Tag: Spotify

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Music

Students vs. Spotify

Carleen Loney @shloneys / The Concordian

The platform increased its monthly rate amidst the absence of a student discount in Quebec

Remember watching Disney Channel as a kid? Can you recall the feeling of excitement that came with the idea of winning sweepstakes and getting to meet your favourite TV star, only for the offer to be “not valid in Quebec.” For Spotify users in the province, the disappointment is the exact same.

For many years now, Spotify’s student discount has not been offered in Quebec. The province’s Consumer Protection Act prohibits companies from automatically charging for services at regular price once a free trial or discounted period has ended—for which Spotify faced a class-action lawsuit in 2017 before the Superior Court of Quebec.

Quebec is notably the only province in Canada that does not accommodate the discount. On SheerID, Spotify’s student verification system, no Quebec institutions can be selected from their directory. However, these same schools can be found on UNiDAYS, the site used by Apple Music. Students can thus access the same discount for the same price, just on a different streaming platform.

Minh Tu Chau, currently studying in the computer engineering co-op at Concordia, believes that the student discount should be available solely based on its widespread demand: “More people use Spotify than Bixi, but we [students] have a Bixi discount.” He also sees Spotify as a cornerstone of student life: “So many people use it for studying.”

Some students have since found a workaround: selecting universities outside the province that are also named Concordia, such as the one in Edmonton. “Just send an acceptance letter or any other official Concordia document,” an anonymous student shared with The Concordian. Transcripts, schedules, offers of admission, and attestation letters—”anything with the word Concordia on it,” they added—all grant access to the student discount when uploaded through SheerID under another “Concordia University.”

Furthermore, throughout the month of August 2023, Spotify users have been greeted with a bright blue screen with news that is equally blue: starting in September, their subscription price will be increasing from $9.99 to $10.99 per month.

Many subscribers have expressed their dismay towards the change, but Tredy Delcar Méroné—a first year economics student—sees it as inevitable: “It’s their first time ever increasing their prices in 11 years.”

“It’s annoying that we have to do all this just to have discounted Spotify,” Delcar Méroné said, which is just about the general consensus around the Spotify-student situation in Quebec.

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Music

Neil Young vs. Spotify

The classic folk singer’s ultimatum toward Spotify has created a chain reaction

It has not been a good start to the new year for Spotify: Neil Young has taken his music off of the streaming platform. The legendary Canadian folk singer made his decision due to the spreading of false information about vaccines on the streaming service, specifically targeting Joe Rogan’s podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.

Young made a reference to Rogan, who had said on his podcast “I think for the most part it’s safe to get vaccinated. I do. I do. But if you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I’ll go no.” The comedian/commentator extraordinaire made a deal with Spotify for the platform to host his podcast exclusively in May 2020. The majority of Spotify premium users were already there before Joe Rogan joined the roster; however, his podcast was responsible for a 21 per cent increase in user numbers (from 130 to 158 million).  

While this might have played out to be a win for both players, things turned sour when Young gave Spotify an ultimatum. He said “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” Given that they had spent $100 million for an exclusive deal with Rogan, the company made the “hard” choice and picked him. What they did not expect was that Young’s exit would trigger a domino effect, causing more artists to up and leave the streaming platform’s embrace. The first musician to give way after Young was fellow Laurel Canyon folk artist Joni Mitchell. The singer-songwriter proceeded to remove more than nineteen albums including Blue and Ladies of the Canyon last week to further cement her departure from the platform.

The next artists that followed suit were Nils Lofgren from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band; as well as Crosby, Stills, & Nash (which Young is sometimes a part of), Québecois legend Gilles Vigneault, and singer-songwriter India Arie. They took a leaf out of Young’s playbook and chose to stand up against misinformation, or in Arie’s case, a race-related comment by Rogan. On the other hand, there are artists that use the current situation to troll: James Blunt jokingly announced that he’d be releasing new music amidst the Young vs. Rogan debacle.    

Joe Rogan’s podcast invites a smorgasbord of people from all walks of life: from comedians to astrophysicists, and even Concordia professors such as Dr. Gad Saad. Each person has a different set of beliefs and ideologies that might or might not be agreed upon by the public. There is a difference between freedom of speech and spreading misinformation that could endanger the lives of people, but where is the line?   

     So what does this mean for Young, Spotify, and Rogan (who apologized)? Young is a household name internationally and as such is able to afford not having the extra income from Spotify when his loyal fans would still buy his records and concert tickets. Spotify will most certainly recover from the cluster of artists leaving its roster, but maybe the worst is yet to come. At least they’ll be able to benefit from Rogan’s exclusive podcast, but who knows how long that could last, what with him constantly asking his guests if they want to try DMT.         

