Sophie Moser 0:02
Hey, I'm Sophie.
Sophia Barber 0:04
And I'm Sophia.
Sophie Moser 0:05
And this is the That's Showbiz, Baby! podcast.
Sophia Barber 0:12
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Today we're gonna start the episode with a new segment called music industry news. And Sophie and I both came with a little piece of news that has interested us from the last week or so. So what I'm going to talk about is the bubble concert that the Flaming Lips did in Oklahoma City last week. If you guys didn't see the hilarious pictures all over the news, the Flaming Lips, used plastic bubbles for themselves and the audience. So everyone in the audience and on stage was in a giant inflatable bubble. And the band has used that before in their set. It's like kind of one of their things, but they have never done it with the audience. And it was part of a music video shoot, but also was just a test run for a live performance during COVID. And according to what I'm reading, everything went well. It seems like a little bit of a safety hazard. Because like, what if there's an emergency in someone's bubble? Or if they like, pass out? I don't know. So far it went well. Sophie, do you have any thoughts, would you go to a bubble concert?
Sophie Moser 1:21
You know, I'm not sure that I would, because after talking to you about this a little bit beforehand, it sounds like these were like, legit, kind of hamster ball type of things except inflatable. And I would kind of like my feet to be on solid ground. Um, personally, I think if the bottom was flat, it's like a cool concept. But I think it was pretty round. Right? Like not a lot of standing room.
Sophia Barber 1:50
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're fully round, maybe with like a little circle. Like maybe that you could stand on? Not really sure. But I have been in one in one of these bubbles before. And I like kind of had an anxiety attack and I had to get out because it was it was too much.
Sophie Moser 2:09
Yeah.
Sophia Barber 2:10
So I don't think I would ever go.
Sophie Moser 2:11
I'm a little claustrophobic not gonna lie. So and, you know, this is something I've been working on, but I think that that would push it a little bit. I don't think I could do it.
Sophia Barber 2:23
I miss live music but maybe not that much.
Sophie Moser 2:25
Maybe not not that much. Yeah.
Sophia Barber 2:29
Okay, what music news do you have?
Sophie Moser 2:31
So I brought some info on the 2020 Billboard Music Awards, which finally aired last Wednesday, which is really fun. They were originally scheduled for like six months ago, but obviously COVID happened and they had to figure all of that out. So they finally happened and Kelly Clarkson returned to hosts the awards. Other performances included Alicia Keys, Bad Bunny, BTS, John Legend, Demi Lovato and more. So I thought that was a pretty cool lineup. A good mix, and I wanted to touch on some of the awards. So Post Malone was kind of the major winner of the evening he took home nine awards for his album, Hollywood's Bleeding, and that included the top artist and top male artist award, so definitely killing it. Other winners included Billie Eilish, she won top female artist and top new artist. I love her. I think that's really cool. Lizzo won top song sales artist, Luke Combs won the Top Country artist and our favorite k pop band BTS won the fan voted top social artist award, which I think is cool. And they also started a new Changemaker award, which I think is fun. So there was a rapper named Killer Mike, who won that. He's been really involved in social activism, which is fun. And also Harry Styles won a fan voted Billboard Chart Achievement Award. Love him. Jonas Brothers. They won the top group um, like group and duo award and another favorite Khalid won a bunch of R&B Awards. He won the top artist, top male artists and top R&B tour. And our fave cardi B won the top rap female artist.
Sophia Barber 4:22
Yes.
Sophie Moser 4:22
Anyways, list goes on and on. Obviously a lot of great artists were taking home some awards. So I thought that was really cool. Just to kind of throwback to some of the albums that were really hot over the past kind of probably a year and a half now since they were like six months late. So yeah, it was really fun that the show finally aired. Cool to see the results. Sophia, do you have any thoughts on the winners?
Sophia Barber 4:46
I was just gonna say that- this is just me, but Post Malone has kind of just been out of my loop. I haven't really seen much about him or like heard big things. But now that you're saying that he's winning it's making sense, but it was just interesting that he like, is back. And he's winning big.
