spotify
Spotify Is Testing Out NFTs On Artist Profiles And Folks Are Very Unsure Of The Consequences
As Spotify continues to add bells and whistles to the streaming service’s artist profiles like the ability to buy concert tickets and merch, they’re beginning to test out NFTs, too. As Music Ally and Billboard report, artists like Steve Aoki and The Wombats present two of the early test cases, where artists can promote their NFT’s on their profiles and people can click through to purchase them on NFT marketplaces. The test is currently available to select US users via Spotify’s the Android app.
At first glance, this does seem like a slippery slope of sorts, as artists have turned to NFTs as a way to control 100% of the net proceeds from the sale of their music and publishing rights. Considering Spotify pays artists a paltry sum that lies somewhere between $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, it’s understandable to think that there might be an ulterior motive at play from the Swedish streaming giant.
“Spotify is running a test in which it will help a small group of artists promote their existing third-party NFT offerings via their artist profiles,” a spokesperson from Spotify told Music Ally. “We routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve artist and fan experiences. Some of those tests end up paving the way for a broader experience and others serve only as an important learning.”
Music Ally also reported that Spotify isn’t taking a cut of any NFT sales in this test. But one has to wonder if they’ll take a cut of whatever the NFT marketplace makes? Or if when the testing period is over and the feature is fully implemented, that they’ll indeed work their way into taking a cut of the direct sale of the NFT. Promoting an NFT on Spotify does not seem like a good proposition for smaller artists who count on the sale of their NFTs as a main source of income. But for artists like Aoki, or The Wombats, who have a comfortable pipeline of income sources and are looking to spread the word about their new blockchain ventures, then this might make sense.
The responses from people on social media have shown the inherent distrust that Spotify has built among users and non-users alike. “Just feels like they’ll find a way take the power from artist’s again,” one Twitter user said. “Work on your established problems first,” another user suggested, while another user issued the ultimatum that, “If Spotify goes in this direction im gonna cancel my subscription.”
Spotify testing NFT features sketches me out.
This is the same company that pays artists $0.004 per stream.
Just feels like they’ll find a way take the power from artist’s again.
— Rat King (@RatKingNFT) May 16, 2022
not spotify checking to see how i feel about NFTs please do better and stop listening to the guys in the meetings that get No Bitches. work on your established problems first
— Carina Daydream (@daydreamSereia) May 12, 2022
Spotify has a survey up rn thats very NFT focused. some questions even FORCE YOU to answer positively to NFTs. disappointed af, if Spotify goes in this direction im gonna cancel my subscription.
— Val (@valxxen9) May 13, 2022
‘Batman Unburied’ Podcast Dethrones Joe Rogan For Number One Podcast On Spotify
There is a new kingpin on top the podcast landscape and he wears a cape.
According to The Podcast Charts by Spotify, Batman Unburied is now the No. 1 podcast in the U.S., bumping The Joe Rogan Experience to second place. The Joe Rogan Experience was Spotify’s No. 1 podcast of 2021, after a $200 million deal in 2020 made it exclusive to the platform.
Batman Unburied‘s first two episodes were released on May 3rd Starting with Winston Duke as Bruce Wayne. Joining Duke on the narrative-led podcast are Hasan Minhaj as The Riddler, Jason Isaacs as Alfred, Gina Rodriguez as Barbara Gordon, Lance Reddick as Thomas Wayne, Toks Olagundoye as Martha Wayne, John Rhys-Davies as Dr. Hunter, and Ashly Burch as Vicki Vale.
The description for the podcast reads as follows
“A serial killer known as The Harvester terrorizes Gotham City, but Batman is not coming to the rescue. In fact, Bruce Wayne has no memory of being the Caped Crusader at all. Instead, Bruce is a forensic pathologist, performing the autopsy on the latest victim when he’s attacked by the killer himself.”
New episodes will release each Tuesday exclusively on Spotify and each episode will be released in nine different languages.
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Bad Bunny Had Spotify’s Biggest-Ever Streaming Day After Dropping ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’
Bad Bunny just released the massive, highly anticipated LP Un Verano Sin Ti. Through cinematic music videos and a themed Airbnb, the star has been successfully garnering as much attention as possible and rising as one of the most popular musicians right now. On Friday, the day of the album release, Spotify announced that he broke two records, with Un Verano Sin Ti becoming the most-streamed album in 2022 and Bad Bunny becoming the most-streamed artist globally in one day.
