‘Ghosts’ of Spotify ⇥ harpers.org

Liz Pelly, Harpers:

According to a source close to the company, Spotify’s own internal research showed that many users were not coming to the platform to listen to specific artists or albums; they just needed something to serve as a soundtrack for their days, like a study playlist or maybe a dinner soundtrack. In the lean-back listening environment that streaming had helped champion, listeners often weren’t even aware of what song or artist they were hearing. As a result, the thinking seemed to be: Why pay full-price royalties if users were only half listening? It was likely from this reasoning that the Perfect Fit Content program was created.

After at least a year of piloting, PFC was presented to Spotify editors in 2017 as one of the company’s new bets to achieve profitability. According to a former employee, just a few months later, a new column appeared on the dashboard editors used to monitor internal playlists. The dashboard was where editors could view various stats: plays, likes, skip rates, saves. And now, right at the top of the page, editors could see how successfully each playlist embraced “music commissioned to fit a certain playlist/mood with improved margins,” as PFC was described internally.

Reading this article made me feel quite sad. The musicians responsible for tracks like these seem quite talented. Browsing the roster of Epidemic Sound — one of the production companies cited in Pelly’s story — indicates many of them are working in multiple genres. I did not hear anything particularly interesting or notable, but I do not want to suggest this is bad; there is a valid place for stock tracks. And, though this article focuses on Spotify, there is no shortage of Epidemic’s music and that of similar production companies in Apple Music playlists, either.

Despite their skill, none of these musicians make very much money from Epidemic Sound, according to Pelly, or in payouts from streaming companies. That is not a unique situation — streaming notoriously pays nearly all artists poorly — though it seems like an ongoing part of the devaluation of music. Filler tracks have long been commonplace, but they used to be confined to production libraries, not placed side-by-side with recognizable artists. For many musicians to earn enough, they become contributors to their own downfall.

(Via Jason Tate.)