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Spotify has found itself under high scrutiny over reports that diversity funds created after Joe Rogan’s controversial deal have yet to be doled out.
According to reports, the Creator Equity Fund which was created by Spotify Technology SA in the wake of staff being upset over the expensive deal Joe Rogan signed for his podcast has been barely touched. The fund, which contains $100 million, was meant “for the licensing, development, and marketing of music (artists and songwriters) and audio content from historically marginalized groups.” The report estimates that based on data from Parcast, a podcasting network at the company, “less than 10% of its funding” has been spent towards that goal.
Sources for the report said that multiple factors are to blame and “has suffered from shifting priorities,” with the project behind schedule in hiring an eight-person committee to oversee the spending and not even completing their budget for 2023 among them. The $100 million was slated to be spent over a period of three years, but Spotify did not have a set infrastructure in place to vet and allocate money from the fund.
The fund was announced by Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek in February 2022 after employees at the streaming giant expressed their displeasure over Rogan signing a distribution deal for his controversial The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The deal was first believed to be worth $100 million, but it was later reported to be worth over $200 million. In addition, Ek refused to nullify the deal even after the removal of 70 previous episodes of the podcast where the N-word and other racially charged terms were used. The backlash from employees was initially sparked by artists offended by Rogan’s behavior which included Neil Young, who objected to his spreading of disinformation about COVID-19.
A representative for Spotify responded to the reports via email, refusing to comment on the details of the fund but saying it has spent more than the 10% percent that’s been reported. “The Spotify Creator Equity Fund is dedicated to a variety of initiatives that help elevate and support an inclusive and diverse portfolio of artists and creators on the platform,” they wrote. “We are able to empower and uplift underrepresented voices around the world.” They also cited projects they’ve supported such as the LGBTQ music promotion program Glow, marketing campaigns for Black artists like Kaytranada, and an expanded relationship with HBCUs such as Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.
She needed to lose you to gain streams — one billion, to be exact. Selena Gomez has surpassed a billion Spotify listens for her blockbuster 2019 track “Lose You to Love Me,” a milestone she celebrated on Instagram Wednesday (March 22).
The streaming service announced the news on social media, tweeting, “All the love for@selenagomez ❤️ Congratulations for 1 Billion streams on Lose You to Love Me #BillionsClub.”
Spotify also posted about the landmark on Instagram, which the “Calm Down” singer re-shared on her Story. “Grateful,” she wrote, adding a heart emoji.
“Lose You to Love Me” isn’t the first song Gomez has landed in Spotify’s billion streams club, but it is her first solo effort to reach the mark. Previous entries include collaborations on “It Ain’t Me” with Kygo, “Wolves” with Marshmello and “Taki Taki” with DJ Snake, Ozuna and Cardi B.
Released as the lead single off the Only Murders in the Building star’s third studio album, Rare, “Lose You to Love Me” marked Gomez’s first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was a streaming powerhouse from the very beginning, becoming the singer’s first song to top the Streaming Songs chart shortly after its release.
“When I wrote the song ‘Lose You to Love Me,’ I was kind of a mess,” she told Billboard in early 2020. “It was really difficult for me. And by the time we shot the music video at the end of the year, it had a completely different meaning, and it was so freeing. It was actually fun for me – I think, because I let it go, it actually meant that I let it go within myself as well. And I couldn’t have asked for a better way to close a chapter in my life.”
Join a billion other listeners in streaming Selena Gomez’s “Lose You to Love Me” below:
MUMBAI – Spotify has removed Indian record label Zee Music Company’s catalog after negotiations for a renewal of their licensing agreement fell through, Billboard has learned. As a result, the No.1 track on Spotify in India over the past two weeks, “Apna Bana Le” from the soundtrack to the 2022 Hindi film Bhediya, is no longer available on the platform.
“Spotify and Zee Music have been unable to reach a licensing agreement,” Spotify says in a statement sent to Billboard. “Throughout these negotiations, Spotify has tried to find creative ways to strike a deal with Zee Music and will continue our good faith negotiations in hopes of finding a mutually agreeable solution soon.”
Anurag Bedi, the chief business officer at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, declined to comment.
Apart from Spotify, Zee Music Company is also absent from Gaana, which it disappeared from in 2022 only a few months before the Indian audio-streaming platform became a subscription-only service.
On March 14, the last day its releases could be streamed on Spotify, Zee Music had over two dozen tracks on Spotify’s Daily Top 200 Songs chart for India. These included long-running Bollywood hits such as “Maiyya Mainu” from Jersey (2022), the title tracks from Kalank (2019) and Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (2019), “Makhna” from Drive (2019), “Namo Namo” from Kedarnath (2018) and “Zaalima” from Raees (2017).
The label’s catalog also includes soundtracks to films distributed by sister company Zee Studios, such as the 2018 rom-com Veere Di Wedding and the 2019 hip-hop-centric Gully Boy.
