Entertainment
British band records 1,000 30-second-long songs to protest against Spotify’s pay for artists
British The Pocket Gods are set to play Spotify at their own game (Picture: Getty Images/ BBC )
A British band have recorded a 1,000-track album with every song just 30 seconds long.
St Albans-based band The Pocket Gods are speaking out about the meagre pay artists on the site receive from Spotify, and plan to protest in a unique way.
The streaming platform pays artists 0.002p each time a song of theirs is streamed, and will pay out after the listener has played 30 seconds of the track.
And so, in protest and to raise awareness of the low royalty rate for artists, The Pocket Gods’ next album is titled simply ‘1000×30 – Nobody Makes Money Anymore’.
Frontman Mark Christopher Lee spoke to i News and explained that when he learned about the 30-second mark Spotify follows, he thought: ‘Why write longer songs when we get paid little enough for just 30 seconds?’
He added: ‘We wrote and recorded 1,000 songs, each a shade over 30 seconds long for the album. The longest is 36 seconds.’
Lee admitted there is a chance the band’s music will simply be ‘thrown off the platform’ after other bands who tried similar stunts had their tracks removed.
The Pocket Gods frontman was inspired to launch the unique protest album after reading an article in The i by New York music professor Mike Errico.
Frontman Mark Christopher Lee has detailed the band’s protest in several interviews (Picture: BBC )
In the article, Errico referenced indie band Vulfpeck, who released an album of silent tracks called Sleepify and encouraged their fans to stream while sleeping.
And it worked, sort of: Spotify paid out Vulfpeck $20,000 (£14,800) for their silent songs, but then pulled the album.
One of The Pocket Gods’ new tracks is titled 0.002, directly referencing the amount they receive from Spotify for one play.
Frontman Lee told the outlet they ‘used to get 0.007p a play… but that seems to have been cut since Spotify bought the Joe Rogan Experience podcast for $100million (£74million)’.
Their protest comes as Spotify faces boycotts from certain artists who are concerned that the site continues to host Rogan’s podcast.
Stars Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from the site, accusing it of allowing the spread of vaccine misinformation due to comments made on Rogan’s show.
Grammy-winner India Arie also took down her content from Spotify, and shared a compilation of clips of Rogan using the N-word multiple times on his podcast.
Caption: 10450797 Josh Szeps praises Joe Rogan and says he gets more attention doing his podcast than appearing on the Today show
Provider: Joe Rogan Experience
Arie had made reference to Rogan’s rumored $100million deal in her exit announcement, and claimed the company pays musicians a fraction of what they deserve despite music being the ‘backbone of the service’.
Rogan apologised for the latest controversy in a video on his Instagram on Saturday, calling the clips of him repeatedly saying the N-word ‘the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly’.
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On Sunday, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he ‘strongly condemns’ Rogan’s past use of the racist slur but he does ‘not believe that silencing Joe is the answer’.
Ek indicated that Spotify will be standing by Rogan, while apologising to staff for the ‘continuing impact’ the furore has had on them.
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MORE : Spotify CEO ‘strongly condemns’ Joe Rogan’s use of N-word but ‘won’t silence him’
