There is a great discussion going on over at Digital Music News about Spotify for individual artists.
For those who don’t know, Spotify is a music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.
Digital subscription services have been heralded as the hopeful business model that will save the music industry. In Rolling Stone’s recent interview with American Idol coach, Interscope Records CEO, and pop-culture maven Jimmy Iovine, he jumped on this digital distribution band wagon as well. (BTW – he’s amazing on Idol!)
The discussion about Spotify is as follows. This is perfect for music sites, music blogs, and publications. The integrations look great and the songs play.
HOWEVER when it comes to artist pages, Spotify Play Buttons are mostly good for Spotify, not for the artist. There is massive debate about Spotify’s artist compensation, or apparent lack of compensation, but here’s the summary:
- Your fan has arrived. You don’t need a streaming digital music service involved if you can sell them your own stuff.
- You can make a lot more money by pitching something other than a digital subscription service.
- Spotify creates the opportunity for people to discover your music. When they are on your site or in your app, they’ve already discovered you!
Read the full article and join in the discussion: click here.
I think point #3 hits the nail on the head for the example you’re talking about: artists putting Spotify playlists on their own sites. I can see where that just doesn’t make sense, because Spotify IS a music discovery tool. In fact, I just purchased my FIFTH album after fully digesting it in Spotify for a few weeks. I love the service and it’s a great way to ensure my hard working dollars are spent on music I’ll actually enjoy and listen to.
The up side is that if they do click and play you on Spotify it promotes the song to all there friends on face book.
Example: Jerry just listed to Shine Again by Lightswitch
When I put a Spotify link on my site it was alongside a few other links and I did it so my fans would know that our music was available on that platform, in case that platform was something they were using for their primary music consumption. My philosophy is to be available as many places as possible, since we are new and relatively unknown, though I will say FrontGate has helped us out greatly, most recently giving away our single on newreleasetuesday.com. So, thanks!
I think we’re missing one major component of point number 3 here: It recommends music to you from similar artists. Speaking from experience, I now listen to artists that I would not have had exposure to without that function from Spotify.
Also, as mentioned above. It promotes the artist to your (on average) 230+ friends.
Not saying this is pure incentive for the artist to jump on board but the perks are there.