Zee Music Company, which is part of the Zee Entertainment Enterprises media conglomerate, is one of India’s largest domestic record labels. Its YouTube subscriber base of 93.6 million makes it the second most-subscribed-to Indian music channel after global leader T-Series, which boasts 239 million subscribers.
Only four of the 20 stocks in Billboard’s Global Music Index were in positive territory this week: Spotify climbed 4.5% to $127.09, Tencent Music Entertainment rose 4.4% to $7.85, Warner Music Group increased 1.5% to $30.21 and Reservoir Media improved 0.2% to $6.15.
Stock markets were rattled again this week by problems in the banking sector. Following a run at Silicon Valley Bank last week, Signature Bank and First Republic faltered this week. Credit Suisse required the backing of the Swiss National Bank on Wednesday after its biggest shareholder refused to inject money to provide much-needed stability. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% this week after dropping 1.2% on Friday (March 17). The S&P 500 improved 1.4% on the week despite falling 1.1% on Friday.
The Global Music Index declined just 0.4% to 1,188.02 despite most stocks falling into negative territory. Spotify and Warner Music Group are two of the most valuable companies in the index. Other large companies had only small declines: Universal Music Group dropped 1.7% to 21.38 euros, SiriusXM fell 0.8% to $3.64 and Live Nation declined 0.4% to $66.36.
The biggest loser of the week was K-pop company SM Entertainment, which fell 23.5% to 113,000 won after HYBE canceled its bid to take control of the company. Last week, SM Entertainment was the Global Music Index’s biggest gainer, improving 14.4% to 147,800 won, after Kakao announced a tender offer to acquire up to a 35% stake from minority shareholders at 150,000 won per share.
The soft advertising market continued to be a problem for radio companies’ stocks. iHeartMedia dropped 12% to $4.31 and Audacy fell 12.5% to $0.14. Morgan Stanley analysts cut the price target for iHeartMedia to $5 from $8 due to “concerns regarding the long-term growth potential of broadcast radio,” according to a March 16 investor note. Year to date, iHeartMedia is down 29.7%, Cumulus Media is off 35.9% and Audacy has declined 39.1%.
In the last 25 years, the music industry has evolved in huge leaps: the arrival of Napster in 1999, the launch of the iTunes music store in 2003 and YouTube’s debut in 2005 are notable, epoch-defining events. But progress often comes in a series of small steps forward.
One such small step is Spotify’s Loud & Clear, an annual report that provides some transparency into the amounts of royalties the company pays each year. The third Loud & Clear report was released March 8 to coincide with Stream On, Spotify’s live-streamed media event where a parade of executives introduced new product features and discussed the future of the world’s largest music subscription service.
Loud & Clear is helpful because it puts artist royalties in context. Any artist knows how much they earned on a streaming platform. But Loud & Clear will tell an artist how they stack up to others. It’s one thing to make $100,000 in annual royalties but another thing to know how many other artists are also making at least $100,000.
“I think it’s very important for ecosystems to have an understanding of the shape and size of how results are going for different participants so that people can understand where they are, where they stand and how the ecosystem is evolving,” says Charlie Hellman, Spotify vp, global head of music product.
And how well is the ecosystem evolving? Spotify wants to give “a million creators the opportunity” to making a living from their art — which could include both musicians and podcasters. That goal goes back to a statement by CEO Daniel Ek at its 2017 Investor Day. At the time, Spotify counted 22,000 artists as “top-tier” earners (it didn’t specify exactly how much they earned, however). Today, thanks to Loud & Clear, we can see a million creators are probably not making a living from their art. But as Spotify, and streaming in general, has grown in popularity, the number of artists making a sustainable amount — define that as you may — is slowly increasing.
There are 27,000 established artists defined as being in Spotify’s top 50,000 artists three straight years but outside of the top 500. In 2022, they earned an average of $224,000 from Spotify and averaged 1.45 million monthly listeners in 2022. So, they’re not superstars but they’re far from hobbyists. They’re also likely signed to record labels and receive only a fraction of those royalties.
In 2022, there were nearly 3,000 “catalog-heavy” artists that earned more than $100,000 on Spotify. Those artists earned over 80% of their streams from tracks five years old or older. Given that Spotify estimates other streaming sources account for 75% of an artists’ revenue, those artists probably earn around $400,000 a year in streaming royalties.
If streaming is going to provide a living for many musicians, the economics need to work for the independent musicians that make up a large portion of the working class. In 2022, a quarter of the 57,000 artists who earned $10,000 or more in royalties from Spotify in 2022 are self-distributed through the likes of DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby. That works out to nearly 15,000 artists, a 200% increase since 2017. That’s a far cry from one million. But as streaming platforms continue to grow, the number of self-distributed artists earning that amount will grow, too.
Increasingly, streaming platforms will facilitate other parts of artists’ careers, such as ticket sales and merchandise sales. Spotify lists some merchandise sales through third-party providers such as Shoptify and Merchbar. And although it hasn’t included merch sales in Loud & Clear, Hellman says, “I can imagine in future years doing more data share about that in particular. We didn’t do that this year, but it is a big strategic focus for us.”
