Voices March 08, 2022
Streaming is king as CDs become a vestige of musicians’ lost influence
By Peter Vogel
Is anyone here still purchasing CDs? Vinyl LPs maybe, but CDs seem to have all but disappeared. Even at the last church bazaar in my parish, in pre-COVID times, the organizers were already adamant that, along with used computer gear, used CDs were unwelcome.
Just a year before, I had bought a bag full of CDs for only $5. I played them for a month or two and then stopped.
It seems the CD has gone the way of the fax machine.
Following a few decades of rampant music piracy by young and old alike, music streaming became mainstream. People were indeed willing to spend a few dollars a month for à la carte music.
Initially some artists held back their catalogues, refusing to jump on the streaming bandwagon. Notable holdouts included The Beatles. Not until 2016 did the library of the Fab Four come to streaming services. Garth Brooks and Bob Seger, I noted in a column back then, were also adamant that their music would not be heard on streaming platforms. Eventually they too relented.
Other artists that held back for several years include AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Taylor Swift, and Led Zeppelin.
With actual music sales on physical media mostly dried up and concerts pretty much gone because of COVID restrictions, artists have become dependent on streaming revenues, which typically measure in the range of pennies per thousand plays. Dwindling radio audiences have presumably also reduced artist royalties.
No wonder some artists have resorted to selling the rights to their catalogues, sometimes at eye-popping prices. Bruce Springsteen sold the rights to 300 songs and 43 albums for around $500 million. Other notables include Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac), Bob Dylan (in two separate deals, for an estimated total of $500 million, he sold off his music to Universal Music and his master recordings to Sony), and Red Hot Chili Peppers (around $140 million).
Canadian artists The Weeknd, Drake, and Justin Bieber have also sold the rights to some of their music, at undisclosed prices. Recently Neil Diamond, one of the most successful song writers and recording artists of all time, sold his entire catalogue of published and still to be released songs to Universal.
While Diamond sold to a well-known music powerhouse, many of the other sales have been to upstart companies. These companies hope to recoup their big upfront payments through licensing and royalty deals well into the future. A figure sometimes touted with these rights sales is a number around 14 or 15. Basically, the company pays in one lump sum around 15 times what the artist is currently earning in yearly sales.
When recent controversy erupted over podcaster Joe Rogan, first over COVID-19 misinformation and later over racist content, David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and sometimes Young) pointed out he wanted his music pulled from Spotify, in solidarity with former bandmate Neil Young. But having sold off his catalogue he was unsure he could issue such a directive.
It seems that in its all-out effort to be number one in the streaming space, Spotify has thrown caution to the wind. CEO Daniel Ek argues that Spotify is not a publisher but rather a platform for content. Certainly, it’s that way for the music content, but many would argue paying a content creator, Joe Rogan in this case, $100 million (or even double that figure according to some sources) for exclusive rights makes Spotify a publisher.
Streaming is a tricky business. If your platform doesn’t have the content subscribers want, they will go elsewhere. Young suggested his fans move from Spotify to Amazon Music. Will that happen? Likely not. Amazon Music seems to be an afterthought service, a freebie if you will, tossed in with an Amazon Prime membership that for the most part is used to get products delivered to your door within 24 hours of an order placement.
In my own case I have music streaming subscriptions with YouTube Music (a rebranding of Google Play Music All Access) and SiriusXM (via satellite and internet). The latter subscription sat dormant for two months as I held out for better terms (more on that in a future column) on the monthly renewal fee. Those terms recently came through, and I once again pay about a third of the advertised rate.
My free Spotify streaming account has been dormant for at least two years. One of these days I should check whether it still works. Recently I also stopped my Deezer subscription, from the French streamer that at one time was number three behind Spotify and Apple Music.
How about you? Are you still playing CDs, perhaps even on one of those Bose Wave machines that were a staple on TV shopping channels for years? Or have you become a convert to streaming with Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, or any of several other sources?
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