Johan Röhr is Swedish, as is Spotify, and his success getting onto so many Spotify playlists is largely Spotify generated, not user generated, playlists. Spotify then uses Röhr's pseudonyms as data and marketing citing HUNDREDS of successful indie artists on the service who are, actually, one. Röhr becomes a millionaire, Spotify gets to cut its compensation of other working artists worldwide:
Is this not fraud? Like I wouldn't know the law, Swedish or otherwise, but inventing Potemkin users to funnel pooled revenues back to the company rather than distributing them as royalties seems like a fairly common sense notion of fraud. If anything it should prove that the algorithm is not just cranking decisions based on total uploads and users' attention to them but specifically selecting winners.
Furthermore is Johan Röhr a real person? Does he personally know Daniel Eks?
This is possible but in my opinion it’s more likely a coincidence. There are ways to game the algorithm to maximize plays and given he has 600+ pseudonyms he probably just figured it out through trial and error. I’m sure a tiny handful of those 600 are generating all of the revenue while he rest nothing. Plus there are probably other elements of his business model he utilizes to get onto playlists etc…. There are tons of people doing this on YouTube too.
Streaming exists *because* of fraudulent deal making behind closed doors (with the major record labels). While I have no reason to believe or disbelieve your hypothesis, the whole ground of streaming is squishy. There are no good guys here.
I agree with the points you make. There are maniacally greedy and avaricious and crafty exploitative people out there. We can’t wish them away. There are altruistic people out there too. One has to navigate the best one can through minefields of deceit and chicanery. Some prevail and some subsume into the abyss of this chicanery. I believe that the artists who have survived being preyed upon have become “street-smart” and without losing their creative motivation have sought out sound advice and good solutions and have eked out their careers anyway.
Since life can be treacherous, one must learn its odious ways and still remain altruistic and temperate. That is a formidable test of greatness.
I would hesitate to call that greatness, though I understand your meaning. While learning to be street-smart, it would be great if we could also work on making life (and the music industry) LESS treacherous.
This is why I forego music streaming entirely. It's bullshit music being forced on entirely ignorant consumers by tech idiots who don't know their ass when it comes to ACTUAL music.
Actually, I stream ACTUAL music five days a week while I'm working in my office. The list of artists' albums in my Spotify account starts with 38 Special and ends with ZZ Top, with an immense variety of other musicians in just as many music genres. Miles to Zeppelin to Beatles to Sinatra, to myriad others in-between. I think I know my ass pretty well.
Eh, some of us specifically want generic background music, not "actual" music, when we are reading or working. I can't focus on mentally intense tasks while my real music is on because it draws my focus away from the task. These anodyne mood playlists serve a good purpose, at least for me. And of course, when I am actively listening to "actual" music, that remains available on Spotify. I'm not clear on why you are so hostile.
A few thoughts: How do we know that Johan Röhr doesn't have a deal with Spotify to generate streams? Just saying. As for streams themselves, though selling only 10 mil copies of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," as a member of that vintage, I know the records were played over and over to the point that it's quite possible they were played a billion times combined by a much smaller world population that claimed personal ownership and connection to the Beatles song.
I don't believe Spotify is in anything other than the content business, and I tell my musical brethren not to put too much stock in it, for they put no stock in you.
Case in point: me. I retired nine months ago from a largely music-free workaholic teaching career of 23 years. I was surprised to find myself in those first free months listening to the complete discographies, in chronological order, of all my favorite childhood and adolescent bands and artists: Bowie, Talking Heads, Todd Rundgren (and Utopia), Tom Waits, Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Beatles, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Supertramp, Nick Cave, Genesis, Brian Eno.
Happily, though, I found most of them stood the test of time - some in ways, especially Bowie, that I didn't appreciate when the albums first came out. Largely rubbish-free.
But my big brother worked at a local mall's record store, so he brought home demos of all sorts of non-mainstream music that caught me. In retrospect, that was one of the most fateful and impactful twists of fate in my entire life.
This reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago on Spotify. I wanted a stream of classic soul while cooking, so I looked for one, deliberately bypassed Spotify's self-generated, and found one populated with the great usual suspects: Al Green, Marvin Gaye, The Spinners, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, etc. Great - hit shuffle. After a few dozen gems that I knew I heard one I didn't, and didn't sound of the era to me, production wise. It sounded like someone contemporary trying to sound like the era. Looked up the artist - no info whatsoever.
And then this thought occurred to me - I'm a jazz guitarist by trade. What if I made a Classic Jazz Guitar playlist, filled it with Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, and so on, and then slipped in a couple of my tracks. How many randomly generated hits could I expect to get? The only thing I'd need to do to cover my tracks is make sure the performer's name and playlist maker's name are different.
Or in an anonymous background music world, would anyone look even that closely?
Good points here Ted if somewhat of a bummer. Quantity of content over quality. What streaming has done to music has bastardized the all important connection between artist and the listener. It really is more than shame. It is horrible. I consider good music sacred. This is one of many reasons that I have stayed away from music streaming platforms.
Fascinating. We have all likely listened to music made by anons, but it's hard to see them overtaking human artists. Writing has a different dynamic. Ben Franklin is the most notable member in a long tradition of anon writers, who have always shaped culture: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-stay-anonymous-top-anons-creativity-trust
Ted, you should investigate the world of Spotify "playlist pitching." It's closely related to what you've written here, and it's a fascinating (and rather gross) topic in its own right.
It's the world of websites, such as SubmitHub, in which musicians pitch their music to Spotify playlist owners. The website provides a search engine, so that the musician can find playlists relevant for their own music. Then the musician pays a fee for the playlist owner to listen to their music (which doesn't guarantee a placement, so hence it's legal because it technically doesn't count as payola).
Many of the playlists in that world are "task-driven," such as Music For Studying, Music For Late Night, Music For Coffee Shops, etc. I admit I tried pitching my own music, and I got quite disillusioned. In that kind of setup, there's seemingly no place for creativity or artistic vision — only for submitting music that fits existing, tightly defined boxes.
It's even more disillusioning to read on the favourable terms that the major 3 labels have negotiated with Spotify to guarantee a certain amount of playlisting for their singed artists
"How can he write music that generates 15 billion streams—I note that the population of the entire Earth is just 8 billion people—and live in total obscurity?"
Via a visibility-blocking curtain made of thick wads of money. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (minimally edited just to correct for awkward Google translation grammar):
"Spotify has long claimed that all artists have a chance to get onto the company's playlists. The audience's interest and the quality of the music must govern. But Dagens Nyheter was told in a previous review that artists and their record companies accept a reduced compensation per song played in exchange for a good chance to end up on the big playlists. According to royalty payments, which Dagens Nyheter has seen, it is about a quarter of the usual compensation. Thanks to the playlists' large audience, the arrangement is profitable."
No kidding. Dagens Nyheter reports that Röhr's company brought in 32.7 million Swedish Kronors (almost exactly $3m US) in 2022. If it's true that Röhr accepted 25% of the usual compensation in exchange for play, he saved Spotify maybe $9m (very approximately, I have no idea about deductions, expenses, etc) compared to what they'd have had to pay real -- named, known -- artists the supposed going rate.
That calculation presupposes that honesty and full compensation are the default metrics, though, when there's no reason to think that the fake identifies are anything but a deliberately constructed money making scam. IF every single wad of "Röhr's" anodyne, cloying treacle had been released under one name it would almost certainly have tossed a spanner in the works early on. Listeners would have seen the constant wallpapering of one particular name and thought "Huh? This guy again? What is this crap? What's the story here?"
At least some subscribers would probably have grokked they'd been scammed by a sort of inverse one-and-a-half Milli Vanilli...in the pike position.
