Interview Transcript

Do you think an artist cares much about the new services that Spotify is moving into, in terms of ID management, promotion tools, all these extra services that they seem to be offering the artists?

I think it depends on whether they see it as being used for themselves. The promotional services that are being tested right now, are more for labels to pay for the ability to reach certain people on platforms. What I think is going to happen is, Spotify is going to offer targeted ads or an option to mail out to everyone who has been listening to you and they’re going to make that a business model. Very similar to what Facebook does. That’s something that they could really thrive on, because they have lots of very accurate data. If I were to spend $5 on Facebook, I would certainly consider whether I would rather spend that on sending a mail our or a pop-up to someone who listens on Spotify. But I think it’s just another way of creating a new revenue for Spotify than it is for artists to see an opportunity for them.

I also think, especially if you are not in the US, and if you are an artist around the world, with a very globalized music scene that we have now, it’s very difficult to reach that point where you can go into playlists or streaming set ups that are out of your territory. It seems easy, because it’s all globalized, but then, at the same time, it’s not. I think that’s where people are going to be struggling. I try to encourage them with the fact that the dependency is there, but there’s a lot less dependency than there was in the 90s, when there was only one person at MTV who could make a decision. You had to know that person and go for a drink with them, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.

Those days are over, thankfully, but it also puts a lot more pressure on you being on your own path and you have to be responsible and put the work and resources in. Again, it’s the mindset I was talking about, which I think is changing.

Do you think Spotify could become more of a label?

What I see, from the moves they’ve been making over the last year, I don’t think so. It’s very interesting to compare their music industry to their podcast strategy, which is where they are doing their own productions, their own exclusives. Basically, if podcasts had labels, they would already be a label. That’s because podcasts are just rising and it’s a new form of content and it’s not set out as clearly as music catalogs.

For new music, it could possibly work, if they said, we invest in you as an artist. But it can never reach that level that can really turn the market. They Taylor Swifts, the Kanye Wests are tied up in their contracts and aren’t going anywhere. If major labels control the majority of the market and they have a stake in Spotify too, so you can’t really say, you’re all gone; this is our market now. The agreements are in place for the next 10, 20 years, in some cases. It’s very hard to turn a market around, even if they wanted to, especially as the people who would not like to see this happening, the labels, are stake and shareholders and partners that you need.

It’s a very political situation and I can’t really see it happening. I think they’re going to leverage everything they have in the podcast sphere, because it’s a business that they can scale easily as there are new things every day. With music, I don’t think so.

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