Belmont University has appointed Brittany Schaffer, Spotify’s head of artist and label partnerships in Nashville, as the new dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, effective May 1.
“My career has focused on being a champion for people and ideas and innovations that have brought the music and broader entertainment industry together. At the same time, I have always been passionate about Nashville and its potential to be the creative center of the music business and a big player in the entertainment space at large,” Schaffer tells Billboard. “It’s an opportunity to align all the passions I have and all the work that I’ve done since starting my career into one place. It’s really exciting to be able to think about the legacy that the Curb College can leave on its students and how that influences the future of the music and entertainment space.”
Schaffer is the first female dean of the Nashville-based Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business since it launched in 2003; she fills the role held for seven years by Belmont alumnus and longtime music industry executive Doug Howard, who retired last fall.
Dr. Sarita Stewart, associate professor of creative & entertainment industries, served as the interim dean for this academic year. Stewart will take on a new role as senior associate dean for Curb College, working alongside Schaffer on programming and curriculum.
Schaffer will report to the provost/executive vice president of Academic Excellence and will be responsible for the College’s academic programs and student enrichment initiatives. She will serve approximately 100 faculty and staff and more than 2,700 students in Curb College programs.Belmont’s music business program will celebrate its 50th anniversary during the 2023-24 academic year.
“I think it is a moment to celebrate the incredible work Belmont has done to get to this point,” Schaffer says of the milestone. “It is a program that is already recognized as one of the top entertainment and music business programs in the country and we need to celebrate that.”
She continues, “At the same time, I think the music industry and entertainment space are at a really exciting point of innovation. The landscape is changing faster than it probably ever has—the technology and business models that exist when students enter may look different by the time they graduate. It’s an exciting challenge to take on to think about how we prepare students to have a strong foundation in the fundamentals of the business, creativity and storytelling so they are prepared to navigate the changes that come that we can’t even anticipate. Also, right now, everyone wants to talk about Gen Z and those are our students. How do we create an environment where we are learning as much from our students as they are learning from us?”
Schaffer co-leads Spotify’s Nashville music team including overseeing the development and execution of Spotify’s global strategy to expand the country, Christian/Gospel and Americana genres. During Schaffer’s tenure, country music listening on Spotify grew by double digits annually, according to the streamer. She joined Spotify in January 2018, after serving as senior counsel for Nashville-based Loeb & Loeb, LLP.
Schaffer, who has been named to Billboard’s Country Power Players list for the past four years, is a magna cum laude graduate of both Vanderbilt University and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Country Music Association and Country Radio Broadcasters, as well as the St. Jude Country Cares Advisory Board. Schaffer is a Class of 2022 Leadership Music graduate.
Belmont president Dr. Greg Jones said via a statement, “Belmont’s Curb College has long been recognized for developing artists and executives who bring innovative leadership and creative storytelling to their roles throughout the entertainment industry. We are delighted Brittany Schaffer has accepted the role of dean, and I am confident that she will elevate our programs even further, deepening our connections within music, motion pictures and media while establishing new partnerships in Nashville, across the U.S. and around the globe.”
Belmont Provost Dr. David Gregory added, “Brittany will bring extraordinary passion, faith and experience to her new role as dean of Curb College. Her legal background and familiarity advocating for artists, writers, producers and more within the industry provide a unique perspective on the holistic education our students need to be successful in a variety of entertainment fields. Plus, though her time with Spotify, she has been on the leading edge of where these content rich fields are heading and is well prepared to ensure Curb College stays at the forefront of modern storytelling.”
Belmont alumni have risen to the highest ranks in Nashville’s music industry and include Universal Music Group Nashville president Cindy Mabe (class of 1995), Sony Music Publishing Nashville CEO Rusty Gaston (class of 1998) and Warner Chappell Music Nashville president and CEO Ben Vaughn (class of 2000).
The battle for control of K-pop company SM Entertainment has been a boon for its shareholders. SM’s stock rose 14.4% this week to 147,800 won ($111.95) after Kakao launched a tender offer to seek a 35% stake at 150,000 won ($113.62) per share. Korea’s largest music company, HYBE, previously sought to acquire up to 40% of SM shares at 120,000 won ($90.89) per share. Its tender offer largely failed, however, with HYBE’s stake increasing just 1% — from 14.8% to 15.8% — as investors held out for a better offer.
SM was one of just three stocks in the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index to be in positive territory this week. Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami rose 5.5% and German concert promoter CTS Event rose 1.5%. The overall Global Music Index declined 3.9% to 1,192.56.
Shares of Spotify declined 1.7% to $121.67 this week after it unveiled a slew of new product features at its annual StreamOn event on Wednesday. The company announced it has already surpassed the 500 million monthly active user target for the first quarter with an entire month remaining.
In the U.S., the Dow index fell 1.1% and the S&P 500 declined 1.5%. The big news in the financial markets on Friday (March 10) was the closure of Silicon Valley Bank, the country’s 18th largest bank with assets of nearly $213 billion, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council; it was a major player amongst the region’s tech companies and venture capital firms. It’s the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history behind Washington Mutual at the height of the 2007-08 financial crisis. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was appointed SVB’s receiver on Friday and will give insured depositors access to their funds no later than Monday.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index declined 1.7%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index declined 1.7% and Korea’s KOSPI index declined 1.0%.
In February 2022, Grammy-winning R&B singer-songwriter India.Arie pulled her music from Spotify in protest, after the audio streaming platform paid podcaster Joe Rogan 200 million dollars despite his years of using anti-Black language on his show. (Rogan would later apologize for his comments.) More than that, however, Arie was unsatisfied with the way Spotify was treating artists at large – and Black artists specifically – leading her to keep her music off the service for a year.
Recently, however, she announced via Instagram that she has decided to put her music back on the platform. She shared a series of posts, including a video explaining why she initially took her music down from Spotify, and what motivated her to put it back up. ”People thought I was in a public battle with Joe Rogan,” she said. “I was not. I was in a public battle with Spotify because Spotify owns all our copyrights.”
Arie also hopes to clear up what she feels are misconceptions that the public has developed about her in the year since her Spotify protest. One is that India.Arie is her birth name, and not a stage name. Another is that, despite online trolls suggesting that she is an “under the radar” artist or a “never was,” she has released multiple RIAA-certified platinum albums (including acclaimed 2001 breakout Acoustic Soul), and received industry accolades including BET Awards, NAACP Awards and Grammys, with an influence that can still be felt in artists today ranging from H.E.R. to Ariana Grande.
“I was a big player and I was very successful, which is why I could still have conversations like this,” she says. “‘Cause you have to have a big success for people to still be wanting to talk to you 23 years later.”
Below, Arie speaks to Billboard about her decision to put her music back on Spotify, her feelings about the Grammys and her legacy as an artist. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you explain why you decided to pull your music off of Spotify?
I pulled it off in the name of my own dignity.
It was in protest. I’ve been in the music industry for 24 years. I signed my record deal in 1999, and I know too much about how racism functions in the music industry to be comfortable with what I saw. And so knowing that Black music sells most of the music, and just how important Black people are in the [music industry], and in the creation of music, period – we all know. Spotify said it to me: Someone called me after I took my music down and said, “You know, Black music does the most streams.” I’m like, “I know that.”
And so knowing that Black music does the most streams [and how] streaming has deeply affected people’s ability to make a living as songwriters, and then they just throw it in our face that they’re giventhis man who uses racist language $200 million — for me, my dignity could not stand it.
I did not think that anybody was gonna care, ‘cause I’ve spoken out about things in the past. There again is the concept of race showing up, ‘cause people didn’t care until there was this white man involved — which, you know, welcome to the world, is no surprise.
How were songwriters impacted by streaming that you saw and were concerned about?
Well, it’s not just what I see, it’s what we have all experienced. So before streaming, the way that royalties were paid out had to do with CD sales and also radio play. And so when CD sales go away… ‘cause you know, who buys albums anymore at all? We all buy everything digitally. It was a revolution.
And so when this revolution happened, the record labels and the streaming platforms came together. The record labels had to partner with the streaming platforms or they were gonna lose, too. So they formed this partnership, and they decided how much people would be paid. I don’t know why they came up with these numbers, but it was like, “This is what it’s worth now. So forget what you were getting.” ‘Cause I put out albums before streaming and after, and so did many of my friends who wrote songs on my albums, and I watched people’s checks dry up. This is not a theory – this is what we have experienced.
A lot of us feel like these numbers are random. The labels and the streaming platforms feel like it’s worth a fraction of a penny, 0.333% of a penny. Take it or leave it. What the average person thinks is that they pay $10 a month to Spotify or whoever for access to all this music, and that portion of that goes to the artist that they’re buying – and that’s not what that is. All the money goes to the labels, then a smaller portion goes to Spotify, and a person then is paid for whatever the labels and the streaming platforms together deemed the value of a stream. I don’t know where the number came from. I don’t know anybody who knows.
Were there any artists reaching out to you with moral support behind the scenes?
There was a little. I had more people tell me, “No, I don’t wanna talk about this”. I’ll be like, “You wanna talk? No? OK…” One artist who shall remain nameless told me, “I think you should just shut up.” And I was like, “Well, enjoy all of your success. I’m over here fighting for us who have regular careers still.”
But some people did reach out, and they just wanted to talk about it… not a lot, but those two people who reached out, they were like, “Well, you know, I’m still with the label.” I’m like, “I get it.” I remember those days when they could just hold anything over your head. Anything you did – if you chose a different album cover than what they wanted, they would say, “Well, maybe we won’t put it out.” Or if you didn’t do the remix, or use the artist they wanted … they would hold anything over your head. I know those days very well. And so those two artists who wanted to just talk it through, I knew exactly what they were talking about, about the punishment that can come.
But there were only those two. And some other people were saying, ”Oh yeah, that’s cool. I see you. I see you on your activist s–t…” But there was no, “If you need anything, or you need to talk…” There was very little of that. Not one artist that I reached out to was like, “I’ll do it with you.”
I did find out later through a very prominent attorney that some of his clients were talking about it behind the scenes, and asked him to go to Spotify and speak on their behalf and show their distaste – which I think also had something to do with Spotify [coming to understand] the nuclear nature of the N-word, why some black people have a zero-tolerance policy around it. And so I know that people spoke out behind [the scenes], because I was told. But there was not a lot of [public] moral support.
Why did you decide to put your music back on Spotify?
Something big did change for me where I started getting these royalties payments. I’ll be getting my first ones this year. But also, [NMPA president/CEO] David Israelite won the lawsuit where [the royalty rate for songwriters will be increased from 10.5% to 15.1% over the course of stream payments from the years 2018 to 2022], which is huge when you’re getting a fraction of a penny.
So when those two things shifted, I put my music back up. Cause I want my checks. And not only do I want my checks, I deserve my checks. There’s still not gonna be enough. And there’s still so much that needs to be changed in the music industry for it to be humane, really. But I stood up for myself and I got some shift, and I want my checks, period.
Do you own your masters?
Not yet. But I’m coming up on the time when I would, just because I’ve been in the industry so long. That would be a natural reversion. But owning my masters is one of my big prayers.
Is your relationship with Spotify and your conversation with them about how they can help Black artists an ongoing one?
No. They invited me into the conversation in the beginning, and then I would reach out to them and no one would reach back. And so in the very beginning, they asked, “What do you think we can do?”
But then none of them would ever answer my calls again. I didn’t try it a million times, but I did call a few times through my lawyer, and they never wanted to talk to me again. I reached out to them again towards the end of last year and they were like, “Well, that’s behind us. We don’t wanna talk about it.” When they started making some of the shifts that we saw, like taking some 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast down – also, they agreed to pledge 100 million dollars towards podcasters of color. That was their language. I wanted it to [specifically] be Black podcasters, ‘cause there’s a difference. And so I tried to reach out to them about that. They didn’t wanna talk about it. Nobody ever called back.
And then I called again this summer around August to ask if they would be willing to give a public apology to their artists of color. Just simple to me – that would make you look good – but they said “no.” They answered that. They said, “No, that’s behind us.” So, no, it’s not an ongoing relationship. But it’s not because of me – because I definitely have things I’d love to say and initiatives I’d love to be a part of.
Pivoting a bit: There was the infamous Grammys night of 2002 when you lost all seven awards you were nominated for. There are still a lot of conversations about racism with the Grammys, especially in regards to an artist like Beyoncé not receiving the bigger awards. Have your feelings changed about awards at large and the Grammys specifically?
Yes. I mean, of course. I went into that night thinking, “This is a night where the industry votes,” and all this stuff that they tell you – that this is about your peers, and they listened to the music. I believed all that. And then I left understanding the politics of race in the industry. I was very clear on that after that night. And so when Beyoncé didn’t win [in 2017] for Lemonade, I was watching it with some friends and I was like, “I told y’all, it’s all drawn along lines of race – even when you’re Beyoncé.”
With this last Grammy [Awards], I didn’t even watch this one. And it wasn’t even in protest – it wasn’t even on my radar. That’s how I feel about award shows at this point. It means nothing.
But the last time I went [at the 2020 awards], I went down the red carpet. I told myself that first of all, I was gonna look amazing – which I did, and the photographs of that night went viral several times on Twitter and Instagram. And then I told myself I was gonna tell the truth, the exact full truth to any question they asked me on the red carpet. And I did. And I had a video from that [night] that went viral from USA today. And so I feel like that was the night that I set myself free from any expectations of [The Grammys] or the ability for it to hurt my feelings. And now this last one came and went.
It’s been 22 years since your debut album Acoustic Soul came out. Could you reflect on how that album has changed your life and relationship to it now?
Well, of course, Acoustic Soul changed my life completely. I went from being a college student playing under a tree to opening for Sade on 50 tour dates. And then after the tour was over, the seven Grammy nominations came through, and, you know, my life was never the same. In good ways and challenging ways as well.
I have other conversations too about the enduring impact of the aesthetic of Acoustic Soul in different artists – not just that album, but my aesthetic overall. I hear it. And I think that at the age when I released Acoustic Soul, my biggest wish was that I would be an artist who made a generational impact. ‘Cause to me, Stevie Wonder is the ideal for everything music. And so, [multiple] generations of people listening to my music, people getting married to my music, people having it as their birthing playlist — that was all I wanted, was to make music that was a part of people’s lives. I didn’t think about influencing anyone. To me that felt so far-fetched.