Sophie Moser 5:06
Oh, yeah, totally. And I mean, Hollywood's Bleeding has been out for a while. So, this is definitely a throwback to kind of some faves probably more so from 2019. Um, but yeah I haven't heard much about him recently, either, except I did see his Instagram picture where he had like a shaved head, which I don't really know how I feel about that. Not my fav.
Sophia Barber 5:28
Oh Wow. I haven't seen that. But I'll have to go look.
Sophie Moser 5:31
Yeah, might want to check it out. But anyways, today we're going to jump in and discuss Spotify. Obviously, a streaming giant. We've all kind of heard about it. Many of us probably use it. Maybe you're even listening to us on Spotify. So we want to jump in and just talk about some of the logistics, some of their new features and kind of go over them as a company. So Sophia, do you want to kick us off with some of your research?
Sophia Barber 5:59
Yeah, I'm gonna start out by prefacing I'm a Spotify gal, Spotify Stan, user, subscriber. Sophie, Apple Music correct?
Sophie Moser 6:10
I kind of use both to be honest. I pay for Apple Music. And, and I use Spotify on my laptop. I have like the free version, but it's basically premium on the desktop version. So kind of both, I wouldn't say I'm like super in either camp.
Sophia Barber 6:29
There you go. So that's, you know, we're getting our biases out of the way. And let's talk about Spotify. So, I'm going to start out with talking about how Spotify pays their artists. The big question, as you can tell from the Tik Tok episode, and this episode, money's always on the mind, baby.
Sophie Moser 6:48
Facts.
Sophia Barber 6:49
Okay, to preface this, for the sake of me not having a breakdown while doing my research, these are only catered to US based artists, because International Music distribution and stuff is something I don't super understand, and would take me a while to learn. So for today, it's just US based artists. So money, it's not really straightforward, pretty hard to calculate. The month- or the numbers I was getting is that artists get on average between a third and a half of a cent per stream. So like, $.003 to $.005. It's it higher for larger artists on major labels who negotiate directly with Spotify. But mostly it's in that range. And Spotify is on a pro rata model, so that they pay out artists by taking the pooled money and amount of streams and splitting it up based on an artist's share of streams over the total number of streams on Spotify. So that's how they split it up. But there's other factors that complicate it. So two of the biggest ones are listener types, and the location of the listeners. So a stream from someone with Spotify Premium, AKA me, is worth more than someone without Spotify Premium. AKA Sophie. So my streams are worth more just saying.
Sophie Moser 8:16
All right, all right, calm down.
Sophia Barber 8:20
So yeah, a stream with someone from Spotify Premium earns the artist more. And Spotify Premium is a different price, I guess you could say, in different countries. So that's what the location comes in, partly. So an example is, people in India pay about 3.5 American dollars a month for Spotify Premium, where people in Denmark pay about 14 American dollars. So people in Denmark streaming someone's song also gives the artists more money. And it's also based on region because of ad potential. So ad- advertisers are likely to pay more to reach American markets than a lot of other places. So if a stream- if a user is based in the United States, their stream also pays the artists more. So as you can see, it's very confusing, and it's really hard. And there's not a lot of transparency for artists to actually know how much they could even get paid. Do any calculations. It's very difficult. So the biggest issue with the pro rata model. One, it's just not enough money. That's sad, especially considering how expensive it is to make music. Most artists make money from tours and merchandise and other things and not so much from streaming. Unfortunately, that's been affected by the pandemic. So that's a big issue with the model is there's just not enough money coming in. The other thing is the payment algorithm favors pop stars and celebrities more than everyone else. So in 2017, the top 10% of most streamed songs accounted for 99% of streaming. So that means that 10% of musicians received 99% of Spotify's revenue pool allocated to artists. And just you guys know, not all of the money that you pay to Spotify goes to the artists, there's also money that has to go to the label, has to go to the publisher, if there's a different song writer, it has to go to them. So the numbers I'm giving are for the artist, but they're not the total numbers, because they're being split by a lot of different people.
Sophie Moser 10:40
That doesn't even include what Spotify is taking from the mix, right? Like, that's just what we're talking about for the music, not even considering Spotify's own admin costs and the percentage that they're taking on top of all of it.