This isn’t too surprising. Last year, the Puerto Rican rapper received the most streams on Spotify out of any other artist around the world. According to Spotify’s data, he was streamed 9.1 billion times globally this year, an impressive feat for an artist who didn’t even release an album in 2021. Following behind Bad Bunny in worldwide streaming numbers is Taylor Swift at No. 2, BTS at No. 3, Drake at No. 4, and Justin Bieber at No. 5.
Last month, Sony announced that Bad Bunny is going to star in El Muerto, a Spider-Man spinoff. The movie was introduced by Sony Motion Picture Group president Sanford Panitch at CinemaCon and it’s set to be released in theaters on January 12, 2024. This role will make Bad Bunny Marvel’s first live-action Latino lead.
Drake And Taylor Swift Each Had More Streams Than Every Pre-1980 Song Combined Last Year
Drake is the king of streaming. Even just looking at Spotify numbers, he’s been the platform’s most-streamed artists on three separate years (more times than anybody else) and he was the platform’s most-streamed artist of the 2010s. His popularity continued in 2021: Billboard reports last year, his music had more on-demand audio streams in the US than the combined total streams of every song from before 1980.
Billboard breaks it down:
“Music released in the 1990s generated 60 billion streams in 2021, which translates to 6.07% of streams; music released during the 1980s accounted for 33.84 billion streams, or 3.42%. Music released before then doesn’t even account for a single-digit percentage point: Music from the 1970s scored 3.51 billion streams, or 0.36% of the total; music from the 1960s had 2.64 billion streams, or 0.27%; and 1950s material generated just 212.85 million streams, or 0.02%. (The market share of music released before that is too small to count.) All told, music released before 1980 accounted for 0.6% of 2021 US on-demand streaming – while Drake himself generated 7.91 billion streams, or 0.8%.”
Looking at other data, it would seem Taylor Swift also beat everything pre-1980 last year (in a notably close call), as Billboard previously reported, “Drake racked up nearly 1.9 billion more on-demand audio streams [in the US] than Swift, the country’s second most-streamed artist, who accounted for 0.61% of all on-demand audio streams.”
While the all-time streaming charts tend to favor new music, there is one song from the ’70s that has thrived: Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the only song from the decade in the top 100 most-streamed songs on Spotify (and just one of two from before the 2000s, alongside Oasis’ “Wonderwall“). On Spotify’s official 240-song “BILLIONS CLUB” playlist, which collects songs with a billion streams on the platform, Queen has four songs, while Drake has eight. Swift’s sole entry on the playlist is her Zayn collaboration “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.”
Joe Rogan threatens to leave Spotify over censorship concerns
He may be one of the highest podcast hosts in the world, but Joe Rogan is also one of the most controversial. This week, he doubled down on his right to free and uncensored speech when he told his listeners that he would rather walk away from his lucrative $200 million Spotify deal than acquiesce to censorship.
Rogan’s issues stem from the controversial comments that he has made on his popular podcast in the past, specifically with regard to hot button social issues and Covid-19 vaccination misinformation (Rogan has expressed skepticism about the vaccine and criticized vaccine requirements). Rogan’s presence on Spotify caused several high-profile artists such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to pull their content from the streaming platform. Earlier this year, a group of 270 doctors and scientists sent an open letter to Spotify in which they accused Rogan of peddling misinformation, calling him a ‘menace to public health.’ This led Spotify to add a disclaimer to Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
Rogan has also made many other controversial comments regarding transgender and racial issues, even using the n-word in the past, although he has expressed remorse, describing it as ‘the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.’
On Tuesday, Rogan addressed his relationship with Spotify during an interview with MMA fighter Josh Barnett, saying “‘If I become something different because it grew bigger, I will quit. If it gets to a point that I can’t do it anymore, where I have to do it in some sort of weird way where I walk on eggshells and mind my p’s and q’s, f*** that!”
The conversation stemmed from Rogan’s musing that his critics would “go through every single one of his statements with a fine-tooth comb” in order to look for something to be offended about.
As of Wednesday evening, Spotify had not publicly addressed Rogan’s statements.
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