The Spotify X-Files thread

[StrangerInThisTown]

Just now, chrismcquillan said:

My dad is a published singer-songwriter on Spotify and numerous other platforms. I'm repeating what he's told me.

So what, my friend is in a band who also publishes his music on Spotify. And he also knows jackshit about this because it's simply a platform to get your music out.

[chrismcquillan]

9 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

How is that in any way connected? No one can upload a song with artist name Guns N Roses lol, the meta data has nothing to do with that, because you have to upload it from the GNR account to publish it as GNR songs. This explanation makes no sense to me.

And secondly, not sure how someone who uploads his music on Spotify is in any way knowledgeable or qualified to comment on this anyway lol, not like they are being "briefed" on any of the inner workings like an employee, they just put their songs there and then people can stream it.

With regards your second point, they don't need to upload directly to Spotify if they're publishing through a third-party which handles the submissions to licensing databases and other platforms. That's how artists push out to platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, etc., and how their music becomes available for monetisation on social networks nationwide.

Spotify have/get the licensing information without anyone submitting tracks directly to them.

This licensing information thing has been around for decades. I remember the Chinese Democracy licensing information in 2008 before the album was released. 

[chrismcquillan]

Just now, StrangerInThisTown said:

So what, my friend is in a band who also publishes his music on Spotify. And he also knows jackshit about this because it's simply a platform to get your music out.

Okay, dickhead.

I've worked in digital technologies and web infrastructure for 15 years. My dad's worked in web database creation for 30+ years, and runs an web technologies business as well as being a musician.

I don't really give two shits if your friend plays guitar. I do have a vague understanding of algorithmic technologies across platforms, and how they interconnect.

[Sweersa]

3 hours ago, Draguns said:

Thank God he's out of GNR. What the heck was Axl thinking bring this guy into GNR???

It is known Axl and other members of the band back in the day would have sex with underage girls. Is that much better than Bucket's weird tendencies? 

[AxlRoseCDII]

2 hours ago, chrismcquillan said:

Spoke to a musician I know who publishes on Spotify.

He says it'll be nothing to do with an algorithm. The record company will 100% have uploaded these tracks to licensing databases that power Spotify and other services for two reasons.

1) It allows copyright takedowns to occur instantly if anyone uploads leaks to services like YouTube.

2) It prevents other people publishing tracks with the same titles and artist data, obviously.

So he thinks the tracks are definitely in the system. Whether it's indicative of a release or not, he couldn't say.

It's possible there's a release coming, or there are concerns about the finished tracks leaking, so it's a preventative measure to stop them getting onto services like YT.

This seconds the post of a user who spoke to a higher up. So even if people doubt your source at the very least it seconds something we hear that is semi official, so I’m inclined to believe it.

Key thing is that the songs are uploaded to some extent. Not that they’ll ever release.

Edited October 4, 2022 by AxlRoseCDII

[Nick85]

10 minutes ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

This seconds the post of a user who spoke to a higher up. So even if people doubt your source at the very least it seconds something we hear that is semi official, so I’m inclined to believe it.

Key thing is that the songs are uploaded to some extent. Not that they’ll ever release.

I’m a bit confused. Are you saying you believe the actual track files have been turned over to Spotify? Or is it that they have simply given them titles to avoid leaks prior to a hypothetical release?

[Blackstar]

Yes, I'm also convinced that these tracks are in the system in some way (even if only as metadata) and the connection between them and GN'R is not a result of an algorithmic reaction to searches, listening habits, local playlists, web content crawling, etc.

Of course, whether they get released is a totally different matter.

[chrismcquillan]

5 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Yes, I'm also convinced that these tracks are in the system in some way (even if only as metadata) and the connection between them and GN'R is not a result of an algorithmic reaction to searches, listening habits, local playlists, web content crawling, etc.

Of course, whether they get released is a totally different matter.

Agreed. The actual tracks will likely have been submitted to a licensing database with titles.

It's unlikely that Spotify will have access to the actual audio files until they're due to be released. But they will have all the meta data and probably things like checksums for verification. 

I'd suspect whatever systems catch copyright violations will also have the full tracks, or at least all the data they require to audio match them to content online.

Could mean an upcoming release, could also not, as you say.

[AxlRoseCDII]

12 minutes ago, sofine11 said:

I’m a bit confused. Are you saying you believe the actual track files have been turned over to Spotify? Or is it that they have simply given them titles to avoid leaks prior to a hypothetical release?