Sophia Barber 10:54
Exactly. So we're talking very small numbers, and they're being given to a very few amount of artists on Spotify. And the second thing is that fans can manipulate the numbers by playing music continuously. So a famous example of this is the band Vulfpeck made close to $20,000 in streaming royalties, when it released an album of complete silence. And each segment of silence was divided in 30 second tracks. They called it Sleepify. And they told their fans to listen to the album on repeat as they slept.
Sophie Moser 11:31
Love that. Not sure, you know, not sure about the ethics on that situation. But creative thinking for sure.
Sophia Barber 11:38
Yeah, and, you know, big artists like Justin Bieber did this to where he encouraged his fans to stream the songs while they slept. And while it's kind of funny, it also is really tough to hear because he is already among the top artists that gets most of Spotify's money. And to also scam the system like that is unfortunate. Along with the sleeping, there's been an uprise of Corporation produced music that's on Spotify, like sounds to sleep, or lo fi beats to study that aren't created by individual people, but like companies that produce these albums, and people listen to those for a really long time on repeat, or while they're sleeping, trying to fall asleep. And so those take up an unfair proportion of the revenue away from artists who spent hours or years on their music, and there are so many more problems that I can't even get into it.
Sophie Moser 12:37
Love that
Sophia Barber 12:39
An alternate-, okay, so there's been some chat, obviously, about how we can make streaming better, and pay people more. So an alternative model that people suggest is called the user centric model. And it determines payments based on what individuals listen to. So for example, if I'm a Spotify Premium member, and if I were to spend 20% of my listening time, or 20% of my streams, listening to Taylor Swift, she would get 20% of my subscription fee. And I have a student plan, it's like six bucks. So it's not that much money, but she would get it because I listened to her music. So I personally think that it might work better just because so many, like people, they listen to specific artists and would want their money to go to those specific artists. The bad thing about it is that so many people listen to music casually like study jams, or like the sleep things, that could get a little complicated, because those are longer. So if it was based on time, that could be unfair. But as a user, I think that's kind of a nice idea. Because I can choose what artists I want to support, who I want to give my money to directly. Also musicians that I don't want to support or have any of my money wouldn't get any of it. Sophie what are your thoughts on that alternative model?
Sophie Moser 14:01
I think that that could be really interesting. I think it would be kind of neat to see how that would shake out in reality and see how the money is changing. I mean, it seems like it would be kind of hard to tell without kind of running some more tests on it. Maybe that information is out there, and we just don't have access to it. But you know, how the composition of who is getting paid would change. If that would change? It sounds like it probably would I think that would be really interesting to look into as an alternative.
Sophia Barber 14:27
I agree. I think it would just be really cool to be able to directly support the artists that you like, and maybe that would solve the problem of the big artists getting all of the money from Spotify.
Sophie Moser 14:43
Yeah, I agree.
Sophia Barber 14:44
So for their business trajectory. We love you know, the business here. We're little accountants.
Sophie Moser 14:51
One accounting class in and-
Sophia Barber 14:53
Yeah. So in the quarter two of 2020 Global online music streaming revenues declined 2%. And this is the first ever quarter over quarter revenue decline in the streaming music sector. However, year over year, so from last year to this year, it still showed growth, there's a 13% growth of up to $6.7 billion. So that's interesting. And this is largely due to discount offers like free subscriptions for your first month and lowering the price paid, or lowering the lowering the price for paid subscriptions to keep people from going to the free option. And it's also because ad revenue has dipped significantly for most companies, because advertisers are really unsure of consumer buying habits due to the pandemic. So there is a decrease, but we don't really know if that's a red flag or like a sign of trouble for streaming services, we're gonna have to check it out. But podcasting has been the biggest revenue offset of a more substantial decline. So we will have to see how music revenue plays out for this. So another thing I wanted to talk about is what sets Spotify apart for competitors. Like I said, I love Spotify. I think it's, I'm super emo. I don't know if you guys all know me in real life, but I mostly wear all black I love mostly just the interface of Spotify, I think. And if you know, Sophie and I you make- it makes sense that she's an Apple Music lover, and I'm a Spotify user.
Sophie Moser 16:33
I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean. But I'll take it
Sophia Barber 16:38
Just literally only aesthetic wise.
Sophie Moser 16:41
Okay, fair.