Maria and her orchestra utterly rock my world - I have every Artist Share release, including the new vinyl box anthology, and saw her every time she's come to So Cal in the last 10 years. For me she's the peak of jazz today
You pointed out the beginning of this many years ago when you wrote about ‘jazz being relegated to background music for cafes’. Never forgot that.
Some of my friends have music follow them for literally 90% of their waking hours (and sleeping too). In the shower, while working, while driving, while cooking, etc.
This... this is why I stopped listening to playlists on Spotify. The idea that I might be listening to ai generated music freaks me out. I hate how music is consumed now. It actually makes me very sad.
I am a musician, I love perform in front of audiences but I was unable to do that for the past couple of years. I tried to focus more on the digital side of things and I uploaded online. Some people care, the vast majority don't but it's fine. Imiss the contact with actual people, that can react instantly, with whom I can connect.
I remember seeing musicians busking in Ireland. There is something magical about busking, that I can't explain. I would love to try it but I haven't seen anyone doing so in my city..
In any case, thank you for this article Ted, keep up the good work.
Okay, so, here's the other thing about this:
Johan Röhr is Swedish, as is Spotify, and his success getting onto so many Spotify playlists is largely Spotify generated, not user generated, playlists. Spotify then uses Röhr's pseudonyms as data and marketing citing HUNDREDS of successful indie artists on the service who are, actually, one. Röhr becomes a millionaire, Spotify gets to cut its compensation of other working artists worldwide:
Is this not fraud? Like I wouldn't know the law, Swedish or otherwise, but inventing Potemkin users to funnel pooled revenues back to the company rather than distributing them as royalties seems like a fairly common sense notion of fraud. If anything it should prove that the algorithm is not just cranking decisions based on total uploads and users' attention to them but specifically selecting winners.
Furthermore is Johan Röhr a real person? Does he personally know Daniel Eks?
Not only is this a fairly common sense notion of fraud... It actually looks like a money laundering scheme.
It's already established that Swedish criminal networks are using Spotify to launder money:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/05/swedish-criminal-gangs-using-fake-spotify-streams-to-launder-money
>> Potemkin users
My next “band name” 🤣
This is possible but in my opinion it’s more likely a coincidence. There are ways to game the algorithm to maximize plays and given he has 600+ pseudonyms he probably just figured it out through trial and error. I’m sure a tiny handful of those 600 are generating all of the revenue while he rest nothing. Plus there are probably other elements of his business model he utilizes to get onto playlists etc…. There are tons of people doing this on YouTube too.
Streaming exists *because* of fraudulent deal making behind closed doors (with the major record labels). While I have no reason to believe or disbelieve your hypothesis, the whole ground of streaming is squishy. There are no good guys here.
soundcloud (formerly myspace) is where the real music, (and its community) lives
I agree with the points you make. There are maniacally greedy and avaricious and crafty exploitative people out there. We can’t wish them away. There are altruistic people out there too. One has to navigate the best one can through minefields of deceit and chicanery. Some prevail and some subsume into the abyss of this chicanery. I believe that the artists who have survived being preyed upon have become “street-smart” and without losing their creative motivation have sought out sound advice and good solutions and have eked out their careers anyway.
Since life can be treacherous, one must learn its odious ways and still remain altruistic and temperate. That is a formidable test of greatness.
I would hesitate to call that greatness, though I understand your meaning. While learning to be street-smart, it would be great if we could also work on making life (and the music industry) LESS treacherous.
This is why I forego music streaming entirely. It's bullshit music being forced on entirely ignorant consumers by tech idiots who don't know their ass when it comes to ACTUAL music.
Actually, I stream ACTUAL music five days a week while I'm working in my office. The list of artists' albums in my Spotify account starts with 38 Special and ends with ZZ Top, with an immense variety of other musicians in just as many music genres. Miles to Zeppelin to Beatles to Sinatra, to myriad others in-between. I think I know my ass pretty well.