 

Graphic by Madeline Schmidt and Catherine Reynolds

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News

Getting back to the heart: CASA Cares launches debut podcast, Heart to Heart

The podcast sets out to inform and inspire the Concordia student body, one episode at a time

This January saw CASA Cares, the nonprofit subsidiary of JMSB, launch its debut podcast, Heart to Heart. With podcast consumption nearly doubling throughout the pandemic, Heart to Heart sets out to bridge the gap between Concordia students and the community left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The interview-based podcast offers a platform where Concordia students can access advice and information on real concerns and events from experts in relevant fields. Structured on a bi-weekly release schedule, Heart to Heart will dedicate two 30-minute episodes each month to examining a particular cause or issue relating to current events.

“The podcast is basically trying to do two things,” said Divya Aery, the vice president of involvement for CASA Cares and the host of Heart to Heart. “One is trying to raise awareness on social issues and community initiatives. [The second] is trying to encourage or promote student involvement.”

This past month, Heart to Heart examined the effects that the recent lockdown measures has had on student’s mental health. Guest speakers from Jack.org, the non-profit organization dedicated to youth mental health, listed a series of resources that students struggling with their mental health can access for immediate and long-term support.

Heart to Heart marks a shift in focus for the organization, which has traditionally been centred on hosting in-person fundraising events. It’s the first initiative launched by CASA Cares that does not revolve around fundraising for a particular cause or charity.

We don’t get any sort of revenue from this and it works because there is no cost either,” said Aery. “So it kind of just cancels [out] that way.”

For the non-profit organization, Heart to Heart brings the unprecedented challenge of having to operate the podcast on a zero dollar budget. All work relating to the day-to-day operation of the podcast is conducted solely by the project’s founding members. The Heart to Heart team has been using free programs such as Zoom and GarageBand to record and edit each episode, as well as recruiting guest speakers on a volunteer basis.

Despite the Heart to Heart team’s hard work, technical issues and just plain bad luck have still been major obstacles surrounding the launch.

“We had to record the first episode five times,” said Aery, when asked about Heart to Heart’s production process. “The audio kept cutting or I wasn’t happy with my questions or I thought we could have focused more on one [subject] over the other. And of course, my laptop crashed and I lost all the files, so I had to do another take.”

However, it is the dedication and commitment of the Heart to Heart founders that have let the project overcome these initial setbacks.

“There is such an impact for me personally,” said Khang Nghi Can, CASA Cares’ first-year representative and producer of Heart to Heart. “Sometimes, I’ll be editing and listening to it and I’m like, yeah, this is the thing I should do for myself, too. What if one person listens to the podcast and it makes them think differently? So if we can really help one person, like, that’s already huge.”

Heart to Heart is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the CASA Cares website.

 

Logo courtesy of CASA Cares

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Music

Bryson Tiller and the art of living between albums

Putting pressure on artists to release new material will only lead to watered-down tunes built for streaming.

Every Thursday night, like clockwork, the world prepares itself for a new batch of new music. These drops can be surprises or the result of a meticulous marketing campaign designed to attract the most amount of listeners as possible. Since there’s so much new content every week, it can become easy to forget about an artist who’s been laying low for a long time.

Look at Bryson Tiller, one of R&B’s hottest up-and-comers in 2015.  He was able to coast off the monster single “Don’t” with all the hype he’d drawn to himself. With that, he had a lot to live up to when he released  T R A P S O U L, his debut album that same year. He followed it up with the middling True to Self in 2017 that came and went with little fanfare. After his sophomore effort though, Tiller disappeared. Despite some one-off singles in 2018 and 2019, his fans weren’t sure what to make of his lacklustre output.

In the meantime, a whole new wave of R&B artists rose to the occasion and dropped music that borrowed from Tiller’s sound. Since streaming makes it so easy to just listen to something new, it’s just as easy to forget the artist who helped guide a new generation of crooners.

Fans will always be a pestering bunch. They’ll love an artist when they release something new but will pester them on social media if they’ve been quiet for anything more than a few months. 

The pressure adds up. Not only is there weight on the artist’s shoulders to release something new and better than their last release but there’s a lot to lose from a monetary point of view.

If the album flops, then people will look elsewhere to scratch the itch they have for music that their favourite artist makes. So for Tiller, his comeback would not only have to be good, but it would have to be on or surpass T R A P S O U L’s level of quality to maintain the squirrel-like attention span fans have today.

Even Spotify CEO Daniel Ek adds to the already overwhelming pressure by stating that artists can no longer release an album every three to four years because it won’t generate enough revenue to sustain them.

