FEATURE:
Harlem Shuffle
Are Spotify Prioritising the Right Thing – and Should They Be Listening More to Smaller Artists?
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ALTHOUGH there has been…
IN THIS PHOTO: Adele/PHOTO CREDIT: Rolling Stone
some development when it comes to Spotify and the commitment to look at royalty distribution and how much they pay artist per stream, one feels that this should be top of their priority list. Even though Adele’s new music and her album, 30, have caused millions to access her music via the streaming service, her request/demand to disable the album shuffle feature should be very low down the priorities list! I can appreciate that being able to shuffle an album’s tracks is not great when artists expend so much thought regarding sequencing. I feel users and listeners should be able to listen to an album in any order they feel fit. One can hear the original as the artist intended, or they can mix things up. The Guardian had some thoughts on Adele’s successful request:
“Spotify has removed the shuffle button from album pages after Adele commented that the order tracks were placed in was supposed to “tell a story”.
The singer thanked the streaming service after it made it less straightforward for users to listen to the songs of her new album, 30, in a random order.
She tweeted: “We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason. Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended. Thank you Spotify for listening.”
Spotify replied: “Anything for you”.
The shuffle option, signified by two crisscrossing arrows, was removed from the album play button but is still available when a user clicks to view the album tracks.
Adele made her big comeback with the single Easy On Me, her first new song in six years, which is No 1 in the UK singles chart, according to the Official Charts Company. It became the most streamed song in one day on Spotify and Amazon’s Alexa device when it was released on 15 October.
Other tracks from the album, including My Little Love, Oh My God, I Drink Wine and Hold On, have been praised by fans and critics for their sense of vulnerability and old-fashioned sound recalling the golden age of Hollywood.
30 was released on Friday and is her fourth studio album, which she had been reportedly working on since 2018. It details the breakdown of her marriage to the charity boss Simon Konecki, with whom she has a son, Angelo.
According to Spotify, the album accrued 60.7m streams globally in the first day it was available, making it one of the most-streamed albums on its release. The record is 90.8m, set by Taylor Swift just a week earlier”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Wet Leg/PHOTO CREDIT: Hollie Fernando
If a smaller artist had requested something like this, it would not have been addressed or made the news. Does this mean that, if you have the success and acclaim of Adele, you can ask for anything you want and get it?! If she, say, had asked Spotify to accelerate a pledge to pay artists more fairly, then would they have done that?! If you have a platform like hers, one feels that asking for something more important should be on her mind. It is not only Adele. I think major artists represent the gulf that exists between them and everyone else in music. They can command millions of streams and make quite a bit of money from sites like Spotify alone. Even if you are a breakthrough and popular smaller act like Wet Leg (a new duo whose song, Chaise Longue, is one of the biggest of this year), you are not making that much money – I think they have reached the millions when it comes to their streaming figures. It is very rare for even the most interesting and talented artists to make anything. There are so many musicians earning very little post-pandemic (even though we are still very much in the midst of it). Many will give up, and the industry will lose a lot of talented and valuable resource! Not that it is all on streaming platforms like Spotify but, as gigs have not fully kicked back into gear and we may well go into lockdown in the future, there is still uncertainty. Also, as very few artists performed earlier this year or last year, venues are being booked up now – and many have put their name down for late next year. That means that there is a huge wave of artists unable to gig and get revenue and support that way.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ervo Rocks
Next year will be very important when it comes to changes on streaming sites. One cannot begrudge Spotify for bowing to Adele’s request – as it has already been done -, but they are sort of allowing this V.I.P. access where the major artists can ask, and they will receive. There is a great worry that, as we start to come back to some sort of normality, the industry is different now to what it was in 2019. What I mean is that many artists have quit, or many feel their music being on streaming services is reaping no reward. Let us hope that there is impassioned and committed improvement from the likes of Spotify when it comes to their priorities. I think that they have a chance to focus on an issue and debate that has been present and raging for years now. Aside from some somewhat insignificant problems like the album shuffle feature on their site, so many artists are struggling to survive at a time when gigs are gradually coming back. As the very biggest artists can earn quite a lot from streaming, the reality is very different for the vast majority. After a nightmare twenty months or so for so many artists, 2022 looks set to have some light at the end of its tunnel. Streaming platforms like Spotify are essential when it comes (for artists) to gathering fans, exposure and some small revenue. All of us who love music and want to see the scene grow and thrive hope that Spotify focuses on…
PHOTO CREDIT: Imtiyaz Ali/Unsplash
WHAT is truly important.