Eh, some of us specifically want generic background music, not "actual" music, when we are reading or working. I can't focus on mentally intense tasks while my real music is on because it draws my focus away from the task. These anodyne mood playlists serve a good purpose, at least for me. And of course, when I am actively listening to "actual" music, that remains available on Spotify. I'm not clear on why you are so hostile.
I mean actual artists are on streaming as well, it’s very easy to avoid this bullshit.
Listen to albums, not playlists.
Yes! 🙌🏻
🎶 Spotify killed the humanoid star 📻
Video killed the radio star, and then AI killed everyone else.
🦾
A few thoughts: How do we know that Johan Röhr doesn't have a deal with Spotify to generate streams? Just saying. As for streams themselves, though selling only 10 mil copies of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," as a member of that vintage, I know the records were played over and over to the point that it's quite possible they were played a billion times combined by a much smaller world population that claimed personal ownership and connection to the Beatles song.
I don't believe Spotify is in anything other than the content business, and I tell my musical brethren not to put too much stock in it, for they put no stock in you.
It's funny, in a sick way, how people who rebel against "corporate culture" and "over-processed food" still consume garbage like this.
Case in point: me. I retired nine months ago from a largely music-free workaholic teaching career of 23 years. I was surprised to find myself in those first free months listening to the complete discographies, in chronological order, of all my favorite childhood and adolescent bands and artists: Bowie, Talking Heads, Todd Rundgren (and Utopia), Tom Waits, Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Beatles, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Supertramp, Nick Cave, Genesis, Brian Eno.
Happily, though, I found most of them stood the test of time - some in ways, especially Bowie, that I didn't appreciate when the albums first came out. Largely rubbish-free.
But my big brother worked at a local mall's record store, so he brought home demos of all sorts of non-mainstream music that caught me. In retrospect, that was one of the most fateful and impactful twists of fate in my entire life.
This reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago on Spotify. I wanted a stream of classic soul while cooking, so I looked for one, deliberately bypassed Spotify's self-generated, and found one populated with the great usual suspects: Al Green, Marvin Gaye, The Spinners, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, etc. Great - hit shuffle. After a few dozen gems that I knew I heard one I didn't, and didn't sound of the era to me, production wise. It sounded like someone contemporary trying to sound like the era. Looked up the artist - no info whatsoever.
And then this thought occurred to me - I'm a jazz guitarist by trade. What if I made a Classic Jazz Guitar playlist, filled it with Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, and so on, and then slipped in a couple of my tracks. How many randomly generated hits could I expect to get? The only thing I'd need to do to cover my tracks is make sure the performer's name and playlist maker's name are different.
Or in an anonymous background music world, would anyone look even that closely?
Good points here Ted if somewhat of a bummer. Quantity of content over quality. What streaming has done to music has bastardized the all important connection between artist and the listener. It really is more than shame. It is horrible. I consider good music sacred. This is one of many reasons that I have stayed away from music streaming platforms.
Fascinating. We have all likely listened to music made by anons, but it's hard to see them overtaking human artists. Writing has a different dynamic. Ben Franklin is the most notable member in a long tradition of anon writers, who have always shaped culture: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-stay-anonymous-top-anons-creativity-trust
Ted, you should investigate the world of Spotify "playlist pitching." It's closely related to what you've written here, and it's a fascinating (and rather gross) topic in its own right.
It's the world of websites, such as SubmitHub, in which musicians pitch their music to Spotify playlist owners. The website provides a search engine, so that the musician can find playlists relevant for their own music. Then the musician pays a fee for the playlist owner to listen to their music (which doesn't guarantee a placement, so hence it's legal because it technically doesn't count as payola).
Many of the playlists in that world are "task-driven," such as Music For Studying, Music For Late Night, Music For Coffee Shops, etc. I admit I tried pitching my own music, and I got quite disillusioned. In that kind of setup, there's seemingly no place for creativity or artistic vision — only for submitting music that fits existing, tightly defined boxes.
I didn't know about this, and find it alarming—especially the part about artists paying playlist owners to consider their songs for placement.
