Ghost artists on Spotify

I run a label that has direct deals with certain major DSPs. We do over a billion streams a year.

The entire “wellness” music category is programming driven. Much of my energy is spent building and maintaining relationships with the programmers, even with our direct deals. We take a reduced payout on the master side in return for preferential treatment on playlist positions.

I have an active roster of extremely talented producers. It’s a volume play. I’ve made tracks that I’m quite proud of in 90 minutes that have done 20+ million streams.

It’s a wild system but we’ve made it work. Not really a critique or an endorsement - just making a living making music.

Edit: fun fact, Sleep Sounds is generally the #1 streamed playlist on the entire Apple Music platform.

What's the wellness category about?

Outcome based music generally - sleep, meditation, yoga, focus, etc.

On one hand, it’s a way to guarantee visibility and streams... On the other, it seems like another symptom of how streaming has commodified music... (I'm talking about the reduced payouts for preferential playlist treatment)

> I’ve made tracks that I’m quite proud of in 90 minutes that have done 20+ million streams. Regardless of the ethics that's quite incredible!

I honestly don't give a shit about music nor artists. Never have. But I'm at the gym about 3 hours a week and need a soundtrack so I like to listen to synthwave that the Spotify AI recommends me.

Spotify seems to trigger the hell out of music purists...

Just curious, what kind of software do you use, and / or, what is this category of music based on? Brian Eno and the ambient movement as a whole?

It sounds like the kinda thing that'll earn you a paycheck, but not fame. Or the kind of fame that can land you work from e.g. Spotify, not the kind of fame that'll fill up concert halls.

I think it's a sobering look into the music industry (not just your whole comment but the article + comments); the perception is that if you're not filling up concert halls then you don't matter, but the truth is that good or successful music does not necessitate the accompanying fame or "interesting" personality / personal branding.

I would love to listen to your music. Can you name it?

Good on you for earning a living from music (which is hard) but I'm not sure the whole reduced payout thing should be legal.

Is it that far from payola?

By 'programmers' you mean like playlist owners, channel owners etc... right?

You cheated and sold out to get preferential placement... Who cares how many streams you got? The metric is meaningless now.

I would pay a premium for a music service that excludes "volume plays"

there are artists that are famous without "filling up concert halls", or even having that much of a scale of an audience. success doesn't have to be this frankly obsolete and obtusely singular idea of it. for a lot of music and artists that were brought up and got popular on the internet, and for the people who listen to them, this "concert fame" is completely irrelevant. i bet that it's almost inverse for a certain kind of listener who either just doesn't go to concerts, or can't, and/or simply enjoy listening music in their own manner of comfort.

"Cheated" how?

You & others may not like it. It may not align with your ethos or your peers' norms. But I see nothing ethically, morally or legally wrong with parent's comment...

The "rules" you think are being violated here probably never existed. In the last decades, this kind of thing was called disruption.