Spotify & Co: Fluch oder Segen? Heute mit Mystery Pills.

Raj Dawson von Mystery Pills:

For totally unknown artists (like me) who aren’t selling much music in the first place, it seems like streaming services can’t do much harm, but without at least the offer of paid download options there isn’t much incentive for me to park my music somewhere unless there’s some social component or system recommendation feature that drastically increases my visibility.

The Mystery Pills EP is available on Spotify, rdio, and deezer, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone is discovering my music via these services – the social components (even since Spotify’s deal with Facebook) don’t appear to be as enthusiastic or well-utilized as Last.fm and system recommendations don’t seem to generate a fraction of the traffic that Pandora’s predictive radio algorithm does.

I can’t really see the benefit for most artists though.Given that both those services couldn’t leverage their superior promotional features to win on-demand full-album streaming, I’m amazed that this current crop even exists, especially given the fact that they provide offline mobile access! $10 a month to take everything anywhere!? I haven’t seen enough of the math to know if it’s a case of artists getting thrown under the bus en masse by sweetheart deals for major label groups, or if the big-ticket artists are streaming to enough new fans to offset the loss in sales revenue with increased tour earnings. I can’t really see the benefit for most artists though.

From my perspective, I guess there’s a chance that someone who reads about Mystery Pills might head to their preferred service and, not finding anything, move on, but at this point the people that are finding Mystery Pills are already walking off the beaten path, actively looking for new music. Given the choice, I’d rather have people get directed somewhere with more creative monetization schemes, better (or any) stat tracking, or (ideally) more direct interaction.

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[lightgrey_box]Dies ist der vierte Teil einer kleinen Reihe, in der ich Musiker zu ihrer Sicht der Dinge befrage. Ob es sich dabei um einen ausführlicher Artikel, eine kurzes Statement, ein Audiofile, ein Video oder gar einen Song handelt – das Format und die Länge sind nebensächlich, die Meinung nicht. Warum ich das mache? Ich finde es wichtig, das wir alle über die Auswirkungen des Streaming nachdenken, bevor es zu spät ist. Für wen oder was auch immer. [/lightgrey_box]