It's even more disillusioning to read on the favourable terms that the major 3 labels have negotiated with Spotify to guarantee a certain amount of playlisting for their singed artists
I'm sure you meant "signed", but "singed" might be more accurate.
"How can he write music that generates 15 billion streams—I note that the population of the entire Earth is just 8 billion people—and live in total obscurity?"
Via a visibility-blocking curtain made of thick wads of money. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (minimally edited just to correct for awkward Google translation grammar):
"Spotify has long claimed that all artists have a chance to get onto the company's playlists. The audience's interest and the quality of the music must govern. But Dagens Nyheter was told in a previous review that artists and their record companies accept a reduced compensation per song played in exchange for a good chance to end up on the big playlists. According to royalty payments, which Dagens Nyheter has seen, it is about a quarter of the usual compensation. Thanks to the playlists' large audience, the arrangement is profitable."
No kidding. Dagens Nyheter reports that Röhr's company brought in 32.7 million Swedish Kronors (almost exactly $3m US) in 2022. If it's true that Röhr accepted 25% of the usual compensation in exchange for play, he saved Spotify maybe $9m (very approximately, I have no idea about deductions, expenses, etc) compared to what they'd have had to pay real -- named, known -- artists the supposed going rate.
That calculation presupposes that honesty and full compensation are the default metrics, though, when there's no reason to think that the fake identifies are anything but a deliberately constructed money making scam. IF every single wad of "Röhr's" anodyne, cloying treacle had been released under one name it would almost certainly have tossed a spanner in the works early on. Listeners would have seen the constant wallpapering of one particular name and thought "Huh? This guy again? What is this crap? What's the story here?"
At least some subscribers would probably have grokked they'd been scammed by a sort of inverse one-and-a-half Milli Vanilli...in the pike position.
Go to https://www.artistshare.com/ and purchase Data Lords, by the Maria Schneider Orchestra.
https://www.artistshare.com/projects/experience/1/510/1
Not available on any streaming service. Real good music made by real good people.
Maria and her orchestra utterly rock my world - I have every Artist Share release, including the new vinyl box anthology, and saw her every time she's come to So Cal in the last 10 years. For me she's the peak of jazz today
That's pretty hardcore, you can't preview more than a few seconds of audio before paying a substantial amount.
Managed to find a Youtube interview with bits of live playing interspersed, to get a bit more of an idea what kind of monster we're talkign about :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUzHNhux_R8
I've been listening to her music since her early days of sounding like her mentor Gil Evans.
There's another composer/arranger you might like, if you can find his music; David Angel from Los Angeles.
I know right!? I took a risk based on what I'd read about her and her Orchestra in pieces like this one and the fact she'd won some Grammys.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/24/894686507/composer-maria-schneider-returns-with-a-reckoning-on-data-lords
You pointed out the beginning of this many years ago when you wrote about ‘jazz being relegated to background music for cafes’. Never forgot that.
Some of my friends have music follow them for literally 90% of their waking hours (and sleeping too). In the shower, while working, while driving, while cooking, etc.
This... this is why I stopped listening to playlists on Spotify. The idea that I might be listening to ai generated music freaks me out. I hate how music is consumed now. It actually makes me very sad.
Perhaps we need more stations that promise Only music written by Live Human Beings, played by Live Human Beings.
Ooh! Let me help! https://www.nts.live/
I am a musician, I love perform in front of audiences but I was unable to do that for the past couple of years. I tried to focus more on the digital side of things and I uploaded online. Some people care, the vast majority don't but it's fine. Imiss the contact with actual people, that can react instantly, with whom I can connect.
I remember seeing musicians busking in Ireland. There is something magical about busking, that I can't explain. I would love to try it but I haven't seen anyone doing so in my city..
In any case, thank you for this article Ted, keep up the good work.
Be the first to do it in your city. Don't wait for someone else to lead the way. You have nothing to lose.
Exactly.