Sophia Barber 16:45
So, unlike the competitors, such as Apple and Amazon, Spotify, has music streaming, and I guess now podcast streaming as their only thing. So Apple and Amazon can slash their prices to ridiculously low levels, for their music or for Apple Music to get a competitive advantage and make up for it using other revenue streams. So Apple isn't really worried if they're making money from Apple Music because they're making money from their overpriced laptops.
Sophie Moser 17:16
Facts.
Sophia Barber 17:16
But Spotify, yeah. But Spotify can't do that, because they only have the one thing. So that's also part of why exclusive podcasts, which Sophie will touch on later are so important for them and why they're willing to shell out big cash, because they have to encourage people to stay on Spotify, even if it might be more expensive than the other options. Another thing that sets them apart is the Discover weekly playlist. So they were the first to have a static, personalized playlist. And it was pretty revolutionary for streaming, no one really thought of that. There was things like Pandora where you could choose a genre to listen to, or there were recommendations that are fluid based on different things you listen to, but a weekly playlist of just random songs that they think you might like, was a pretty revolutionary concept, and it makes Spotify stand out. The last thing I wanted to talk about with Spotify is the future. So I was reading into it. And you know, AI and stuff like that really terrifies me. And there was some really wild stuff I was reading. So people are guessing that as Apple continues to develop tech, like air pods, Apple Watch, new phones, all of that stuff. And Amazon is giving people visual content with their exclusive shows, and creating smart devices like the Alexa. Spotify is going to focus on expanding the audio only experience into the ambient hours, which I just learned this week is a marketing term for times when we're not at home. And so we are going to, according to these sources, find ourselves slowly listening to audio more and more in all different situations. And Spotify's hope is that we'll be listening to it on Spotify. So Sophie and I were talking about this earlier, and it kind of scared us but they were saying that in the future, it could be normal for us to have our air pods in 24/7. When we're talking to someone, we might have like, ambient noise going in the background. It could be as usual as you know checking a quick text while you're in the- at dinner with someone you could just have your air pods in listening to some sort of audio only experience. So, a great example of these that are less intense are Spotify could come up with guided museum tours, where you could go on Spotify at any Museum in the world and there would be an audio only experience to accompany that. Or, a playlist inspired by your location within a city. So if it tracked you in downtown LA it would suggest a downtown LA playlist, kind of capturing the vibes of that place. So I personally think that we're gonna take, we're gonna see Spotify, take their audio only niche and really expand it in ways that are completely unexpected.
Sophie Moser 20:14
Yeah, I think it's a really interesting concept to consider. I think some of, you know, when you're talking about it like that some of those features seem really cool. However, I think kind of the mentality behind it is definitely frightening. And I don't really necessarily support this. I mean, it's a very manipulative mindset, kind of, of kind of like making your way into the mind of the consumer, and just being present all the time. Capturing attention, I think that could be so much of a disruption just for like, the personal relational part of life, like if one of their goals is to actually have us. I mean, this was a quote you sent me earlier, like, have your air pods in during dinner during conversations, things like that, like, that's kind of horrifying to me. Um just like that it could work its way in that sphere, I kind of hope that like, it would be cool to see some innovation and kind of what you're talking about, like, you know, like the museum tours or the location playlist, I hope it stays there. And it doesn't progress, kind of in any farther into the more personal side of things. I think that could be a little bit scary and probably have some negative effects just on like, interpersonal connection and relating and stuff like that. But it'll be interesting to see where they go with that, for sure.
Sophia Barber 21:36
Yeah, I agree.
Sophie Moser 21:37
Anyways,
Sophia Barber 21:38
It's all you.
