ll probably start free trials of Napster Music and TIDAL and make playlists there too.)
(Note: Not every song is available on streaming services.)
The South Hill Experiment - “Snake at the Altar”
I had the great honor of writing the bio for the new South Hill Experiment LP that’s out this December. Y’all, this record is SO good.
Yard Act - “Dream Job”
I love love love Yard Act (obviously). I’m getting more and more excited about this new album.
Green Day - “The American Dream Is Killing Me”
“The American Dream Is Killing Me” has strong 21st Century Breakdown vibes, which feel as anthemic and shiny and anti-establishment as a Burger King commercial. A few years ago, this would have been an insult. Now, this “We’re FUCKEDD" energy feels very appropriate for a not-terrible Green Day song in 2023. The song is a bit better than that new and very mid Blink-182 album. It’s way better than most of the music Green Day released throughout the 2010s, which was easily their worst decade yet. This new Green Day album is coming out next year, and 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of American Idiot. This press cycle writes itself.
Charly Bliss - “I Need A New Boyfriend”
I love Charly Bliss, and these lyrics are especially fun, but I don’t love all this autotune and synth-energy … and by the time I finished writing the first half of this sentence, I was already like, “Eh, screw it, it’s fun.” Fun music video too.
Taylor Swift - “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version)”
This new re-recording of 1989 sounds fucking awful. I don’t mean the songwriting; Swift has proven years ago that her songwriting can survive any pop trend. I’m talking about the literal sound of a 2023 production team taking on a 2014 pop hit when Max Martin was still king. Max, why didn’t you return Swift’s call to help with this re-recording? Here’s the original music video, for you to decide.
with feet that run. - “mom’s on drugs again”
Happy (still) (to me) spooky season!
Yifan Wu 吴一凡 – “CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, op. 11 (w/ the Dallas Symphony Orchestra)”
I heard this Wu Chopin performance in full on KUSC and almost pulled my car over in awe. Wu is only 14-years-old! Good lord! So freaking beautiful.
Billy Joel - “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)”
After taking a streaming break, I needed a new show to unwind to, so I started and quickly finished The Boys, Amazon’s adaptation of the original (and apparently kind of meh) comic series. Its whole meta ha ha vibe and all its gore can get repetitive after a while, but overall, it’s a blast. One of my favorite parts of the series is the reoccurring bit of characters talking about Billy Joel deep cuts (aka Billy Joel songs that are not “Piano Man”). There’s an entire episode that revolves around this unhinged music video for “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” and the payoff is … well, you should watch the show and find out for yourself if you’re OK with a lot of gore. (Like, a lot of gore.)
Sky Ferreira - “You’re Not The One”
I can’t believe it’s been a decade since Night Time, My Time. I remember loving this album when it came out while I was in college. I don’t remember ever not loving it since. The rare album that when I hear my colleagues gush over this record after all these years, I can actually agree with them and not just pin it to lazy nostalgia. Songs like “You’re Not The One” somehow feel very 2013 but without feeling dated. This is just fantastic songwriting and production for any time. At this point, I’d be OK with Ferreira never releasing new music. You could do worse than end on near perfection.
UFO - “Rock Bottom”
Sick riffs, bruh.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - “Into My Arms”
I had a wonderful time seeing Nick Cave live for the first time this past weekend in LA. He played “Into My Arms,” which is my favorite Cave song. I think it’s an easy introduction to an intimidating discography from an infamously prickly songwriter. I described him to my buddy as “brooding red wine Old Testament dad rock” and … yeah, I think that holds up.
And that’s it!
Until a future Wednesday, as always.
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