Former Fear Factory frontman Burton C. Bell is one of the metal musicians who have shared their Spotify Wrapped For Artists statistics this year. Bell posted his stats on social media, but wasn’t happy with how little the app was paying him for his music.
“So I checked out this ‘wrapped’ BS from Spotify. It is a bittersweet realization as an independent artist to see that my music is truly spanning the globe, and that fans are truly supportive (that is the sweet part). THANK YOU TO ALL THE FANS AROUND THE GLOBE FOR YOUR SUPPORT! I AM GRATEFUL FOR YOU,” he thanked his fans before slamming both Spotify and the CEO Daniel Ek.
“The bitterness that wells within my heart is seeing that Spotify WILL compensate me with $4.29…. that is $0.003 for every stream… a fraction of ONE PENNY… F*ck Spotify… Daniel Ek is reaping in billions off of the backs of all the artists that have built this company, and will not compensate the artist for the invaluable work that supports his business and life. Spotify is an ‘evil’, regarded as an ‘important gauge’ for artists in the music industry. How can artists survive in this burgeoning economy with compensation like this? What’s even worse is that the only way to really break ground on Spotify is to pay for services to break into a larger audience. ‘Pay to Play’ is still rampant, and it has infiltrated the internet.”
The post is now deleted. However, this isn’t the first time Bell shared his dissatisfaction with Spotify publicly. The singer said Spotify and other similar streaming apps were ‘getting away with murder’ by not paying songwriters a fair royalty rate. “Streaming is a very debated issue right now, because companies like Pandora and Spotify are getting away with murder, basically, because they are going with a contract… they are going with a trademark agreement written in the 1940s to pay the artists the least amount of royalty possible, because in the 1940s, there was no such things as the Internet, and they never expected it. So, because of that, they’re using this copyright/trademark law that was written to get away with paying the artist literally nothing.”
He gave an example and continued, “For instance, an artist like Adele — multi-platinum artist. One of her songs, ‘Someone Like You’ or whatever, had over 11 million listens on Pandora. The person who wrote that song, because of the royalty rate, only got paid 11 thousands dollars. For over 11 million million hits [or] listens on Pandora! That’s fucking ridiculous! And that’s what they’re getting away with, and Pandora is fighting to keep it that way.”
While many artists are unhappy with Spotify’s payments, most have recently shared their stats on social media. Aerosmith took the top spot with 88 million listeners, followed by Metallica with 85 million, and Nickelback with 70 million.
