Streaming, and How to Self-Induce a Headache
My new project/EP, “Standing 1”, has been a success in practically every category I set for it, namely in that I think it sounds cool. However, a hurdle I’ve run into is that “Standing 1” isn’t on Spotify. I don’t really like that. I don’t like any part of it.
I use Distrokid to distribute my releases to streaming platforms and keep them live, which per Wikipedia, “principally offers musicians and other rights-holders the opportunity to distribute and sell or stream their music through online retailers.” Specifically, Distrokid does not take any cut of streaming revenue or royalties, meaning that the $3.50 that I earned last year from streaming is $3.50 in my own pocket! While the voyage between music on my own laptop to any other laptop in the entire world typically takes at most a few days, “Standing 1” has been in Spotify hell for more than a month. Tidal took three days, Apple Music took about a week, and every other service arrived somewhere around that time. Was my Rosalia and/or Nicolas Jaar sample too prominent, holding up the release with sample-clearance issues? Does Autumn and Hannah saying “skidadedat doooooo” actually translate into a horrible swear word in a country with secretive control over the entire music industry (Sweden)? Or am I simply an impatient husk of water, calcium, and paranoia?
In trying to contact Distrokid, I had the privilege of working with charming, DEFINITELY HUMAN customer service representatives. My new pal, “Dave”, is the kind soul responsible for managing all of Distrokid’s needy user’s comments and concerns. “Dave” is always on the clock, I might add, making me wonder if he’s getting paid enough, that workhorse of a flesh-and-bones human! And just like all real human beings do, “Dave” often uses exclamation marks and emojis when apologizing for something he really, really wishes he could help with!! 😇 In the off-chance he’s not a human being, I'm sure he will still use this vernacular in the near future when ripping humans to shreds in steel-cage death matches to extinguish hope for humanity’s potential resurgence to again top the food chain (💔😘).
Anyways, “his” favorite quip, which quickly became my favorite as well, was in referencing how I can confirm whether the release is on Spotify or not:
Step 1: Check Spotify
Step 2: If the release is missing, contact customer service here
Normally, I would find glee and potential in this situation. Like our all-to-innocent selves not too long ago asking Siri what zero divided by zero is or which penis she thinks is the most unique in the animal kingdom, messing with computers should be good harmless fun. What ruins that fun is that I can’t talk to a human at all, as Distrokid has no contact information besides these chatbot interactions. Cue every dystopian horror we’ve seen countless times, and cue exhaustion at the phrase “cue every dystopian” anything. Frankly, humans should have known when they invented agriculture that this shit was going to happen. If somebody had mentioned thousands of years ago that arranging grains into controllable patterns and conditions would one day stop No Koudai from possibly reaching double digits in his Spotify monthly artists count, I think humanity could have been saved. Ironically it might also have stopped Spotify from existing in the first place and many would enjoy a more blissful existence of eating berries and dying brutally.
In the meantime, and while preparing for No Koudai’s new cold war with Sweden, the music’s lack of Spotify presence gives me pause to consider how that company has changed music consumption and creation. Spotify specifically has become a be-all-end-all, both in terms of where music is consumed and the means through which we understand that consumption and how to promote it. A bottleneck of traffic and attention to just one site is paradoxical to artists; Because of Spotify’s accessibility regarding convenience and options, it becomes more difficult to make music visible within all that commotion. Extracurricular means seem to have become the norm of music promotion, feeding into various algorithms to try to appear in as many people’s feeds as possible. It seems that to generate streams it is more advantageous to promote oneself as opposed to one’s work.
So what would the end result of “Standing 1” appearing on Spotify be? Not much at all. If I reach similar numbers as “I’ve Been Elsewhere” did last year (a far more “pop” album, somehow), I’d be wildly successful if I pulled in $5 dollars. Streaming is nothing more than a business card, a cheap profile sheet that is always a small loss in the hope of making lucrative connections. Especially as I’m not trying to make the song of the summer (yet), it makes much more sense to distance myself from this algorithmic paradigm entirely.
Furthermore, I feel myself being fueled by something I’ve found energy in for much of my life to this point: spite. Why attempt to swim in rivers too dangerous to traverse when I can dig my own ponds? The pond won’t enjoy that force of the river, but with my help the pond can move in unique ways. Physical media, online promotion without anybody between myself and my music’s release, guerilla promotional tactics in public areas, incessantly nagging local bookers, et cetera. Simply put, it’s good fun exerting my younger-brother instincts in new channels. And I’ll still be in sight of that river throughout, it’s just hard to learn how to swim by oneself!
I believe this all serves as an analogy for how I self-advocate for myself personally too. In the words of that motherfucking piece of shit Morrissey, “In my life, why do i give valuable time to people who don’t care if I live or die?” So thank you reader for getting to this point, I think it’s wildly likely you aren’t one of those people. You’re the best! And thank you for checking out my little pond.