Statement on Streaming

 

If you are here, it may be  because you are interested in listening to my music. If this is the case, I would like to start by saying thank you - I do not take this for granted. The following statement comes at a point in my journey where I have to change the way I work in order to continue making music at all. 

 

The question you may be asking: why aren’t your songs on Spotify, Apple Music or other streaming sites?

My question I have started to ask myself is… why would I?

 

Uploading music to streaming services costs artists money. Streaming platforms pay so little, it is difficult to make the costs back. In the case for most unsigned artists, we are paying for the privilege of having a small number of listeners to listen to our music.

 

Some of my releases have had enough streams that I have recouped the money it cost me to upload (sometimes with a small amount left over) but it is important to see the bigger picture…

 

Making the music is expensive. I like to work with as many real instruments in real spaces with real musicians as possible. Add in artwork, PR costs and other running costs and before you know it, you’ve spent approximately a five-figure sum on making one album. Does it have to be this expensive? Couldn’t I just do it all with samples in a laptop? I wouldn’t enjoy it any more and the feedback I get reinforces that it is the human (expensive) aspects of my music that people enjoy. So I’m not complaining about the cost - music is valuable to me; I am concerned about the viability.

 

I’m going to be transparent with you about how I finance my music. I am not signed to a record label. For years, I have worked multiple jobs so that I have a pot of money left after living costs to spend on making music. This has come with certain sacrifices, such as weekends, holidays and spending time with friends and family. This was my choice; I am determined to make music my job. However, if that money does not come back as income from the music, I very literally do not have more hours in my life to work even harder to have the money to spend on making more music. It is an impossibility of time and money. 

 

To summarise, I’ve spent thousands making the music; now the music needs to at least break even so you can do it again. So how do I release the music to make sure this happens? CD? Vinyl? Streaming? All three?

So far I have been doing all three. Making CDs adds another modest sum of money for graphics and manufacture. Vinyl adds an enormous sum of money for manufacture. Streaming - see above!

My experience is that the CD fans are not the same people as the vinyl fans and the overall number of fans is low enough that it takes me years to sell a batch of either.
Most of my albums have still never broken even.

Some of my albums will never break even if I do sell all the physical copies due to venues and festivals charging commission on merchandise.

 

Most people either do not buy merchandise or they stream it instead. And as we’ve covered, this brings in no or negligible income. On too many occasions to mention, I have had people come up to the merch table, take a photo of the albums and say they’ll stream it later. They’ve not done this maliciously, but can you empathise with how this feels from the artist’s perspective?

 

I have worked very hard and released numerous albums. I’m glad I did because people love the music I have made and I am grateful for that. But to keep this machine turning, I have to keep working hard at all my various jobs to pay for the next project while working hard making the music itself and working hard to try and sell the previous music to try recoup my costs. 

The cumulative effect means I have almost reached a point of burnout. I also have a young family now and cannot justify spending most of my income - and more crucially, time - away from my family. 

 

The scales need to at least balance if I am going to continue making music. 

 

So now we come back to the original question: why would I upload my music to streaming services? It feels completely irresponsible to do so. 

 

Streaming is just one way of releasing music - moving forward, some of my songs may appear on streaming platforms as a promotional tool. The majority of my music will be released in other places as I experiment to find a way to make the scales balance. I probably won’t be able to afford to release every album on every format too - apologies if you are particularly fond of one specific format!

A life-changing tool for me has been a subscription model (I use Patreon) as this has provided a small pot of money from monthly subscribers who value my music which I can spend on making music. This means I won’t have to spend so much time working other jobs and can work on the music instead. I now hire a recording studio every Monday thanks to my Patreon supporters - how great is that!? Some deep cuts get uploaded exclusively to Patreon.

If we reach a point where my Patreon income exceeds the amount I spend on making and releasing music then I may be able to return to putting all my music on streaming platforms.

 

Thank you for reading this. I hope it makes sense and you can understand how I have had to make this decision from a point of necessity, not greed. I empathise that not everyone uses all listening formats, but I am not a multi-billion dollar record company; I’m a busy Dad trying to turn a passion into a job.

This is my personal response to the chaotic landscape of a modern music industry that has been hi-jacked by big tech companies. Lots of people have made videos explaining how evil they are but I am not here to do that so I’ll link some below. 

I’m here to say streaming was only ever one of many options and it currently doesn’t work.

I’m going to put my energy into different options to keep music-making a fun, rewarding and viable job. Thank you for joining me on this journey!