Do you think Spotify will ultimately be a bad thing for new artists/bands?

[Towelie]

As someone who believes in buying and supporting new music I have very conflicting views on the virtues of Spotify. Granted, I'm not going to be losing any sleep over overpaid rockstars and musicians feeling the pinch of their declining royalty returns, but my biggest concern is that ultimately labels will cease to invest in up and coming artists/bands who lack the support of the media machine and the clout of veteran artists who rely on ticket sales from concerts to fund themselves.

You can now reach the top 10 in the UK selling less than 6k (Prince's recent album reached number 8, selling just 6,543. To give you an indication of how drastic record sales have dropped since free-streaming media sites have dominated the industry, seven years ago he reached number 9 with his album 3121, selling 39,000 copies).

Do you think free-streaming media sites will ultimately prove to be a bad thing for music lovers?

Edited October 18, 2014 by Towelie

[merslain]

I don't. Although I don't buy albums much now that I have spotify I have gone to see bands live that I have discovered through the service.

Also as a music lover I really love the ability to dig deep into artists. The example I always use is Bruce Springstein. This can be applied to any artist though.

For years I heard/read how amazing Bruce is. I know the hits and like them all, but personally would never have bought an album of his. Just always would choose to spend my money elsewhere. So in reading things I would see Nebraska rank really high for him, even though it doesn't have the monster hits. So it's a "new" album to me as I had never heard it. So with spotify and work I pick an album and go start to finish, one day I did Nebraska and really enjoyed it.

Neil Young is another example. Never listened to an album straight through. I have gone back and picked various ones and some are great and some aren't.

Hope I didn't ramble too much and it makes sense why I really love the service.

[dalsh327]

I look at what Spotify doing as following how emusic had built its business up, but the problem that artists have to face is how many people get their share before the artist gets theirs.