His comments naturally faced a lot of backlash. Spotify’s payout to artists is notoriously low so his comments imply that an artist should have to release something new every few months in order to make a good living, which could hinder their creative process.

So what does an artist like Bryson Tiller do? He can’t coast off the success of T R A P S O U L forever and if he’s not in the right mental space to create more music, then he shouldn’t feel obligated to pump out music. 

Certain artists can live off the success of a few albums. Tame Impala had been riding the acclaim of Currents, released in 2015, up until the release of The Slow Rush in February of this year. Frank Ocean’s Blonde is still raking up streams despite it being four years old. With such popularity, why should artists feel obligated to follow up a masterpiece so quickly? If your name is Daniel Ek and you own Spotify, then the obvious answer is money.

Releasing new music has always been about making money for record labels and now streaming services. They don’t care how artful or beautiful the music actually is as long as it sells. And for certain artists, it works.

Westside Gunn recently put out his third full-length project of the year and on every release day, his fans flock to it and listen, even if they fear that he might be oversaturating his own market. However, if he’s accumulating a lot of streams, then that’s three times the amount of money he would have made if he only released one. Gunn has about 40 new songs this year and each stream brings in more cash. He’s up to the task and he gets it done, but not every artist is built that way.

This year, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the only real way for artists to make money is to release new music and sell merch. They can’t tour, which is their biggest source of income. So for Ek to come out and say that artists need to be releasing new material every few months, then it only adds to the pressure of having to top your previous album.

When Bryson Tiller announced his third record, A N N I V E R S A R Y, it felt like he was, for the first time since T R A P S O U L, ready to release the music he’d made on his own accord. And for the most part, Tiller’s latest album sounds like he truly cared about it. 

Though it might be harder for him to get back the popularity he had in 2015, at least he’s doing things on his own terms and not following the guidelines of a selfish streaming corporation that forces him to release music the same way Nerf pumps out Fortnite guns.

The gap between albums should not only be allowed but encouraged for artists who don’t have the creative bandwidth to create art every few months. We can’t expect artists to be our guinea pigs for new content when they live their lives just as much as we do. It’s unfair. So before you comment “New music please!” under your favourite artist’s tweets, take a minute to reflect and see how that might not be in their best interest.

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Music

Blog era erasure: How streaming services are erasing hip hop history

While platforms like Spotify and Apple Music facilitate access to music, they’re also erasing a big part of modern hip hop’s history

From the late 2000s to the early 2010s, hip hop music was undergoing one of the most pivotal and defining moments in its recent history: the blog era. As someone who was going through their teenage years at that point in time, it was a defining moment of my life as well.

In 2007, I was just starting high school and there were no better artists to me than Kanye West and Lil Wayne. If you would’ve asked me then I would’ve labelled myself their biggest fan and said they were definitively the greatest rappers of all-time. I spent hours upon hours listening to their music, among others, while I played video games or did homework, and YouTube kept feeding me songs of theirs I’d never heard.

Wayne in particular had so much music on YouTube that I’d never heard, and a lot of it was seemingly on one CD I desperately wanted. The thing is, I couldn’t find it anywhere. It wasn’t on iTunes, at Best Buy or at HMV, no matter how hard I searched, it was nowhere to be found. So, I got home one day, and typed the title into Google, hit search, and there it was, in all of its double-disc glory, Da Drought 3.

Da Drought 3 was my introduction to music blogs and mixtape-hosting websites, and it started a long, long love affair between me and sites like DatPiff, Nah Right, 2DopeBoyz, illRoots, Rap Radar, OnSmash and so many more. It became an almost daily habit to get home from school and check if anything new had been released.

I was able to witness Wayne’s prolific mixtape run in real-time and get early exposure to blog era staples like Mac Miller, Nipsey Hussle, Wale, Big K.R.I.T., The Cool Kids, Kendrick Lamar, and a multitude of other great artists, all for free. It was an amazingly eclectic era, where I could find music around every corner and it brought me some of my favourite artists and projects of all-time.

From J. Cole’s The Warm Up to Frank Ocean’s nostalgia, ULTRA., this era saw the beginnings of some of the biggest and most critically acclaimed artists of the last decade. No labels, no pressure, just their raw skill and talent on display and free of charge, and they captured the ears and hearts of millions in the process.

The tragic thing is, as years have passed and we’ve developed these wonderful new technologies for music consumption known as digital streaming platforms (DSPs), these mixtapes are becoming lost to time. There is an army of J. Cole fans out there who’ve never heard of his classics like The Warm Up or Friday Night Lights, and it’s not their fault.

These mixtapes existed in a weird area where, because they were free, the artists never needed to clear samples, as they weren’t making money directly from the music. The mixtape was a free promotional tool used to gain exposure and the real money was in touring and merch. They were able to sample whatever they wanted and because it wasn’t something they were profiting from, there was rarely any push back from the original artists.

This is where the problem lies for these mixtapes — once a project makes it to one of these DSPs, it starts making money. Even though artists only make a fraction of a penny off of each play on Spotify or Apple Music, the fact that they’ll be profiting at all without clearing these samples is grounds for a lawsuit. Because of this, these projects don’t get put on DSPs and because of that, they’re starting to be overlooked and forgotten by younger listeners.

For those listeners, these DSPs have made music consumption so simple that all they have to do is open an app and whatever they want to listen to is right there. With such a streamlined process for acquiring music, who has the time to boot up their computer, download music and add it to their Apple Music library, or even download a separate app just for these mixtapes?

It’s a process that’s become overly complicated over time, not by way of ever actually complicating the process, but because DSPs make everything else so much simpler. A lot of these projects not being available on these platforms has essentially forced them to cease to exist to those who weren’t around for their release, which is tragic as they are some of the best projects of the last decade or so.

Even more tragic is the state in which some of these projects are released to streaming services, either heavily altered or just missing some of their best tracks. 

For example, Lil Wayne’s No Ceilings mixtape is arguably the greatest mixtape of all-time. Earlier this year, it was added to DSPs, missing all the skits and a third of its songs. While the tracks on here still showcase Wayne at his peak, the amount of songs that are missing makes relistening feel like rewatching your favourite film and some integral scenes are randomly missing.

If the non-inclusion of blog era classics on these platforms erases some of the most important moments in hip hop’s history, instances like this greatly alter that history and lessen the potential impact that these projects could have on new listeners.

It’s a shame that the unadulterated original versions of these classic mixtapes are going to fall victim to time, copyright issues and technological advancements in music distribution. This is especially disappointing considering that this era occurred so recently and essentially launched the careers of some of the biggest artists in the world today.

Still, for those who lived through the blog era and lived with the classic mixtapes that came out of it, it’s a period in time that will forever remain special. The careers it birthed and legacy it carries will live on with those who cherished the era, even if the original music itself doesn’t get the chance to.

 

Graphic by Taylor Reddam

Categories
Music

Adulation over accolades

Graphic by Ana Bilokin

Award shows like the Grammys are not what matters—the people are

While music award shows like the Grammys are capable of creating great, memorable moments for artists, it is not the Recording Academy—the council that selects the winning artists—that truly distinguishes artists and their impact on the music world. It’s the everyday Jane and John Doe who listen to their music and pay to see them perform.

The Recording Academy’s voting membership includes music creators, such as artists, engineers, producers and songwriters. “To be qualified for membership, however, voting members must have creative or technical credits on at least six commercially released music releases on a physical album, or 12 on a digital project,” according to The Balance Careers. Voting members are then allowed to vote online during the two balloting periods.

As Drake said in his acceptance speech for Best Rap Song for “God’s Plan,” “My point is, you’ve already won if you have people singing your songs word for word, if you’re a hero in your hometown. Look, If there’s people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don’t need [a Grammy]. I promise you, you already won.”

That really got me thinking. Do we even need the Grammys anymore?

Whether it be paying for a monthly subscription to Spotify, or scraping up leftover money for a ticket to a show, many “regular” people help fund artists’ careers, as well as increase their popularity. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know one of the things I look forward to most is attending one of my favourite artists’ concerts, no matter how expensive the ticket is. Escaping reality, even if only for a few hours, is all that really matters.

With increasing access to endless amounts of music, both technologically and financially, the listener’s ability to impact an artist’s career is greater than ever. Buying vinyls and cassettes has been replaced by online streaming—a substantially faster, easier, more efficient system of musical sales.

According to Nielsen, a research firm, Canadians streamed over 59 billion songs in 2018, a 47 per cent increase from 2017. In the United States, streaming numbers in the first half of 2018 reached close to 403 billion songs. Though the topic of the low streaming-to-money conversion is frequently discussed, I don’t think anyone would argue the power of streaming numbers. They more often than not have a significant impact on an artist’s success, including things like ticket and merchandise sales.

As the people continue to play a huge role in artists’ careers, award ceremonies like the Grammys have seemingly lost their notability. As I tuned in to watch the performances, curious as to who the council would choose to award, I couldn’t help but notice the many empty seats throughout the arena. I wondered if it had anything to do with the unexplained absences of major artists like Childish Gambino, Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Ariana Grande—all of whom won a Grammy that night. Maybe not, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

In recent years, the Grammys have come under fire for critiquing female artists, its low number of female nominations, as well as for failing to recognize the success and popularity of many significant hip hop artists. This is the suspected reason for Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino declining to perform at the show’s 61st edition.

Music award shows will undoubtedly always have their place as star-studded events with high-budget performances and a long legacy. Though, I think that the importance and notability of their awards will continue to lose value. More people will begin to recognize the immense power that regular people have over the select few of an elected council.

Categories
Music

Can musicians succeed without physical CDs?

SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube have changed the music industry

As more and more consumers choose digital music over physical CDs, music distribution trends are shifting away from physical product sales. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), streaming music online in 2016 amounted for 47 per cent of America’s total recorded music revenue in comparison to physical copy revenue that is equivalent to 20 per cent. In the first six months of 2016, the Nielsen Music 360 Report concluded the number of songs streamed on-demand through audio and video platforms was over 18.6 billion.

Years ago, musicians needed a music label—such as Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment or Universal Music Group to reach a large audience of listeners. The labels had the exclusive means of creating physical albums that would give fans access to their favourite songs. Today, any musician with access to the Internet can upload their own music. Services such as Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube and SoundCloud allow musicians to release their music online and share it with the world, either for free or for a small fee. This further opens the door for independent recording artists to create and release their art. With so many artists regularly releasing music, young bands can compete with the world’s talent to be heard.

Do musicians need to create physical versions of their albums to support their project or can they prosper exclusively online? Although digital music has its positive aspects, some artists might argue that being present on various online music platforms is not enough.“We can’t survive through our online presence alone at this stage,” said Jodie Amos, the singer of the UK-based rock group Badow. “Even though social media is really important to us to network with fans, the physical aspect still overrides the digital sales.” In 2014, country-pop singer Taylor Swift pulled her entire music catalogue from the online music streaming program Spotify, citing low revenue from the platform. “I think there should be an inherent value placed on art,” she said in an interview with Time magazine. “I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.”

Music streaming platforms like Google Play Music and Apple Music offer music as a service you subscribe to, instead of as a product you purchase. A monthly fee allows listeners to stream most of the world’s music collection, while paying musicians for their contribution to the platform. Global marketing research firm Nielsen found that Canadians spent twice as much on music streaming services in 2016 than the year before. They also found that, in Canada, the total amount of audio streams in the first half of the year jumped from 2.1 billion in 2015 to 9.2 billion in 2016.

Graphic by Thom Bell

“People discover bands through streaming now, and those who like what they hear can quickly find out when our next show is happening through our social media,” said Sam Robinson, bassist of Montreal-based rock group Diamond Tree. “We don’t make any money through streaming, but without uploading our music to streaming sites, we’d be missing out on a large audience and lots of potential new fans.”

CDs were once the main way music was purchased, but sales of CDs have declined steadily since the early 2000s. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), revenue from CD sales in the United States slid down 16.4 per cent in 2016 compared to sales in 2015. In 2000, 942.5 million CDs were sold in the US. In 2015, only 122.9 million CDs were sold.

In addition, creating professional-looking CDs can be costly for a musician or band compared to uploading it online. According to Eve Duplessis, who works at Montreal-based printing company Audiobec, it costs roughly $1,000 to create 500 compact discs sold in full-colour cardboard sleeves.Even then, to reach the widest possible audience, CDs are sometimes sold as “pay-what-you-can.” “I buy CDs to remember the artists I like,” said Montreal-based singer-songwriter Heather Ragnars. “If I like the music I hear at a show, I might buy a CD.” Singer-songwriter Alexandra Roussel said she finds physical media helps form a connection with her audience. “In this day and age, people like to be able to hold things in their hands. It makes for a warmer connection between the artist and their fans,” she said.

Many musicians in Montreal agree having physical copies of their music is a good way to make sales at their shows. According to singer-songwriter Philippe Da Silva, “there’s always one person who wants a physical copy they can hold. Although I believe most of my marketing happens online, I find it important to be able to offer a physical product to those who want it.” Vocal coach Angie Arsenault also believes it’s all about catering to your audience. “If you are a touring band, you should consider having physical merchandise such as CDs and t-shirts to sell to your fans at your shows,” she said. “If you are a YouTube star, perhaps a digital copy of your album is all you need. Personally, I like to have both options available.”

For Room Control bassist Richard Bunze, being able to sell a physical product to a fan is an important part of being a musician. “Anyone can upload their tunes to Bandcamp or Soundcloud, but I still think it’s important to have a tangible piece of your band for someone to take home with them,” he said. “It’s part of the whole package of your band. It’s an extension of your art,” he said.

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