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Ghost artists on Spotify

(harpers.org)
556 points greenie_beans | 3 comments | 19 Dec 24 14:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.42s | source
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_1ts3 ◴[20 Dec 24 06:20 UTC] No.42468747[source]▶
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.

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1. dfedbeef ◴[20 Dec 24 16:33 UTC] No.42472495[source]▶
You cheated and sold out to get preferential placement... Who cares how many streams you got? The metric is meaningless now.
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2. beambot ◴[21 Dec 24 19:20 UTC] No.42481588[source]▶
"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...

3. recursive ◴[21 Dec 24 19:32 UTC] No.42481656[source]▶
The "rules" you think are being violated here probably never existed. In the last decades, this kind of thing was called disruption.