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Tue, 30 May 2023 18:21:41 +0200 last edited: Tue, 30 May 2023 19:20:38 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

I am all up for filling Spotify up to the top with AI-generated music.

Their customers won't notice. Those humans (are they, culturally?) don't know track/song titles or care to memorize artists names anyways. ... listening to auto-compiled playlist all day long is their thing.

Pffft.

Why bother putting any more human work in it?

(I never did. Excuse the screaming.)

#spotify #aimusic #spotifail

AI music

show all 27 comments

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:38:35 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp @stephan unfortunately doing that means real musicians get even less money per stream because of the broken-ass way that Spotify calculates streaming royalties, making life even harder for those of us who work hard to make stuff people like and who can’t convince our fans that Spotify is not the ideal way to listen to our music.

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:40:41 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp @stephan in the long term it’d be great if this led people to stop using Spotify at all though

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:42:33 +0200 last edited: Tue, 30 May 2023 18:47:16 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 Love this discussion already.

I never heard, that Spotify pays anything mentionable to humans. Not even to stars.
It is a completely misguided idea to use it at all.
Who would add voluntarily to millions of cannon fodder, only decorating a few major artists pushed by Spotify shareholders.

AI-generated stuff won't sell on Bandcamp, and you will meet actual humans, who know your name and love your style.

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:52:56 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp yeah basically Spotify is where the smaller acts only subsidize the larger acts. But it’s an important platform for promotion. In my experience nobody ever wants to go to bandcamp to listen to, much less buy, my stuff. They’ve all been indoctrinated with the idea that renting an infinitely large collection is somehow better than owning a collection of stuff you like, and they honestly believe they’re “supporting artists”

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:57:14 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp and if I tell them how little I make per-stream they retort with “well at least more people can stream it!”

I guess people like that deserve shitty AI-generated music. Still wish I could make a living at this thing I love doing though.

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:57:46 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 That was my point: It does nothing to help small artists. Anytime i ask somebody what they listen to on spotify they can't even nam the big ones. And what exactly is promotion? I tell you what effing promotion is:
I go out and play for real pople. I meet them, and i can make some happy or sad, but in any case touched.

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:58:55 +0200 last edited: Tue, 30 May 2023 18:59:42 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 Play live. That's is where music coms from, and where it should be, recordings of actual humans included.
For that other stuff... we can gladly leave that to machines, and for deaf, uninterested ears.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:00:38 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp I’m a disabled studio musician. Playing live isn’t something I can do in a sustainable way.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:09:25 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 Fluffy, that's touching. You will still have your story to touch people, and of course recordings on a respectful platform (not Spotify). Do you have a Bandcamp?

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:11:57 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp yes, https://Sockpuppet.bandcamp.com which is where I always direct people, of course.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:21:34 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 Is there any music you made with others nonetheless?

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:23:24 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp there’s one song on my bandcamp by “the Richard Donner party” which was a collaboration and I’ve also done a few other collaborations over the years. Also some live performances. I’m also in a choir. I was also an orchestra kid.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:52:34 +0200

Herr Irrtum!

herr_irrtum@s.basspistol.org

@fluffy@plush.city @jrp@hub.kliklak.net
That's, fluffy, not my experience. I'm on all major platforms "thanks" to Distrokid, I think nobody ever listened to my music there (besides people I know and who asked me about it) - and yes I did promotion for it as far as I could. I.e. on Reddit I've got 0 upvotes, 0 downvotes and one subreddit block. ;)
It's different in Bandcamp though. People there really care about music, know the names of their artists, buy physical media like cassettes and vinyl there and are basically proud to show off their collections.
And there are a lot of serious club artists dropping exclusives on Bandcamp. So if you think it's for bands with 30+y members. Nope.
Sure, it's not where the masses are, but at least people, who care about music, people who see a larger sense in music. And DJs.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:54:48 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@herr_irrtum @jrp I’m glad you’ve had a better experience than me. Whenever I put out a new album and I tell my friends they always ask me for a Spotify link. I push back and ask them to buy it on bandcamp instead, and they say they only listen to music on Spotify.