Sophie Moser 21:39
Awesome. Well, I'm gonna kick it off by talking about some of Spotify's newer features, and things that they're working on right now. So first of all, I want to talk about podcasts a little bit. This isn't extremely new. But as many of us know, Spotify has kind of stepped into the world of podcasts. This is definitely an attempt on their part to to diversify their streams of revenue. The- Sophia kind of touched on earlier, the music streaming model is pretty unsustainable. I don't think any streaming service has yet to make a profit. Obviously, for companies like Apple and Amazon, that's not so much of an issue. But for Spotify, it definitely would be. So I think they're kind of expanding out into different areas to keep the business afloat, quite honestly. So podcasts was something that they're venturing into. And I'm not going to spend too much time going through the logistics of this new branch, you can hop on Spotify, check it out, obviously, our podcast is on Spotify. So that's super cool. Um- but I want to talk about a specific situation that's come up that I think could kind of be a foreshadowing of some trouble for the platform in the future in the podcasting world. And this would be the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. And as many of us have heard, this was kind of a big media point, Spotify signed a multi year exclusive license with Joe Rogan for his Joe Rogan Experience. Um, and this is a massive podcast, huge audience. Definitely the goal here is to bring over a lot of new consumers and a lot of new subscribers to Spotify to be able to have access to this content. And this was a $100 million licensing deal, which-
Sophia Barber 23:28
Literally so insane.
Sophie Moser 23:30
It's absurd, that's so much money. And the crazy part is that Spotify is simply the sole provider of this podcast, but Joe Rogan still completely owns it, like maintains full ownership, full creative control, Spotify really doesn't have a lot of say in the matter, other than being the only provider, no one else will be able to offer the content. And this is an interesting kind of predicament that Spotify is getting themselves into. Because obviously, that is a massive amount of money to pay for one person's original content. And kind of stepping back and taking this from the artist's perspective, knowing how little artists are getting paid from Spotify. I think this is gonna be a huge point of frustration, kind of this idea that like, wow, you paid him 100 million dollars to license his product. But you know, my art isn't worth that much, what I'm providing isn't worth that much. Obviously, it's not sustainable for Spotify to be paying everybody that amount or you know, even like proportionally, something similar to that. And so I think there could be this really interesting dynamic of people experiencing a lot of frustration, just seeing that, you know, Spotify, obviously we can understand the business, kind of what they're prioritizing where they're going with this what's behind the decision. But from an artist perspective, it really doesn't seem fair, I don't think. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, Sophia?
Sophia Barber 24:57
Yeah, I was just gonna say Joe Rogan also found himself in hot water for saying some controversial things. And I think that Spotify is in a tough place because they gave him so much money so publicly. They signed him exclusively. And I think that puts Spotify in a vulner position, a vulnerable position, that they're kind of responsible a little bit for what Joe Rogan says, or other exclusive podcasters say. And so that is just a tough situation for them. I saw some conversation about whether Spotify would be responsible for removing something like removing an episode if he said something bad on there. And so there's that dynamic to it, too. So it's just kind of a frustrating situation. Understandable from the business side, but I think it has a lot of ramifications.
Sophie Moser 25:49
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think I mean, you bring up a really interesting point. And I think people were really excited. They were hopeful about- I mean, kind of people who were invested in the company and people who are customers were excited about this. But it is kind of already a hassle for the streaming company, because Joe Rogan does really adhere to like a free, free thinking free speech ideology, which, you know, can include some kind of more inflammatory speech or misinformation. W`hich, you know, obviously, that's governmentally protected speech, but this is reflecting on a private business. And they do have more say on what they want to allow or not, and that could really reflect on them, and their responsibility, and it could kind of get them into some hot water. I know this did come up with some, I think Joe Rogan made a comment about arrests on the West Coast due to people setting fires, which was a very, like misleading misinformed claim to make. And he did come out and apologize for it, and acknowledge that it wasn't factual. But I think as this goes forward, if more incidents like this happen, you know, like, they invested so much money into it, they might get in trouble for it on his end. You know, there might be artists pressuring them on their end to kind of value their creations more and pay more for their content. So I think overall, it'll be really interesting to see how this shakes out for Spotify. I think, you know, it could end up kind of working out and settling, and it could really come back to kind of bite them, I think.
Sophia Barber 27:21
Totally.
