Thinking of taking my music off Spotify. Am I crazy? That's what a friend texted me a couple weeks ago. And in the moment, I wasn't really ready to answer for two reasons. One, I was pumping gas on the side of the highway. But two, I needed to ask him about 10 questions at least before I had an answer that was going to be right for him. So, I said, "Yes, you're crazy." And no, you're not. Give me a couple days.
I spent the next day writing out all those questions I would want to ask him. I made a flowchart, kind of a decision tree. I sent that to him. And actually, at first he thought I was being a little bit condescending to him and calling him a fool because most of the roads on that decision tree actually led to yes, you're crazy. Please keep your music on Spotify. But one road didn't. And so I realized that I could soften my tone a little bit, make sure everyone knew that no matter what you pick, I respect your decision as long as you don't make it in a vacuum.
He liked that version a lot more. Thought it was very helpful. And I think it'll be helpful for you, too. So, let's talk through some of the big consequences, trade-offs, and considerations when you ask yourself the question, "Should I take my music off of Spotify?"
What's up? Welcome to Scratch Track. This is the place to be if you are a busy musician who's juggling a lot of adult responsibilities in your life and you have very few minutes every day to put towards things like music promotion. So, you got to make those minutes count. You want to do it in a way that doesn't leave you chasing trends or getting burnt out or going broke. This is the place to be. This is what we discuss. And if you want help with any strategies, articles, flowcharts, all that stuff, check out musicdemo.org.
So, you're thinking of quitting Spotify, but you're not quite sure whether you're being a little bit delusional or if it's the right thing to do. Maybe you're just burnt out on Spotify, and this is giving you the perfect opportunity to just take a stand on some stuff you've been pissed about for a long time. I'm glad you're here. We're going to talk through the pros and cons, the trade-offs of making that sort of ultimate decision for your music on that particular platform.
Um, but first, why are people pissed right now? I mean, there have been a lot of things to be pissed at Spotify for over the years. Very early on, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd didn't want their music there in the first place 'cause they didn't like the idea of music streaming. Then we had Taylor Swift leaving because of the low payouts. And of course, her music's back there now.
Then when Joe Rogan got that deal with Spotify, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell quit, and then Daniel Ek said some clumsy things a year or two ago about how music is free to make now, and people got pissed about that.
Anyways, the latest thing seems to really be concern over AI — both AI music on the platform that is doing well, the Velvet Sundown being an example of a band that got 700,000-something monthly listeners. And if they are indeed a fake band, why did Spotify not remove their music? And lastly, Daniel Ek took the money that he's made from profiting from Spotify and invested it into an AI weapons technology company and then was appointed chairman of that very company. For a lot of people, that was the final straw. Deerhoof famously left. Uh, a lot of other bands have left.
So whether it's broader outrage over streaming payouts or the commodification of music through passive listening, the dehumanization of music through algorithms, AI stuff — you've probably seen a lot of chatter online about people leaving. Obviously, Spotify isn't new to being the villain in this giant picture of the music business, but this time it feels like the exit is a little bit louder.
But before you leave Spotify, here are some of the biggest things to consider.
First, you should not equate what a big artist does with what you should do. Even though Deerhoof is kind of a niche indie band, I still consider them a big artist. In their kind of subgenre, they are extremely known, extremely well-respected, and have been around for decades.
So, they can afford to ditch discovery technology. Their years, their decades of music discovery are — if they want to be — behind them. They can sort of coast on the existing connections they've made, not just with fans, but with the industry itself. So they can make big headlines from their exit. Their protest of leaving Spotify brings them more attention because it's getting covered in Pitchfork and Rolling Stone and wherever else.
They also have an entirely different situation when it comes to just their basic career infrastructure. They can rely on touring. They can rely on sync placements, merch sales on their website, a customer list, press.
If you're in the spot where you have a very humble audience at this point, you're still building, well, you're in a different spot. You need platforms in order to grant you visibility in a lot of cases. And again, you might be sick of hearing about funnels, but it's always useful to point out — if your fan journey is like this, and there's a lot of people at the top who discover you, and with each step coming closer to you, more people fall out of the funnel. So your super fans are down here. Then algorithmic discovery on social platforms and streaming platforms is super important to feeding the most amount of qualified listeners into that top part of the funnel.
Without Spotify and without streaming, your funnel shrinks pretty dramatically. And small artists just have to spend money for that kind of discoverability. I recommend you do not pay for any kind of playlisting stuff, but when it comes to ads to get people to Spotify, to build your Instagram following, whatever it is — you're having to spend money that a lot of more established artists don't have to at that point because they've already earned that attention and the ability to return to those fans through decades of successes.
So, if you're in the middle or even the early stages of your career, quitting Spotify — it might feel satisfying, but it could come at a big cost. And again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it or that you can't do it. What I'm trying to say here is that you shouldn't pretend it's the same exact move as when Deerhoof quit Spotify, because you are not Deerhoof, and you're not at their level.
But don't feel bad about that. Deerhoof isn't at Taylor Swift's level. So, Taylor Swift can do things that Deerhoof can't. We're all such unique snowflakes.
All right. So, as I said at the beginning, I made this flowchart for a friend because he texted me. He was very serious. He was very outraged — and for good reason. He and many, many other musicians I know are just sick of putting Spotify at the forefront of their imagination and trying to do things to drive results there. And even if they get those results, they always disproportionately benefit the platform — and are just sick of it.
So, I came up with all these questions that I could ask him. And it wasn't to tell him what to do. It was to guide him towards what was best for his scenario.
Now, this flowchart, it is not a purity test. I'm not trying to tell people what they should do. It's not a manifesto. Basically, I want you to use it like a compass. And when you arrive at the destination that it says, you'll kind of have a sense of, is this right for me or not?
What happens to your fans if you leave Spotify? Are they loyal enough? Do they love your music enough where they're going to go jump through hoops? Are they going to go figure out how Bandcamp works? Are they going to download your album from your website and then have to open a zip file and put it on their iTunes or whatever, and, you know, manage files? Like, all that can be pretty frustrating.
It's a lot to ask for a person who already subscribes to Spotify, loves listening there. They have convenience. So the reality is: when you leave, a bunch of your fans aren't going to follow you — at least when it comes to day-to-day consumption of your music.
If you disappear from the places where they prefer to be, you are asking them to jump through hurdles and to do more work.
Now, that's not always a bad thing. You know, we used to have to go to record stores and wait up till midnight to get the new CD, and expending that effort made us all the more invested in actually checking it out and loving it. So, you know, making your fans jump through some more hoops is not always a bad thing. But that's one thing to ask of your super fans. It's a completely different thing to ask of someone who's just encountering your music for the first time.
So, if you leave Spotify, some people will follow you — many won't. And if you decide you're going to remove your music, you have to be okay with that.
Here's another big question: Are you expecting to grow in a kind of big way digitally? Like, do you want to have a breakout moment where a ton of new attention comes your way? Do you want to go viral? Or are you okay being a local artist? And I don't necessarily mean a local regional artist. I just mean a small digital artist who grows one fan at a time by doing things where you might have to have your fans work more — and you might have to work more as well.
If you want massive attention, if you want to still be able to capture the most attention, then you're going to need Spotify. I mean, be honest. Do you want strangers to find your music? Because at least in the US, most of those strangers are going to be on Spotify.
All right, here's the most depressing one: Are you okay knowing that your protest will mean nothing to Spotify? It won't impact them at all. And in fact, the sad thing is they'd probably be happy to see you go. They won't tell you that.
But they have already demonetized music. If you have less than a thousand streams per year on a particular song, the head of one of the major labels has called that music trash. Basically, you're taking up server space. And they're not all that worried that your fans are going to leave on your account because there's endless amounts of music they love that's already on the platform to fill the space or the void you leave if you go.
So really the only thing that's going to make a dent — if we're talking about a bunch of lesser-known emerging independent artists, you know, that real long tail of music — they're not going to care unless all of those people join together and make such a big movement and such a big ruckus that really they don't have another choice because it's a PR nightmare.
Short of that, I just think you should know that your individual protest will not move the needle as far as Spotify's practices or behaviors. If that's true, don't do them the favor. Stay. Take up that server space. Make sure that your music is still there, because it's costing them something and it's giving you just catalog availability. It can take a certain kind of cold comfort knowing that they probably don't want you there, but you're going to stay.
Now, here's a bonus question for you. And I'm not trying to ask this to offend you, but to make sure you stop in your tracks and really consider everything. Is this truly about conscience, or is it about clout? And yes, I guess that means: Are you virtue signaling here?
If so, there might be better ways of protesting. There might be different things you can do. You know — call your congressman. Cancel your subscription as a user. But stay on as an artist. You know, there's a lot of different things you can do besides pulling your music, which potentially will hurt you more than it will hurt Spotify.
Now, if it's about conscience and clout? Okay. There's positioning for that. Maybe you do both and maybe that's fine. Just don't confuse your feelings with a business plan. You want to be strategic about this as well as ethical. And definitely don't do this if you think in 6 months you're just going to have to re-upload your catalog like some other famous artists of the past.
All right, to wrap this up, I want to make sure you know I'm not saying there's heroes on the one side and sellouts on the other. It's not like that. I have no judgment no matter what you decide. Again, as long as you've thought through everything really, you owe yourself to make this call from a sense of ethics and strategy and professional considerations and what's going to inconvenience your fans.
There are trade-offs either way, so know them and own them.
This whole thing really is about one fundamental question: Can I build a music career without being at the mercy of Spotify's algorithm? Well, yeah. But it's not necessarily by rage quitting. It's not necessarily by staying either.
You need to build a dependable system for establishing connection, drawing those people closer to you, earning the loyalty of your fans, and consistently giving them things that are worth paying for.
If you want help with that, that's what we're here for at Demo. So, go to musicdemo.org. While you're there, use the decision tree to figure out if you're crazy for wanting to leave Spotify. Again, the link is in the show notes.
See you next time.
