Discord Digest #033: Spotify's music/podcast clash

The below was originally published in our weekly Discord digest, which is designed to aggregate the most important conversations and resources being shared in our Discord server. If you’re not in our server yet, please take just five seconds to authorize the Memberful Discord bot, which should automatically give you access. Throughout this digest, we have indicated members’ Discord handles with an @, and specific channels with a hashtag (#). If you want to find particular members, just log onto the Water & Music server and type their name into the search bar.


Spotify’s music and podcasting strategies continue to clash

shared by @seaninsound in the #music-streaming channel

It seems that the gulf between Spotify’s music and podcasting arms continues to widen. Yesterday Spotify began removing music by musician Neil Young from their catalog, after Young published a since-deleted open letter accusing Spotify of willfully perpetrating vaccine misinformation through their ongoing partnership with Joe Rogan. In his letter, Young issued the following blunt statement about Spotify: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

As @danfowler notes, “this story is interesting because it highlights the strategic fracture between music and non-music on the platform,” and is symbolic of a seismic shift in Spotify’s overarching product strategy over the past few years. The fact that Spotify has seemingly chosen Rogan over Young is perhaps the most high-profile incident in a growing wave of discontentment with Spotify’s treatment of music artists. We’ve written in previous digests about how Spotify’s offering for musicians often pales in comparison with their podcasting arm. In-demand podcasters have received million-dollar licensing deals, subscription tools and partnerships, along with the opportunity to retain ownership of their fan data. These features are as yet unavailable to the musicians (many of which are barely scraping by) who arguably provided a foundation for Spotify to embrace podcasting in the first place.

While this strategic disparity between music and podcasting tends to be discussed primarily within industry-insider circles, the Rogan vs. Young fiasco has reached global headlines, permeating the consumer discourse. The backlash will be interesting to monitor, in part because it could build momentum for other artists considering leaving the platform.

It’s only a matter of time before more artists step forward and do the same, considering many already have a difficult relationship with Spotify – @Declan McGlynn

To further complicate things, Spotify’s flagship podcast acquisitions haven’t exactly been thriving financially within the company. We predicted as such back in July 2020, in terms of the economics of podcasts not justifying the eight- to nine-figure price tags Spotify was paying for podcast content and tech. Indeed, just a few months ago, Insider published a piece revealing that Gimlet (which Spotify acquired for $230M in 2019) had experienced a drop in listeners when they migrated to Spotify. Another investigation by The Verge revealed that Joe Rogan’s influence plummeted once he signed to the platform. Whether Spotify’s hyper-focus on their podcasting arm pays out in the long run remains to be seen.

Further reading: Podcasting hasn’t produced a new hit in years


Do music “scenes” still exist?

shared by @daveedwards in #music-streaming

A masterful thread from @daveedwards, which dissects the future role AI-assisted creativity could play in the music industry, prompted us into a broader discussion about how music communities manifest (or don’t) in our lives today. The Water & Music community is likely more focused than most on technological developments in nearly every aspect of music consumption and creation. But how does this constant algorithmic reshaping and refinement impact how music scenes form at large — if they still do form at all?

As @Gareth_Simpson notes:

One of the big cultural shifts I’ve noticed in Music in the last five years is that ‘scenes’ are not really important these days – like a cool club night in a student town could put artists with the right look and attitude on the map – but in a way that was also under the radar – i.e giving these acts time to develop the music and what message they want to say. Now it’s like, if you don’t put out a single every four to five weeks, you’re dead to the discovery algorithms.

The fact that discovery algorithms encourage a constant churn of new music leaves very little breathing room for new scenes to develop and achieve permanence. This trend has only been accelerated by how much of our collective media consumption is now entirely online.Although, as @CRITIQ notes, music creation has never taken place in a vacuum, and has always been subject to environmental factors:

I think this has always been the case. The tools used to make the music and the tools available to make music have always influenced the types of sounds. There’s probably some sort of chicken-before-egg type problem here. If we try to go as far back in time as possible to run some thought experiments, we could maybe say that the types of sounds ancient humans heard in nature influenced the types of sounds they wanted to create which eventually turned into music and rhythm. and even our biology – i.e. vocal chords – prob played a role in how we wanted to and were even capable of expressing music.

@Jamie – sofractures also made the compelling point that, even in music scenes that are technologically-driven (like Web3 music):

you are told by everyone that the first step is to network and become entrenched in the community, you still need to be recognised by an equivalent of a ‘tastemaker’.. and this is arguably not a bad thing as it’s a demonstration of commitment , and or participation … it’s not dissimilar from getting played by the right DJs or getting on the ‘right’ blog.

In other words, success still largely depends on the artist cultivating and investing in human relationships. In fact, this is arguably even more crucial in Web3 music scenes, since Web3 platforms aren’t typically used as discovery tools. While investing in human relationships in itself is certainly not a bad thing (and is arguably preferable or more equitable than being subject to algorithmic whims), this dependency could ultimately produce an exclusionary effect in Web3, similar to how elite circles have formed in traditional cultural industries.

Further reading: The role of private members clubs in the contemporary music economy


Should artists have separate social media strategies for Web2 and Web3?

shared by @KatherineOlivia in #web3

This week, Liam Payne (former One Direction member and recipient of one of the most entertaining hatchet jobs of all time) announced that he is setting up a separate, crypto-centric Twitter account, complete with an .eth-referencing handle and Doodles PFP.

Intentionally or not, Payne might be onto something. There are a couple of benefits to this approach:

However, it’s worth noting that this approach does require the artist to have two different social media strategies — which can mean double the work for the artist and their teams.

This does support the sentiment from lots of artists I speak with that they have to run almost two separate businesses. I know fifi rong is very publicly working on tweaking her “funnel” so she can do “1.2x the work instead of 2x @yung spielburg

This is perhaps a signal that mainstream crossover is already an issue for some artists who have found success with NFTs. Either way, @PaynoEth could be an engaging social media case study for web3 marketers to keep an eye on.

Further reading: Analyzing web3 onboarding strategies for music fans