INDIE
INSIDER
By Michael Raine
GIVE CREDIT
WHERE IT’S DUE
“I am so pissed
off about this, ”
Garth Richardson says emphatically to kick
off our conversation. “Our craft seems to be
being put into the back closet.”
What’s riling up Richardson – the
famed producer and engineer who’s
worked with Rage Against the Machine,
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alice Cooper,
and countless others – is the near total
disappearance of album credits in the
digital era. “Producers, engineers, second
engineers, mastering engineers… The
funny thing is, it’s the people that actually
get the records made! We spend countless
hours and days and months, we work an
average of 80 to 90 hours per week – and
yet we just get cast off .”
GARTH RICHARDSON
10 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
In the digital music era, credits for
engineers, producers & others have
practically disappeared. They say it’s
harming their careers…
In February 2018, Spotify announced it
would begin including songwriter and pro-
ducer credits for songs on its desktop app
under the “show credits” option. Recently,
that was extended to the more widely-
used mobile app. A simple browse around
Spotify, though, makes it clear those cred-
its are, for the most part, included only on
songs released in the last couple years,
or recent reissues of older albums. “We’re
showing information we have from record
label-provided metadata, and we’ll also
display the source of the credits. We realize
some of this may be incomplete or may
contain inaccuracies, but this is just a fi rst
step,” Spotify said in its 2018 announce-
ment. Two years later, in February 2020, the
company said: “Since we began publicly
displaying song credits on Spotify in 2018,
we’ve seen a 60% increase in how often
labels and distributors credit songwriters
on their new releases — allowing artists
and fans to dig deeper and recognize your
work.”
Those credits on Spotify’s platform,
though, have never extended beyond
songwriters and producers to include
recording engineers, mix engineers,
mastering engineers, or anyone else
involved in the record-making process.
Canadian Musician reached out to Spotify
about this and was simply told by Chris
Macowski, Spotify’s head of music industry
communications, “While we don’t have any
news to share at this time, we are always
evolving existing features.”
Still, Spotify is ahead of its main rival,
Apple Music, which only shares composer
credits (though, in some cases, that
includes producers). Representatives at
Apple Canada did not respond to Canadian
Musician’s inquiries.
The issue of engineers’ credits being buried
or omitted extends beyond Spotify and
Apple Music, but because they now domi-
nate music consumption, they are the focal
point for many engineers. Still, Richardson
points out, if you watch a music video on
YouTube, it’s common for a “directed by”
credit to feature at the beginning or end.
“I say, well, hold on a minute here. If you
turned down the sound, that’s what that
guy did. When you turn up the volume,
that’s what we do. So, how come we’re
nowhere to be seen?” he says. “How come
it’s not, ‘produced by, engineered by, mixed
by’? They still have to add in that [director’s]
credit, so why can’t they just add three
more lines? It’s that simple.”
The result, Richardson says, is that even