And the meagre crumbs that were released in January appear not to be on Spotify. At least, not the ones I want. As Glasgow collective Lucky Me tweeted a few days ago, "Spotify will never pay folks like us because they refuse editorial: they are only sales responsive."
It's a strange animal, Spotify. The Cynical Musician is right when he asks if Spotify is not a money maker, what is it good for.
Putting revenue aside (I'll let proper musicians discuss that), as a music lover, it's about as useful as a chocolate tea cosy. My recent plays on Spotify include Resoe, SBTRKT and Flying Lotus. What is the front page recommending to me at the moment? Bonnie Tyler, Mozart and Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise.
It's almost as if Mr and Mrs Spotify in their little green Spotify cottage with their little green Spotify umbrellas took a look at Amazon's cookie-monster recommendations system and thought, "no, that won't do, that won't do at all. What we want is the equivalent of walking into Starbucks to buy a coffee and being sold wellington boots instead."
Spotify is good for playlist recommendation, hence my oozing and my bleeping, but when whole record labels are missing from the service because Spotify can't put food on their table - can't even give them a table - then what's the point?
Anyway, the Oozy Bleeps will bleep again next month. I will soldier on with Spotify because, I hope, some of you find it useful. The playlist is still up there, and it will be updated throughout the month.
4 comments:
Whatever its failings, I think Spotify is a tremendous resource and I think mixes such as the ones you've been putting up offer a great communal good. As a music library, it is better with older material, and older, fairly mainstream material at that. But for a casual listener wishing to check out the back catalogue of someone like James Brown or the collected works of Bach, it's a very useful starting point. In other words, keep banging out those mixes!
It is good. Although I want it ALL and I want it NOW. I'm basically the techno Freddie Mercury.
it's especially good for michael jackson playlists ;)
I can't think for a moment how you would have got that impression, Steve.
*moonwalks, leaving a big long trainer streak across the dining room floor*
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