Or then there’s the one who insists that they’ll only buy it if it’s on CD, not understanding the economies of CD manufacturing either.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:57:02 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@herr_irrtum @jrp and also it might be very genre specific. I release stuff in a lot of different genres but I generally don’t make club music.

Tue, 30 May 2023 19:58:56 +0200 last edited: Tue, 30 May 2023 19:59:49 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 That's not friends. No, i mean it. At last they are not meant to burden you with desinterest.

Tue, 30 May 2023 20:03:36 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@Herr Irrtum! Hepa, nice to read you again. "Bandcamp people" (love that) are the silent mass, actually, which no sharks publishes numbers about, because those sharks are afraid of desaster, which surely comes along, when trying to sell to us.

Tue, 30 May 2023 20:33:52 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp one of them is a musician himself and he feels that “streaming is the future, might as well accept it”

Tue, 30 May 2023 20:40:13 +0200 last edited: Wed, 31 May 2023 08:31:06 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@fluffy 💜 Yeah, well. I guess i stated my point, and since i never used or wanted Spotify i can only comment on the burnt-out behaviour of those, who pay for it and those, who expect or wait for payment from it, but never get much.
Both sides are similarly sad stories.
Of course i will not fill up Spotify with AI generated music myself. That is what the publishers are already doing, and this will drastically increase anyways, as they only need to get a computer and train some AI. No more licensing to humans necessary, while stealing and concealing any possible information of all the human work they digitized for training.
This game is over.

Tue, 30 May 2023 20:42:33 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@jrp come to think of it, the Spotify capitulator is also now all-in on AI album art too. (Which I have done some of myself but which I don’t plan to make a habit of.)

Wed, 31 May 2023 00:08:27 +0200

Herr Irrtum!

herr_irrtum@s.basspistol.org

@jrp@hub.kliklak.net
What Jayrope said.
Really, I was about to write exactly the same. Sounds like a shitty advice but on the other hand your "friends" don't give a flying.

You may send this link to them next time, to make a point about what fckd up future streaming is for artists.

https://www.noise11.com/news/gary-numan-reveals-what-spotify-is-worth-to-him-20210121

(of course they won't know who Gary Numan is - hint: a bloody legend! - of course they won't know, what £ means, but nevertheless, fight for it, don't let them get you down!!)

Wed, 31 May 2023 08:50:17 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@stephan @herr_irrtum @jrp That's an easy platitude to say but the fact is that people outside of the music industry generally don't understand the weirdness that goes on behind the scenes when it comes to licensing and royalties and so on, and for most of them they honestly think that by using Spotify they are supporting musicians. And explaining to them why they're not just makes them feel bad, rather than enlightening them as to why they should still buy music even if they use Spotify to play

Wed, 31 May 2023 08:52:21 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@stephan @herr_irrtum @jrp Spotify, iTunes, etc. all have millions of dollars of marketing behind them that have been *specifically* intended to make people think that streaming is the way forward, and that there's no reason to have a local music collection.

What I try to tell people is, "Hey, you can listen to it on Spotify, but please also buy a copy on Bandcamp, it would help me out a lot." And sometimes they do. But they truly believe that their $20/month goes to the artists they listen to.

Wed, 31 May 2023 08:53:25 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@stephan @herr_irrtum @jrp and like, I'm fine with people listening to my music on Spotify! I get it being a lot more convenient and easy for them to do so. The problem I have is when they listen to it on Spotify *and expect that alone to give me meaningful financial support*.

Wed, 31 May 2023 09:10:45 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@herr_irrtum @stephan @jrp Thanks! I have to admit that's a softsynth (Native Instruments Cremona Quartet). I *can* play violin, but... not nearly that well.

Wed, 31 May 2023 09:12:04 +0200

fluffy 💜

fluffy@plush.city

@stephan I just want to make stuff that people want to listen to. If I can make a living at it, even better. It's not within my ability to fix capitalism.

Wed, 31 May 2023 09:50:34 +0200 last edited: Wed, 31 May 2023 09:51:02 +0200

_jayrope

jrp@hub.kliklak.net

@Stephan @fluffy 💜 Anybody acting on anything can help to change things. Status quos only exist, when nobody acts upon them. A single person differing from a status quo already introduces change. From that point on it is only a matter of finding the surely existing others, who differ, too. And then bundle forces.