Sophie Moser 27:22
Moving on from the podcast world, I want to talk about some kind of fun, lighter features that Spotify is introducing. And one of them is a new radio show feature, which are going to be called Original Shows, or Spotify Originals. And these are going to be shows that are a mixture of music, and podcasting and audio clips. And each show will be centered around a specific theme. So kind of resembling podcasts. In that sense, there'll be very thematic. But the shows overall are going to be very similar to FM AM radio shows, which I think is interesting kind of throwing it back a little bit to something that's not quite as popular anymore. So their goal with Spotify Originals is to be the perfect blend of music and commentary. And I think a cool- something cool about what they're doing here is that any songs that they play on the show are going to essentially redirect the listener to that songs audio file on the actual artist's Spotify page. So the artist is going to make streaming money off of those plays, which obviously, we know, isn't a lot of money per stream, but it can definitely add up. So I think it's cool that they're doing that. And fans can also like and save songs directly from the show, as they're listening, listeners will be able to access tracklists and skip around to different portions of the episodes. So they're definitely trying to make this content very accessible. And I think an interesting caveat is that with the shows, if you're a Spotify Premium listener, you will hear full tracks wherever they're playing or referencing music, whereas those with the free subscription will- are only going to hear the 30 second music preview. So that could be interesting, and maybe a way to kind of encourage people to bump up to the premium subscription. So, Spotify just launched this feature last Wednesday, and put up seven original shows, and plan to have a lot more in the future. And actually users can upload their own Spotify Originals. I'm not exactly sure how that works. But I know that they can go through Anchor, which is a podcast distribution service that Sophia and I actually use and kind of work their way into the Spotify originals sphere, which I think is cool.
Sophia Barber 29:40
That is really cool because I actually do like radio shows when they talk about music and comment on it. I think they're really cool. The biggest bummer is that there's so many ads on radio in general but also in radio shows. So I think that solves a big problem that radio still has and I also like that you can, like find the tracklist they play later and directly save the songs. Because if you're in a car and you're driving and you're listening to the radio and they play a song you really like, you have to like get your phone out and Shazam it and try and save it. And that's one, very unsafe and two just quite difficult. So I actually really liked that feature. And I'll probably check it out.
Sophie Moser 30:22
Yeah, I agree. I think that they have some really cool features that are part of this new Spotify Originals kind of platform. And moving on another very interesting thing that Spotify is debuting This one is actually kind of creepy. I know I said light hearted, but this is the one that's like not so light hearted. Um, but Spotify has been doing a lot they've been granted a lot of US patents recently. And one on October 6, that was granted kind of stands out. Spotify received a US patent. This is a quote, for methods and systems for personalizing user experience based on user personality traits. So it's essentially a personality tracking technology, which I think is interesting. So another quote from the patent says, behavioral behavioral variables such as a user's mood, their favorite genre of music, or their demographic can all correspond to different personality traits. Thus, it is possible possible to identify a personality trait of a user based on the content, such as music, or podcasts that the user consumes and the context in which they consume the content. So kind of weird, more reading into the patent shows that they're essentially attempting to build a personality model that is going to predict people's personalities and cater to them based off of personality test, and the categories they measure. Um, kind of like Myers Briggs, stuff like that, where they're gonna categorize people into different kind of descriptors. So then, equipped with this knowledge, Spotify is going to target consumers with ads. And this might be used a little bit to recommend music and podcasts. But this software is primarily for advertising purposes. And then it gets even a little bit scarier.
Sophia Barber 32:16
Great.
Sophie Moser 32:16
So this is another quote from the patent. I know awesome, which says, in some embodiments in which the personalized content includes one or more messages with audio components, the electronic device changes a tone of voice for messages for presentation to the user. So basically, if you're kind of showing extraversion on the Spotify test that they're running, you are going to hear more high pitched and upbeat voices in your ads, I think we can all think of the- Well, I mean, I'm on the free version. So I can definitely think of the ads that come on Spotify, that are, you know, there's like a spoken vocal component to them. So if I'm showing more extraversion, I'm going to hear more high pitched and upbeat voices, as opposed to you know, like Sophia, if you're scoring more for introversion, you're going to hear more calm and quiet, quiet voices. And the message- messaging could kind of change to target each of us in a way that we're more susceptible to. So, definitely kind of freaky, I am learning more about this and really starting to hate how much manipulation goes into advertising. Like there's just so much manipulation of the consumer, instead of just presenting a product, like they're really trying to get in our heads and put something in front of us subconsciously, that is going to, like trigger a response from us, which is a little freaky, don't love how the world of advertising and data collection is moving in this direction. And just to make it even better in the research that is being used to fuel this project and develop the model that they're making. They said that brain scanning, genetic data and physiological data could be used in the future to further target consumers. So
Sophia Barber 33:57
Sorry, what?
