Black Keys on Spotify: Service Isn't a 'Feasible' Way to Make a Living

Posted on Dec 14th 2011 11:45AM by Theo Spielberg
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As the online music streaming hub Spotify has grown more popular, it has also earned itself some very vocal and high-profile critics -- many of whom decry the failure of the service and others like it to make money for musicians. Most recently, the Black Keys declined to make their latest album, 'El Camino,' available for online streaming.

"[Streaming services] are becoming more popular, but it still isn't at a point where you're able to replace royalties from record sales with the royalties from streams," drummer Patrick Carney told VH1.

As Spotify currently operates, it takes about 64 streams to equal one 99-cent iTunes purchase, according to a recent Billboard study. Even users who pay for the service with unlimited or premium accounts are still only making up for a fraction of the potential revenue an artist could be pulling in.

"For a band that makes a living selling music, it's not at a point where it's feasible for us," Carney continued.

The Keys have made their previous releases -- as well as singer Dan Auerbach's solo outing, 'Keep it Hid' -- available on Spotify, and Carney hinted that after the initial sales push, listeners might see 'El Camino' show up, too. The album sold 206,000 units in it's first week and debuted at the #2 spot on the Billboard 200 charts, giving the band both their best single-week sales and the highest chart performance of their careers.

Several other artists have sounded off about streaming services hurting the music industry. Since Spotify launched in the United States in July, Adele, Coldplay, Tom Waits, Kanye West/Jay-Z and a host of other spotlighted artists have kept their latest releases off the service.

Mike Skinner of The Streets applauded this practice, tweeting, "I'm saying that because of adele, coldplay black keys etc going into next year people are going to think about not allowing streams."

Despite its shortcomings, Spotify has made concerted efforts to create a forum for music via social media -- hence their partnership with Facebook -- and foster live music, as evidenced by the free shows they sponsored at Mercury Lounge in New York City over the summer.

So while Spotify is making music more accessible than it has ever been, it is also eating into the paychecks received by the people who make that music. What do you think -- is Spotify awesome or terrible? Sound off in the comments section.

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7 Comments

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shoottheman

Bands should make their money playing live shows. Their recordings are basically advertisements, and should be free, or close to free. I don't really care if they make any money off music sales - the best music I've heard has been made by bands with day jobs. If the Black Keys got day jobs to supplement the income they're losing from streaming services, maybe their "art" would improve, and they wouldn't sound like such a one-trick-pony band. Which is not to say that I don't like their music - I actually do like them quite a bit. But they're about as artistically deep as AC/DC.

February 03 2012 at 11:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Manny

I can't believe "spotify is a joke"?People are going to buy music CD's,MP3's or other sources.Artists like the Black Keys are going to make money.They are touring aren't they????There are those that will always buy,those that will get it for free online and then theres a new choice streaming service.

January 18 2012 at 8:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

vega0573

for an independent artist (through aggregators), to have the same income through a spotify than when he sell a single song on itunes, the song needs to be listen to in Spotify around 800 times. And the people that can listen to the song on Spotify will never buy it on itunes or similar. The numbers are clear. For an independent artist, Spotify doesn't make sense.
It is quite easy to make a great service as spotify when the key is the content and you are paying peanuts for it.
Great decision of the Black Key. I hope more and more artist would join so Spotify may rethink it strategy of paying the creators of the content

January 10 2012 at 12:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

L1ft3dInTh3W3stC0ast

The model that these artists are trying to make money on is dead and they need to understand that. Everything evolves and as it stands today buying cd's or itunes music even just doesn't cut it. I don't understand how artists such as The Black Keys, Kanye West, Jay-z, Coldplay etc. can say they aren't earning a handsome living and are in a privileged position. The amount of money that these artists make on live shows is incredible and in the 10's of millions of dollars per year, so really the artists need to adapt and play more live shows and try to extract the revenue frrom that model as it works

January 05 2012 at 12:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ryan K

Spotify rocks, bad move by The Black Keys.

January 04 2012 at 2:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Birdmechanical

They do realize, that the idea behind spotify, is that many of those 64 listens, are 64 more than they would have had otherwise. A large majority of those 64 people would not have listened or bought the album anyway, so they are only gaining by streaming.

And some of those listeners, will buy the album afterwards, go to concerts, making Black Keys get money from listeners in addition to buyers.

Just reading this, i suddenly went, "Hey, I want to listen to The Streets" again, it's been years. And now I am. And now Mike Skinner is getting more money than he would have otherwise from me listening to his stuff.

December 29 2011 at 4:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply