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Spotify just lost another musical giant.
Last week, Joni Mitchell followed Neil Young in removing her discography from Spotify. The boycott of the platform is centered around artists’ discontent with “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
The podcast began in 2009 and has since grown to be Spotify’s most famous podcast. “The Joe Rogan Experience” amasses nearly 11 million listeners each episode, according to a Newsweek report.
On December 31, 2021, an open letter was signed by over 270 scientific and medical professionals calling out Rogan’s episode with Dr. Robert Malone (#1757). The letter claimed that the episode promoted “baseless conspiracy theories” surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shortly after the letter was published, Young worked with his label, Reprise Records, to remove his work from the platform. Some artists like Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Nils Lofgren, and even famous podcast hosts like Brené Brown followed suit, the newest addition being Mitchell. Since Young’s exodus from the platform, Spotify has lost $4 billion in market value according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Regardless of where one stands on the censorship debate, Young has spearheaded an interesting discussion within the modern music industry. Young said that 60% of his music’s streaming income came from Reprise Records’ deal with Spotify, according to statements on his website.
Although Young certainly isn’t an up-and-coming musician whose livelihood depends on the cents he can make each stream, reclaiming control over who is able to own his music is significant. The fact that Reprise Records allowed and even encouraged Young in his demand is even more surprising.
But just because Young and Mitchell were able to pull their music does not mean it’s a sustainable option for most musicians. Although noble in idea, separating from the most popular streaming service is unrealistic for the majority of creators. With Spotify dominating nearly 31% of the market according to Forbes, it’d be remiss of musicians not to upload their content onto the platform.
On average, Spotify pays $0.003 per stream to the artist’s rights-holders, which are usually the labels and distributors of the artists. The payouts for artists, in the end, are abysmal. For as much as music plays a role in people’s lives, the popularity of streaming has lessened people’s perception of paying for the content they consume. When a subscription service like Spotify offers users the world on a silver platter for a flat monthly rate that ends up being cheaper than buying an entire album, it is difficult to understand that musicians are suffering on the other end.
Whether you think he’s a prophet or a dunce, Rogan is Spotify’s sweetheart. The two struck up the most expensive podcast deal ever in 2020. There’s no way a few artists pulling away from the platform is going to make a dent in the $100 million deal that separates Rogan and Spotify from those who are upset with his content.
A call to action to leave Spotify is not viable for most artists, so the discussion should shift from abandoning the platform to bettering it.
