CNN's Richard Quest speaks with ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus about the state of the music industry. #CNNI #CNN #News
ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus says music streaming is ‘dysfunctional’
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Spotify seems to be functioning just fine….
That reality with current streaming. Social media makes downloads and shares extensively easy to be manipulated.
“Money money money, must be funny, it’s a rich man’s world”
So his point is: “Those who are less popular get less money. That’s unfair.”
@John Doe ty for taking the time
@John Doe And there’s nothing wrong with that; the _currently_ most popular song is ephemeral and will change as soon as the next song comes out. Old groups and singers already made their money for years and years and naturally, they’re not going to be as popular with zoomers and future generations as whatever is new. New songs fade away so fast, that it just makes sense to bump them for a while.
He made it clear that he was in that same boat before their success. There are only so many geniuses out there. He mustn’t forget to mention that he was blessed with something very special.
The problem is that the more popular a song is the more likely it is that streaming services put these songs into popular playlists. Then, even more and more people listen to these songs and it gets even more popular. Not because people actually search for them actively but because the get exposed to it through playlists. If you’re not a popular artists then chances are very very small that you ever get added to the big playlists and thus you’ll never get the chance of big exposure.
Well… Listening to progressive rock with 20 minute tunes, they get the same fee for one klick like the dude that get to stream a 3 minute pop joke. Björn is a good guy, as is Benny. They just want to help those who do provide quality music in some genres to sustain. The close to billionaire artists can afford a few less $$$s.
Sweden by the way being the nations where the musical industry as it is exports more music per capita than any other nation, and has surpassed cars, steel and whatever in revenues.
Thanks for Sharing The Video.
Shut up.
Great !
I just can not understand why artists never get payed when everyone wants what they do??! It is really really strange that we pay so much traditionally for things we do not really want or things that we by tradition pay more for. Time for change!!
Everything is nothing in demon world
People will happily go to a bar, have two beers while they listen to live music, and then say they have no money when the musicians ask for a 10 dollar donation.
That guy is worth hundreds of millions. What’s he moaning about?
The trend now is live concert , streaming just give exposures to live concerts
And then there’s a pandemic and artists can no longer tour. That is a major issue right now.
That’s how it was back in the 90’s too, except it was CD’s and radio play instead of streaming.
Exactly. They get access to an enormous audience and can make sales off the back of that plus get extra people coming to concerts, buying merchandise.
@Juicexlx You’re saying that about a guy with 300 million. Hardly a good example. Fact is, most modern bands think they just have to knock together an album and then sit back and become millionaires.
All the great bands back in the day toured hundreds of gigs a year to build their fanbase.
Angus Young of AC/DC has done in the region of 2500 gigs.
Iron Maiden have done over 2000 gigs.
Bruce Springsteen 2,600 gigs.
Rolling Stones over 2000 gigs.
Modern ‘pop stars’ can’t be arsed. They just make a quick album on a PC, stick it on the inetrnets and want to look the part.
@P L Loads of big pop stars rip off the song writers, often by changing one word then claiming to be one of the writers of the song.
ABBA forever, can’t wait for the new stuff ❤️
Sorry, but you *have* to wait .
At least, the money should be divided between the artists each subscriptioner listens to. It’s not like that. If the girl next door clicks on Justin Bieber songs 1000 times for a month while I click on Keith Jarrett a couple of times….just about the entire share of my subscription goes to Justin Bieber (The share of the artist portion, that is…most of the dough goes to the shop owners – Spotify, Youtube etc).
if covid were a visible highly DEADLY green gas floating in the air , and that gas was COVID 19 . Would you walk into that green deadly visible gas of covid 19 with a blue paper mask on ? ? Do you feel that your blue mask would protect you from that green highly deadly covid gas ?? LOL,,, wake up people COVID IS A SCAM … USE YOUR BRAIN !! oUR GOVERMENT WANTS YOU DEAD!! DEAD DEAD DEAD
Yeah…. That’s how big tech works. They take 90% and leave you 10%. Why? Because they control the market.
@Gorilla-Q-Nutz Yes, I do feel that my blue mask will protect me, because I’ve read the studies. And there has been no evidence to the contrary. So. But you’re clearly whacko.
@Jeff Goddin There ya go ! A perfect example of a brainwashed GMO. You’ll fit right in !!
Upvote for name-dropping Keith Jarrett. I am very fond of Koln, January 24, 1975, Pt. II B.
Rich coming from Abba in Stockholm, home of Spotify.
Chris, do people squint when they listen to you?
@Juicexlx i think he meant Spotify was created by Swedish (base on my search) and ABBA is sweden 😅
No, rich coming from a guy worth 300 million.
He can invest in a company that creates more desirable system for artists.
It is hard to negotiate with the current streamers. That’s a competition.
I spend as much on streaming as I would have on albums. Streaming companies do seem to take bigger cut probably less than a record label tho, lol), but I listen to alot of music on repeat over 10 years or so, so I expect over 10 years for the artist to make what they would have selling me an album outright (altho, obviously that doesn’t help a new starting artist) … Definitely something to think about and try to find ways to support smaller artists, but the economics are interesting. (Edit/Added: From another comment, I realized Spotify, etc. may not aggregate subscriptions per user, more of a fixed ratio of all global Spotify plays, so a user that listens to Justin Bieber on repeat messes up everyones averages)
Read Bob Lefsetz. Streaming is paying out more money overall but it is being given to many more artists than back in Abba’s time when there were far fewer artists sharing in the rewards.
6:15 I feel ya, Richard! Pbpbpbpbpbpbpb!!!
This is wildly true, and I don’t think the solution is wildly difficult. The biggest overheads are server storage and app development, and I think there’s a lot of negotiation room there. The problem is artists need to have somewhat of a union created that protects companies from over-capitalizing on music and not distributing profits and, to be perfectly honest, there needs to be equity scaling that favors smaller streamers over famous ones.
If you really want to get experimental, there also ought to be some long-term planning for decentralized hosting to reduce overheads, the app needs to NOT be owned by any individual company, but rather the artists union, and they need to not have ads at all.
What sucks is that this is all so easy to organize, but no one does it. The closest thing is Tidal, which was still the same problem as before, but in different private of a very few entrepreneurial musicians who were already rich. There’s a very achievable way to move toward this, but someone just needs to get the right team together for once and not simply turn it into another version of the same problem that already exists.
Artists deserve to get paid their asked rate. Its called art. Talent.
I don’t know this group I have to research them they look like they’re pretty good🤔
@JourneyMan Smitty Soooo, you’re into Electronic Synths…Brought by…Wait for it…ABBA. Got it.
@Juicexlx wow that was kind of cool I like that was that one of their songs🤔😄
@JourneyMan Smitty ABBA was the 1st band to use Synths succesfully. They got litterally millions of people into the music scene, because it’s easier to play samples than to learn an instrument & music theory. Isn’t it?
@Juicexlx I’m actually listening to one of their material right now it’s pretty awesome how could I miss this
@JourneyMan Smitty It’s a White man’s World? But yeah, they were pretty cool in the days…Had whole rooms filled with dancing white drones 😉
Music is a SPIRIT, do we know that!!!
Yay ABBA!!😍