Streaming Sucks. Buy Music and Merch From Artists.

Streaming sucks. Buy music and merch from your favorite artists. Yes, you the person reading this. Unless you hate your favorite artist. In that case, get a new favorite artist, and buy their music and merch.

Okay so, remember how we said Ye and Ty Dolla Sign grossed $1M from the first week of ‘VULTURES 1’? Sounds like a good chunk of money right? I mean, I personally don’t have $1M. Sounds pretty sweet.

At least that’s what I thought, until I checked that the aforementioned $1M was the result of 169 MILLION streams. Read that again. Out loud, preferably. 169 MILLION plays on your music rewards you less than .59% revenue for the music you put your literal life story into. One second, let’s take that a step further.

Ye and Ty Dolla Sign have an independent deal which means they receive 80% or more of that .59% revenue. Of the Top 10 Albums on the Billboard charts right now, that is the ONLY independent album. The other 9 albums are under label deals, meaning they may only be receiving 30% (or even less) of the .59% in revenue. In theory, an album that does 10M streams would = $60k in gross income. Of that $60k, the artist would receive $18,000 IF the label is that generous.

You thought that was bad? Here’s the worst of it. Some streaming platforms (looking at you, Spotify) don’t pay artists AT ALL if their song doesn’t perform up to a certain standard. As of late 2023, songs on Spotify that don’t receive 1,000+ streams earn no revenue. This is a disgusting practice in all honesty, and is the prime reason for our following point.

Just imagine you buying this artist’s album for $1 instead. And if on first listen, everyone just bought it for $1 at the least. Direct-to-Consumer. A song that you like from a small artist that receives 642 streams would reward that person $642 for their hard work. An album that you absolutely adore, that receives 100M purchases at $1 would be… well, you guys can do math I think. (And that’s important, because math is hard. I used a calculator for all of the above.)

Of course distribution and/or platform fees would still exist, but this needs to be at LEAST the starting point. $5, $10, and even larger amounts of your choosing should be a base goal. Deluxe pieces and 1-of-1s down the line could change the game entirely. And this all starts by not allowing streaming to be the only ones in control of the music.

Please buy music and merch from the artists you love. Support platforms like Deadbeat that are about to embark on a new frontier of artist-centric editorial, music distribution, direct access to artists, an exciting universe in which this can all live and so much more.

Music is life. It never dies and we don’t give up on it. It lives on, and we live on through it. We no longer have to give all control to the corporations. We’re taking a stand. So once again we ask for your help in this with one question:

Are you a zombie? Or are you a Deadbeat?