I think actual track files are in the system because preventing leaks with just names won't really solve any issues. Otherwise people could just name a song whatever they want with the audio so it wouldn't solve any issue. They may have given a few names to check for though too for each song, which is why The General and Oklahoma show up despite possibly not being the final titles.

As others and I have said though, this doesn't guarantee a release. But I would say it means its slightly more likely than it was before, otherwise, why would they even bother, and why now.

Edited October 4, 2022 by AxlRoseCDII

[StrangerInThisTown]

35 minutes ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

I think actual track files are in the system because preventing leaks with just names won't really solve any issues. Otherwise people could just name a song whatever they want with the audio so it wouldn't solve any issue. They may have given a few names to check for though too for each song, which is why The General and Oklahoma show up despite possibly not being the final titles.

As others and I have said though, this doesn't guarantee a release. But I would say it means its slightly more likely than it was before, otherwise, why would they even bother, and why now.

You realize you're saying an entire album worth of songs has been finished right (otherwise how would they submit the audio?) That alone will put many people here in disbelief

Edited October 4, 2022 by StrangerInThisTown

[AxlRoseCDII]

13 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

You realize you're saying an entire album worth of songs has been finished right (otherwise how would they submit the audio?) That alone will put many people here in disbelief

Yeah, but they've been basically finished since probably 2010. Some of them probably earlier. For some reason people are in denial about music existing. It definitely exists its just a matter of whether or not we ever hear them, and from that reasoning I've known to be negative before, and I can also understand when other people are negative. Because that is pretty up in the air with this band.

[Nick85]

Would line up with sp1at’s “songs have been submitted” comment. 

…and only GNR could mind-fuck what that exactly means. 🙄

Edited October 4, 2022 by sofine11

[Sweersa]

10 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

You realize you're saying an entire album worth of songs has been finished right (otherwise how would they submit the audio?) That alone will put many people here in disbelief

It shouldn't. Axl himself (unless he was lying) said the second part to Chinese had been done for a while, and that was 2014. Even back in 2006 he said they had 2.5 albums worth of material. We know how large the Village leaks were, and that was just what leaked. There was more (with vocals) that existed then but wasn't a part of what leaked. It's more than unreasonable to assume Axl didn't record vocals since 2000, we know he did, on existing songs with vocals and new ones.

So, at the very least, GN'R has had at least one more album of material accumulated by now, just as they did over ten years ago.

[James Bond]

5 hours ago, Draguns said:

Thank God he's out of GNR. What the heck was Axl thinking bring this guy into GNR???

I'm glad he's out of Guns too. Since he left I've been able to enjoy over 300 albums of original Buckethead material that was never going to be found on the one album Axl manged to put out.

[StrangerInThisTown]

2 minutes ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

Yeah, but they've been basically finished since probably 2010. Some of them probably earlier. For some reason people are in denial about music existing. It definitely exists its just a matter of whether or not we ever hear them, and from that reasoning I've known to be negative before, and I can also understand when other people are negative. Because that is pretty up in the air with this band.

 

Just now, Sweersa said:

It shouldn't. Axl himself (unless he was lying) said the second part to Chinese had been done for a while, and that was 2014. Even back in 2006 he said they had 2.5 albums worth of material. We know how large the Village leaks were, and that was just what leaked. There was more (with vocals) that existed then but wasn't a part of what leaked. It's more than unreasonable to assume Axl didn't record vocals since 2000, we know he did, on existing songs with vocals and new ones.

So, at the very least, GN'R has had at least one more album of material accumulated by now, just as they did over ten years ago.

Well yeah the nu-GNR versions are finished, but not the ones that will end up coming out, the reworked Slash/Duff ones. It would mean nothing if these old nu-GNR versions have been submitted since they will never come out anyways.

[Blackstar]

Before the Village leaks many people questioned that even Atlas Shrugged (and all the other tracks on there that we'd heard the titles of) existed in any form. And not only did these songs exist, but there were other songs there (at various stages of completion) that we hadn't even heard of before.

And now many people's disbelief in the existence or completion of more songs is driven by the same reasoning ("since we haven't heard them, they don't exist," and "them releasing Absurd and Hard Skool means that they haven't got much left").

13 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Well yeah the nu-GNR versions are finished, but not the ones that will end up coming out, the reworked Slash/Duff ones. It would mean nothing if these old nu-GNR versions have been submitted since they will never come out anyways.

If there were finished Nu-GN'R versions, I think it's almost safe to say that they have been reworked by Slash and Duff, so the new versions have been finished, too.

Edited October 4, 2022 by Blackstar

[AxlRoseCDII]

7 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

 

Well yeah the nu-GNR versions are finished, but not the ones that will end up coming out, the reworked Slash/Duff ones. It would mean nothing if these old nu-GNR versions have been submitted since they will never come out anyways.

I'm sure Slash and Duff have worked on many tracks. They are prolific and there's been a lot of downtime since 2019. I don't think anyone doubts that. If it was up to them, there would probably be 2, maybe 3 albums out at this point in the reunion. There's only one person who holds back any releases and is the only reason why even if these tracks are uploaded may never come out.

[Nick85]

Back in 2019 Sue said on video that they were working “fastidiously” on an “album”. I don’t think she only meant Absurd & Hard Skool. I’m sure Slash and Duff have worked on every track, and probably quite a bit.

[soul_craft]

In Brazil when searching for State of Grace (same applies for Atlas, Perhaps and many others) you can get a result pointing to a cover version by a guy/band called Aien, when you check the artist page, there are a bunch of unreleased GN'R covers there, if you check the credits of those songs, you can see them pointing to Axl, Robin Finck and all the other nu-gnr era members, don't know if this get something to do with them grouping GN'R as an artist when you search for a song that the writing credits have GN'R members on it. (sorry if it this was mentioning before in the thread, I just did a quick glance trying to catch up on this topic).

Edited October 4, 2022 by soul_craft
fixing some typos

[Sweersa]

30 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Well yeah the nu-GNR versions are finished, but not the ones that will end up coming out, the reworked Slash/Duff ones. It would mean nothing if these old nu-GNR versions have been submitted since they will never come out anyways.

Slash himself said they worked on old CD era material. More than just what we got on the EP. The album is done, and has been for a few years, at least.

[Blackstar]

7 minutes ago, soul_craft said:

In Brazil when searching for State of Grace (same applies for Atlas, Perhaps and many others) you can get a result pointing to a cover version by a guy/band called Aien, when you check the artist page, there are a bunch of unreleased GN'R covers there, if you check the credits of thoser songs, you can see them pointing to Axl, Robin Finch and all the other nu-gnr era members, don't know if this get something to do with them grouping GN'R as an artist when you search for a song that the writing credits have GN'R members on it. (sorry if it this was mentioning before in the thread, I just did a quick glance trying to catch up on this topic).

Yes, the Aien case has been discussed throughout the 150 pages of Spotify discussion in the "New Album" thread. It doesn't affect much, in my opinion.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, soul_craft said:

In Brazil when searching for State of Grace (same applies for Atlas, Perhaps and many others) you can get a result pointing to a cover version by a guy/band called Aien, when you check the artist page, there are a bunch of unreleased GN'R covers there, if you check the credits of thoser songs, you can see them pointing to Axl, Robin Finch and all the other nu-gnr era members, don't know if this get something to do with them grouping GN'R as an artist when you search for a song that the writing credits have GN'R members on it. (sorry if it this was mentioning before in the thread, I just did a quick glance trying to catch up on this topic).

 

Ah yes... Robin Finch

[Gunner55]

Semi tongue in cheek here, but is it possible Axl just put the songs in the Spotify database just to leave them pending so they could more easily remove the leaks online by claiming copyright? 

Ugh, Fernando just click the button and put us out of our misery. 

[Nick85]

9 minutes ago, Gunner55 said:

Semi tongue in cheek here, but is it possible Axl just put the songs in the Spotify database just to leave them pending so they could more easily remove the leaks online by claiming copyright? 

Ugh, Fernando just click the button and put us out of our misery. 

“Within the next six months.”👌🏼😏

[Bailey15]

5 hours ago, chrismcquillan said:

Spoke to a musician I know who publishes on Spotify.

He says it'll be nothing to do with an algorithm. The record company will 100% have uploaded these tracks to licensing databases that power Spotify and other services for two reasons.

1) It allows copyright takedowns to occur instantly if anyone uploads leaks to services like YouTube.

2) It prevents other people publishing tracks with the same titles and artist data, obviously.

So he thinks the tracks are definitely in the system. Whether it's indicative of a release or not, he couldn't say.

It's possible there's a release coming, or there are concerns about the finished tracks leaking, so it's a preventative measure to stop them getting onto services like YT.

That lines up with the fact that Evader's version of The General was taken down from YouTube around the same time as the Spotify discovery.

It  was up there for years....no problem.  I would listen to it regularly and somebody removed it here recently