Spotify unveiled a slew of new features and touted its commitment to music discovery in a sprawling, 90-minute Stream On presentation Wednesday (March 8). CEO Daniel Ek called it “the biggest” transformation the platform has gone through in a decade.
“We hear the same things again and again from the creator community,” Ek told the Stream On audience. “Get me closer to the fans, give me more ways to engage, and help me better monetize.” These three imperatives were the thread that connected the many, many initiatives Spotify extolled on Wednesday.
Vertical Feed, Previews and Pre-Saves
The most noticeable change designed to make Spotify “feel alive,” as Ek put it, was the introduction of the swipe-able vertical feed, which replaces the old static carousels of playlists and recommendations. The new feed is video-based, and it will play previews of music and other audio content, like podcasts and audiobooks, in what Spotify co-president Gustav Soderstrom called “a powerful new way to get that first listen.”
“When I open my homescreen, I won’t have to choose what I might be interested in just based on a cover art that I’ve never seen before, or an episode name I’ve never heard of,” he added. “Instead, I can instantly hear the most interesting part of a song or an episode.”
If the new feed is meant to pique the interest of curious fans, the new pre-save feature allows artists to capitalize on fan interest months before a potential release. Artists have been using third-party technology to run pre-save campaigns for years, but Sulinna Ong, Spotify’s global head of editorial, suggested that Spotify’s pre-save function would resonate in a different way because it’s a dedicated listening service.
“There’s a disconnect between where music is being teased and where music is actually being streamed,” she noted, in what could be interpreted as a subtle shot at TikTok. “The most powerful time to reach fans is when they’ve chosen to engage with music, like when they open up Spotify.”
Fans who pre-save a release will be notified when the song or album comes out. Spotify’s data indicates that 80% of pre-savers return to the platform to stream the song or album during their debut week.
Statistics like these were sprinkled throughout Stream On by the platform’s executives. Sometimes they were testaments to Spotify’s enormous reach, with Ek noting at one point that the platform served more than 10 million creators and enjoyed more than half a billion listeners spread across 184 markets.
In other instances, the numbers served to illustrate the power of Spotify’s tools. “These days, Spotify recommendations drive close to half of all user streams,” Soderstrom said. “Each time your music gets played on a playlist like Release Radar, you receive, on average, three times more streams from that listener over the next six months. And when a listener decides to follow you, they listen to, on average, five times more of your music.”
This, he continued, sets Spotify apart from platforms that deliver “just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” in what sounded like another jab at TikTok.
Discovery Mode and Smart Shuffle
Interested in learning about the effectiveness of Discovery Mode, which allows artists to take a lower royalty rate in order to gain more algorithmic exposure on the platform? Spotify had some numbers to share.
“On average, we’ve seen users save Discovery Mode songs 50% more often, add them to playlists 44% more, and follow the artists 37% more,” said Joe Hadley, the streamer’s global head of artist partnerships and audience. “And that’s just what they see in the song’s first month of Discovery Mode use.” He hinted that the program was especially powerful for new artists by stating that “algorithmic recommendations” are responsible for one-third of all new artist discoveries on Spotify.
Those algorithmic recommendations also factor into Smart Shuffle, a new feature that augments user-created playlists with Spotify’s picks — all of which are informed by the listener’s history. Users often heavily stream these new playlists “for the first several months after creation,” Spotify wrote on its blog. “But over time they stream these playlists less frequently in favor of new music or mixes.” Smart Shuffle aims to “breathe new life” into those old collections of songs by “shuffling tracks and adding new, perfectly tailored suggestions.”
Marquee and Clips
Spotify also cited stats to demonstrate the impact of Marquee, which offers full-screen sponsored recommendations for new releases. “On average, Marquee is 10 times more cost effective at getting listeners to stream your music on Spotify than ads on the most popular social media platforms,” Ong said.
Another feature that Spotify rolled out to a wider user base through Spotify for Artists is called Clips, which lets artists add 30-second videos to their profiles. “We built Clips to give artists a platform that inspires fandom and long-term success, not quick hits of content that just tap into the latest meme,” Spotify explained in a video about the feature. “Clips… help drive metrics that really matter to your career, like saves, follows, and streams.”
Concert Listings and Fans First
Last summer, Spotify announced that it had joined forces with Ticketmaster, AXS and more on a new Live Events Feed that captures “most of the world’s concerts” in major markets. Executives reaffirmed the platform’s commitment to this initiative at Stream On. Ong said that Spotify listed over 840,000 shows last year and promised that, going forward, “personalized concert listings [will be] featured more prominently across the app.”
Hadley picked up the thread, noting the platform will also now surface an artist’s upcoming gigs in the app’s “Now Playing” view. “It’s one of the most powerful places to market your shows and will grab your listeners’ attention right when your music resonates most,” he said, adding that fans can now tap a button marked “Interested” for concert listings, which adds those shows to a personal gig calendar in the app’s Live Events feed.