Sophie Moser 33:58
Yeah, brain scanning, your genes, and your physiology could be used in the future to target you for ads, which I think is very freaky. So Happy Halloween spooky stuff.
Sophia Barber 34:12
Why?
Sophie Moser 34:13
I know it's crazy.
Sophia Barber 34:16
Also, okay, I was kind of a little interested when you first started talking about it, because I thought they were gonna take your personality and give you music recommendations. But just for ads? That's so annoying.
Sophie Moser 34:28
Yeah, it's definitely more so this, you know, attempt to monetize us, which is cute. I love that.
Sophia Barber 34:37
Oh, God, I don't want them to have my brain scan. I don't think anyone should have to see that.
Sophie Moser 34:41
I know. And obviously, they would have a long way to go in those realms and probably a lot of ethical hoops to jump through that might prevent them from ever really using things like that. But I don't know sometimes I wonder based on like the direction that things are moving. So stay tuned. Be smart. Do your research.
Sophia Barber 35:02
If you guys can't tell Sophie and I are very scared of AI, and we don't trust it, and neither should you.
Sophie Moser 35:09
Yeah, I agree with that statement. I second that. But anyways, on to lighter things, once again, another new feature that Spotify debuted are weekly music charts, which is really cool. And this includes an Albums chart, which I think is awesome, because it's kind of a cool push towards the appreciation of albums as a whole, as you know, kind of a comprehensive piece of art. In a world where we really consume songs and playlist on their own, we don't really listen to albums in full at least, you know, like, this is something that I do on occasion, but it's definitely not like the normal way of consuming anymore. So I think that it's awesome that they're gonna highlight albums. However, this is interesting, the CEO of Spotify, Daniel Eck, did make some kind of interesting claims. They're not like super, you know, not a lot of tea. But interesting, he was kind of calling out the inefficiency of the traditional album cycle in today's world of streaming. So this would be kind of the cycle where, you know, an artist takes two years to make an album and kind of puts one out every two years or every three years. And he was kind of calling this out and saying this doesn't really work anymore in today's world of constant engagement. And, and what artists need is really a continuous stream of interaction between themselves and their fans through music and other ways of connecting, which definitely got a mixed response from the recording world. And I can see where he's coming from. But I don't know if I like it, and kind of just continuing to move music as like an art form, I think into the business world where maybe I you know, it'd be nice if there was more appreciation for kind of the artistic process, and albums. But I understand that, you know, in a world where we do have to make money off of this, and people, this is their livelihood, I understand where he's coming from, but mixed bag on that.
Sophia Barber 37:15
Yeah, I definitely appreciate when artists like drop a single every now and then like it definitely keeps me engaged. And I just appreciate it because I love music and like hearing new music. But to take away the art form and the time and the emotional energy it takes to create a song or an album and view it as just a product makes sense from someone who runs a streaming service, but it is definitely unfortunate that that mindset is present.
Sophie Moser 37:46
Yeah, I agree. But I think it is cool, you know, all things considered that they have the albums chart, they also are starting a weekly Top 50 chart, a US Weekly song chart and a global weekly song chart, as well as both US and global top 10 debuts. So, I think that'll be a cool way to stay in the loop about kind of what's hot on Spotify, both in the US and across the world.
Sophia Barber 38:12
Well, thank you Sophie for sharing and thank you all for listening. Hope you learned some stuff about Spotify today. And go like donate to your artist's Patreon or something your favorite artists or buy their merch or do something you can during this-
Sophie Moser 38:27
Please, in a world of streaming.
Sophia Barber 38:28
Yeah, yeah, in the world of streaming and pandemic. Do anything small to help support your fave artists. Thank you all for listening and if you want to support us, you can download, rate, review. You can dm us if you ever have any questions sophia.productions on Instagram. And thank you all so much for listening.
Sophia Barber 38:49
(outro) Thank you all for listening. You can find us on Instagram at Sophia.productions. And please go rate, download, and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai