SOCAN’S ERIC BAPTISTE
the same as the download world, but just getting
paid less, and as if a stream should equal a down-
load, which is just not the case.”
For Breuner, streaming’s value for artists is
not just in the dollars and cents, or at least not
directly. In particular, artists no longer need a
label’s distribution resources to get their music to
fans. “One of the big things… is that we’re mov-
ing from a buying economy to a play economy,
where for the artists, all you’ve got to do is get
your fans to hit ‘play.’ So that takes the pressure
off being a salesman to your fans because you
don’t have to go out and say ‘buy this’ and ‘get
out your wallet.’ It’s just a matter of if you can get
creative enough to intrigue them to just push
the play button. If you can get creative, and we’re
creative people, that’s a much better proposition
than trying to get people to take their wallets out
and it’s a much easier thing to do because all that
matters is whether our music is good and being
able to harness creativity.”
It’s been difficult for many artists to wrap their
head around that fundamental shift, says Breuner.
But he adds that some of the major streaming
services, including Spotify, Apple Music, and the
recently-revamped YouTube Music, have smartly
embraced and empowered artists by sharing
data. They’ve created artist portals where inde-
pendent musicians can see their analytics, upload
new music, submit it for playlisting, etc. “I think
so much of the music business has approached
the market as if the artists don’t matter because,
historically for the music business, they really
didn’t care about the artists. They looked at it like,
‘We have major labels who are suppliers of the
music and whatever happens to the artists, that’s
their business, and we’ve got these storefronts.’
So, Spotify said that, ‘Hey, this independent artist
segment is massive and growing and if we give
them access to data and tools, they will send their
fans links to Spotify.’”
So, beyond being just a revenue source,
streaming is a useful promotion and distribution
tool for artists, according to Breuner. This is where
the playlist ecosystem has been especially im-
portant, he adds. “We’ve seen lots of artists get on
lots of playlists that really drive exposure for them.
Even just the playlist ecosystem
that Spotify themselves cu-
rate – and I’ve heard them say
there are 4,000 to 5,000 Spoti-
fy-branded playlists – they can’t
fill all those playlists with just
straight-up major label content.
They have to use independent content and I
think they’ve said they use around 40 per cent
independent music.”
Mulholland, however, disputes just how ben-
eficial some of this is for the majority of artists be-
cause of the passive listening habits perpetuated
by playlists. “[Playlists] are another helpful thing
where people can find something that they like –
that there is always discoverability and that you’re
going to hear something that you like and then
go find that band. But I strongly doubt that that
happens all that much,” she says. “For my band,
Harrow Fair, we were added to a playlist and saw
a huge spike in that song, hundreds of thousands
of streams, but there was no difference, really, in
the rest of the album. So, it is not like people are
finding the songs and then are like, ‘Oh, I wonder
who that band is?’ and going and doing that. I
think that is a bit of a myth.”
Another complicating reality of streaming’s
royalty structure is that it provides advantages
to some genres over others. Genres like pop and
rap with younger audiences benefit because
those fans tend to spend more hours per day
listening to music. As well, industry watchers like
Cherie Hu, who writes for Billboard and Music
Business Worldwide, have pointed out that genres
like classical and jazz have struggled because
of metadata issues where, for example, original
composer and performer get mixed up, resulting
in payment mistakes. As well, those genres also
lose in a structure where all streams over 30 sec-
onds are treated as equal. So, a 40-second inter-
lude on a hip-hop record earns the same amount
as a 14-minute symphony movement.
But for artists and labels, too, streaming is im-
pacting a lot more than just the bottom line. Its
influence extends to things like A&R and album
release strategies. “We’re urging every artist in
“We’ve seen lots of artists get on lots of playlists that really drive exposure for
them. Even just the playlist ecosystem that Spotify themselves curate – and I’ve
heard them say there are 4,000 to 5,000 Spotify- branded playlists – they can’t
fill all those playlists with just straight-up major label content. They have to use
independent content and I think they’ve said they use around 40 per cent inde-
pendent music.”
CD Baby’s Kevin Breuner
44 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
every genre to think about the song-based uni-
verse that we’re living in,” says Chris Taylor. Over
his 20-plus years in the business, Taylor has been
an entertainment lawyer for Drake, Gordon Light-
foot, and Avril Lavigne, among others, and also
founded the label, publishing, and management
company Last Gang (Metric, Chromeo, Death
From Above 1979). Since 2016, he has been the
global head of music for Entertainment One.
“We’re still getting managers and artists that
are booking a tour before an album is finished
and then rushing to finish an album and drop it
before tour dates and – surprise, surprise – one
song does OK and the other 13 they worked on
forever almost get completely ignored,” Taylor
continues. “People are just not listening in the
album format anymore. I can see the desire, from
an artist’s standpoint, to want to have a collection
of work that is a moment in time and has a par-
ticular theme. But from a commercial side, if your
objective is to have your music listened to by as
many people as possible – and I would say that is
95 pet cent of the artists I deal with – you need to
pace out the material. Otherwise, you’re shooting
yourself in the foot.”
Some artists and managers clearly under-
stand the new reality, Taylor says, while others
“are still living in 1997 and they need to put out
a record that fails before they realize we’re right
about this and we’re watching this all the time.
One of the objectives is to make more money
and sell more music and get more exposure and
sell more concert tickets and everything else. So,
we’ve had a number of artists who have been
adamant and have gone ahead with dropping
albums and, you know, they could’ve done a lot
better had we had a paced-out plan with a new
song or two every three months as opposed to
dropping a full album on people. It’s just not the
way the world is working anymore.”
On the A&R side, streaming data has helped
labels identify unsigned artists who are making
waves and building fanbases. For better or worse,
it’s taken some of the musical instinct out of A&R
and made it a more numbers-driven process of
discovery and projection. But for artists with the
data on their side, this may put more bargaining
power in their hands.