On top of all this, Spotify announced that it would expand its Fans First program in the U.S., which will ensure that an artist’s top listeners “are first in line for merch exclusives and ticket pre-sales by sending them emails and notifications to let them know when they have special access,” said Ong.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been envisioning this day — the launch of several new features and key changes, presented at the company’s Stream On event in Los Angeles on Wednesday (March 8) — for quite some time. The first iterations of Stream On 2023 existed “about two years ago,” Ek tells Billboard. “We ramped it up seriously, like, 18 months ago, and then 12 months ago, it was like, ‘Wow, okay, we need to bundle this thing, that thing — put it all together now.’”
The result was a series of innovations rolled out simultaneously: a new vertical-swiped homepage with an interactive feed for Spotify’s mobile app; the expansion of video-based tools like Canvas, Spotify Clips and Previews, that rely on looped visuals and exclusive content from artists; greater access to its Discovery Mode program, which trades algorithmic exposure for lower royalty rates; and “countdown pages,” a long-awaited pre-save feature for upcoming albums. Some of these features have been long in the works, and have already drawn comparisons to visual-based platforms like TikTok and Instagram, but the 90-minute upfront (which also included presentations by Spotify co-president/chief product officer/chief technology officer Gustav Söderström, global head of editorial Sulinna Ong and global head of artist partnerships Joe Hadley, among others) was aimed at optimizing the listener experience and amplifying artistic voices on the platform. As Ek directly told creators watching the global livestream: “Spotify is open for business.”
Shortly after the Stream On event, Ek sat down for a rare Q&A about the ambitious rollout, heightened tech competition, acknowledging Geo Z listener habits and not being caught up in the “time on app” craze. (Ed. Note: this interview was been edited for clarity.)
During your Stream On presentation, you spoke about how this is the most dramatic period of innovation for Spotify in a decade. Why now? Why this moment?
I mean, there are so many aspects of this that probably won’t get the spotlight. As an example, and Gustav mentioned this on stage, we’ve kind of rebuilt. We’re known for our Discovery platform, and for how good we are at machine-learning and AI and recommending new stuff. But we’ve actually, underneath the surface, redone that entire system, and meantime, our designers have obviously been tinkering around with the best way of promoting content the best way for discovering content.
And, in the meantime, our artist teams have been expanding our Canvas programs — I think we’re up to 70% of covers on Spotify now having some sort of Canvas. More and more artists were taking advantage of the platform, with lyrics and Canvas and all these things already, and we saw that the more rich storytelling we could do on the platform the better it would be. And then, couple that with this algorithm- and machine-learning you need underneath all of that to be able to do this and have a magical experience, all three of them started coming together. And that was when I said, probably 18 months ago, “Okay, we need to pull all of this together as one — because this will be a massive thing, and we can’t do this as separate parts.”
I think that there are two types of companies when when you’re developing products: One tries to get it all together, and [make] it beautiful. Generally at Spotify, we are more kind of agile — we release things quite early, we test a lot of things, a lot of things don’t work, some things work and we double down on them. But we felt this was such an important step that we needed to kind of like bring it all together and release it as one thing, because otherwise, people wouldn’t understand it, and it wouldn’t get the right reception from consumers, but also — frankly — from creators as well.
You spoke about how “individuality and creativity” are being prioritized by this new interface. How much of that is being driven by the way Gen Z listeners want to engage with music over passive listening — is that a big part of what you’re rolling out?
Absolutely. You’re 100%, right, it’s about looking towards younger consumers for inspiration. And I’m a firm believer in the [William Gibson] quote, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
I’ve got two young kids, and quite often, you can just look at your own kids and see what they’re doing, see a glimpse of the future. So that’s definitely been part of it, but I do think that oftentimes, when you look at these types of things, there’s a universal truth in what’s happening here. So yes, younger [listeners] are more interested in visual discovery, and all those things that they’re used to because of all the other apps and platforms and other stuff. But the reality is, if you think about it, in the music industry, when we went from having a radio to MTV, it was a hell of a lot better, and it allowed totally different artists to get a new way of communicating. And that probably meant some artists actually weren’t going to be as successful as MTV took off, but there were other artists that were excellent storytellers visually, too. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” how the storytelling came alive — the sort of backstory that came in this music video — that was one way, right?
The truth is, as someone who grew up with MTV — funny side note, I actually learned how to speak English through MTV — I kind of feel like we’ve been relegated to, just press play and listen to the background. But as more and more music became playlists, there are all these artists that I don’t know anything about. I don’t know what they look like, and [have] no idea who they are, how they express their individuality and creativity. And so what we’re announcing today is really a chance for them to tell part of the story of what they want the world to see, as part of who they are, and get a chance to build connection. And when we’ve tested this concept with artists, the response is exactly that. That’s not just among younger [people], but even slightly older people too. When you discover someone, having this sort of richness, being able to see the person, to be able to see their vision come to life, builds that connection.
When you look at how much of this presentation today emphasized video expansion — from Previews to Spotify Clips to extending video with podcasts — how much are these innovations driven by feeling in your gut where things are headed, and how much is driven by competition on other platforms and social media?
A bit of both. I think everyone who says that they’re not inspired by anything that’s going on around them, it’s complete bullshit, to be honest. So I mean, I’ve played around with everything — I play around with the Voice apps, where you can Auto-tune yourself to sound really good. We take inspiration from all of that, of course. But we try to also look at more than just copying features for features’ sake — we try to look for, “What are the needs?”
If you want to find out what Spotify is going to do, it’s actually very simple. All you’ve got to do is look for a big consumer need and a big creator need, and when there’s a win-win between the two of them, that’s when we will do something. It’s really as simple as that. And so that’s the bar for me: is this something that consumers want, first and foremost, because if you don’t want it? It doesn’t matter that the creator wants it — it’s not going to be a great thing. And vice versa: if the consumer wants something, but the creator hates doing it, it’s not going to be sustainable long-term. So you’ve got to try to find out what that middle [ground] is. And a lot of times, I wish I could say that there’s this kind of defining moment, where you sit together in a room and figure it out. It’s not how innovation works, in my opinion. It’s organic.
You mentioned podcasting — we started uploading lots of videos there. Canvas has worked out really well. So it was this natural evolution where we started seeing that visual expression together. One of my fears honestly was like, does that mean we’ll be more like the other platforms? But both because of the types of creators that we have, and also the fact that we don’t expect you to sit two hours in front of that endless screen and watch stuff — we expect you to find something you really like, press play, put it in your pocket, and use that visual way of going from point A to point B faster. We’ve done the algorithms, we’ve done the UX, to do exactly that, opposed to some of these other social platforms that want you to stick around and watch the entire time.
I wanted to ask about something that Gustav said during the presentation that I found really interesting: “Our goal is not to steal time — it’s to help users save time.” There’s so much emphasis across every platform right now of “time spent on app” — getting users from a few seconds with an app open to a few minutes — whereas Spotify wants users to find something they like and then keep it moving.
Yeah, it’s exactly right. I call the concept “nutritious versus delicious.” I feel like everyone’s trying to go towards shorter, shorter, shorter-form content, more bite-sized. And then we have this counter-movement with podcasts, where someone’s willing to listen to two hours of someone going super deep on a very slim topic as well. We obviously want to allow creators to create whatever way they want to do, but out of the two extremes, we’re definitely more in the latter camp. We want creators to really form a connection with their audience rather than just trying to get a viral clip going, and next morning, it could be 50 other people who are successful [instead].
In terms of Discovery Mode, and giving artists a better chance of finding that first play and gaining a new listener — is there any concern of that tool like that losing some efficiency once you open it up to a much wider population of artists, where at some point it becomes to discern what’s worthwhile and what’s noise? Does that tension exist for you?
I mean, there’s absolutely that kind of tension. However, I think this is the beautiful thing — with these algorithms and personalization, we’re not all the same. So the kind of artists you like and the kind of artists I like might be very different. And some of these artists will get exposed to people more like me, and then other artists similar to you will get that exposure. There’s room for all of these things to play together, whereas in the past, you had a commercial radio station that had like 50 or 60 songs on rotation. We can actually cover a lot more than ever before in terms of giving artists exposure, and I think that’s also visible in our numbers.
I talked about onstage the notion that even the 50,000th most-streamed artist, which is kind of far down the list, is still making probably $50,000 across not just Spotify, but across all the other recorded music sources. And if you add touring, if you add all the other stuff, that’s probably a full time musician. It’s a very different music industry today. So I see the tension — and obviously, you’re right, on the long tail of things, it means some people won’t get that attention. But I think on the quality side, we will be good, and we will constantly improve, just like we’ve always had to, to give you better and better recommendations.
You are building Spotify for the long haul, and today was about continuing that building process. I was curious about how you strike the balance between growth and over-extension — finding the right opportunities that make sense for Spotify, without becoming too unwieldy?
I mean, look, it’s not easy, and I wish there was like a silver-lining way to answer it, but I think it comes back to what I talked about. We have three main constituents at Spotify, and two of them are dominant, and the third one, I have to pay attention to. The three main constituents are creators and consumers — they’re the ones that are front and center in everything that we do — and then the third is Spotify itself, my employees, shareholders, all that other stuff. So as I’m working on something, or we’re considering something, it really honestly is as simple as I mentioned: Do I believe that there’s a win-win-win, that gets us there all the faster?
I will probably do stuff that’s great for consumers and great for creators, and not great for Spotify. We’ve done a lot of those things, but I can’t do that endlessly — we’ve got to run a business as well. So it’s about trying to have those three things, the list that every decision goes through. It’s a very simple thing. Is this a win-win for creators and consumers, and will this work out for Spotify? If the answer is yes, then we will do it.