Tag: spotify

Nas’ ‘Illmatic’ Was the Beginning of the End of the Album

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Music consumption and discussion in 2024 bears little resemblance to fandom from one decade ago, let alone three or four. Old songs gain new life on TikTok; AI creates original music trained on data from the world’s most popular artists; drill rappers post a song on YouTube on Tuesday, and by Friday it’s thumping in the dormitories of elite colleges.

Many have considered how this digital ecosystem influences the buying and selling of music. But a related question has mostly escaped inquiry: How does it impact the way music is honored and remembered? Few albums demonstrate the stark contrasts in music appreciation as well as Nas’ 1994 genre-defining Illmatic, widely recognized as one of the most important albums ever made.

Today, the 30th anniversary of its release, offers an opportunity to reflect not only on the album, but on how the modern music industry and the technology that drives it (streaming, social media, artificial intelligence) has changed the landscape in a manner that may help to preserve its legacy.

Illmatic’s release initially flew under the mainstream radar. There were no major release parties covered by MTV or VH1, no cover articles in Rolling Stone or splashy features in The New York Times, Nas’ hometown paper. It sold just a few thousand copies in its first week, and didn’t achieve platinum status until 2001, years after his sophomore effort (1996’s It Was Written) had done so.

In music circles, though, praise for Illmatic arrived almost instantly. For example, it secured one of Source’s elusive “5-mic” ratings, designated for instant “hip-hop classics.” In the decades since, it has steadily accumulated accolades. Illmatic is high on many all-time greatest albums lists (in any genre), and in 2021, was the first hip-hop album inducted into the Library of Congress.

These acknowledgements tell only part of the story, as its informal influence is far greater. So highly regarded is Illmatic that the album’s title is now used to describe a musician’s defining opus (One might ask: “Is Mama’s Gun Erykah Badu’s Illmatic?”). Its importance even transcends music: The album’s famed cover—featuring Nasir Jones as a child, with a photo of the Queensbridge Houses as the backdrop—has inspired visual artists.

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For years, scholars and fans have examined Illmatic in search of an explanation for what made it work. The answers are multiple, but converge on a few factors. For one, there is timing. Illmatic is one of the defining albums of hip-hop’s unofficial golden age (somewhere between 1988 and 1996), when the art form achieved enormous commercial success, geographical (and sonic) diversity, a global footprint, and an large influx of talented lyricists, producers, and tastemakers, almost all raised during hip-hop’s earliest days.

This played out in Illmatic’s production style, featuring an ensemble cast of producers that created an expansive yet cohesive soundscape. Then, of course, there are the lyrics. Nas’ words were a magic elixir, a blend of Kool G Rap, Rakim, the Last Poets, and William Shakespeare. It was a mix listeners had never heard before (and arguably, haven’t since).

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April 19, 2024
Pop Music Is Mad. Social Media Loves It

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Not everyone is buying it. Despite the study’s findings, “I don’t believe hip-hop lyrics are more angry,” says Dame Aubrey, head of A&R for CMG Records and Management, a music label that represents rappers Moneybagg Yo, BlocBoy JB, and GloRilla. If anything, Aubrey says, what changes we do hear are a product of how music has expanded. It’s simple, Aubrey says: more people, more perspectives. The medium is more accessible now because of the technology available. “There’s just a lot more artists with opportunities to be heard because it basically became a trend to make music.”

One major adjustment in all of this is the mechanics of how a song gets popular, and what its popularity generates.

In the age of social media, that can often translate into more of the same kinds of sounds, although that is not always the case. So when Lamar throws punches at Drake—dubbing him one of the “goofies with a check” and following that with “Fore all your dogs gettin’ buried / That’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see the pet cemetery”—the verses gain traction on X because they feed into the theatrics of online socializing, which is defined by joy and camaraderie between users as much as heated confrontation.

Rap has always gotten, well, a bad rap. Ego, anger, swagger—those emotions are part of the genre’s raucous identity. Since hip-hop’s founding 50 years ago, artists have wielded those sentiments to illustrate their realities. Rap is sport. It’s theater. It is the very kind of music that encourages the style of intense engagement that is increasingly common among fans online.

Are less positive song lyrics actually on the rise, or is the popularity of a certain kind of song simply a reflection of what we think the algorithm wants to hear?

Streaming transformed the music industry in every way possible. Crafting hit songs is somehow easier but just as difficult. The winds of virality can still be unpredictable. Although it is not an exact science, what is evident is how streaming playlists help deliver a song to large audiences in ways analog media couldn’t.

“While there are certainly trends in organic popularity, one unique thing about playlists is the significance and importance of context,” says JJ Italiano, head of global music curation and discovery at Spotify. “Even the most popular songs can vary wildly in how well they perform, depending on the playlist that they’re in and the other songs around them in that playlist.”

Dasha’s recent viral hit “Austin” had around 10,000 streams when Spotify editors began programming it for their playlists, Italiano says, and it did best when paired with similar on-theme pop songs that straddle country and pop, sequenced among summery, guitar-driven tunes (like Noah Kahan), narrative-rich country songs (like Zach Bryan), or similar heartbreak tracks from a different genre (like Mitski). “Eventually the song became so popular on Spotify that it made its way into our most popular playlist, Today’s Top Hits,” he says. But over time, Italiano notes, sequencing does become less crucial to a song’s lifespan as listeners develop a “deep familiarity” with the song.

Artists, then, find themselves making music in line with what’s trending, trying to achieve the same level of reach that songs like “Austin” or “Like That” did. In years past, everything from war to heartbreak influenced the music of the moment. That’s still true, but now TikTok, X, and other platforms drive the conversation as much as anything else. “Social media definitely plays a part in song writing just as the community, movies, and television once played a part,” Aubrey says of rap. Depending on the temperature of exchange among users, which swings from lukewarm to indignant depending on the artist, it prompts certain songs to dominate the conversation. Taylor Swift’s most popular online tracks are often the ones detailing scorn.

Even an artist like Milwaukee rapper Khal!l, who told WIRED in August that he wanted to “create an atmosphere where we can mosh-pit but then also cry and hold hands and shit,” finds himself beholden to the algorithm. He got famous thanks to TikTok and the best way to sustain his presence on the app is to feed it the content that resonates: “We gotta ride this horse ’til the hooves fall off.”

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April 9, 2024
One Man’s Army of Streaming Bots Reveals a Whole Industry’s Problem

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A man in Denmark was sentenced to 18 months in prison today for using fake accounts to trick music streaming services into paying him 2 million Danish kroner ($290,000) in royalties. The unusual case reveals a weak spot in the business model behind the world’s biggest music platforms.

The 53-year-old consultant, who had pleaded not guilty, was convicted of data fraud and copyright infringement after using bots to listen to his own music through fake profiles on both Spotify and Apple Music, collecting royalties in the process. The data fraud took place between 2013 and 2019.

Fake or “artificial” streams are a big problem for the streaming industry. Between 1 and 3 billion fake streams took place on popular music platforms in 2021, according to a study by France’s National Music Center. Fake streams are a problem, according to the music industry, because they divert royalty payments away from real artists and pollute streaming platforms’ data.

“This is an example of a problem that’s becoming a liability within the music industry,” says Rasmus Rex Pedersen, an associate professor in communication at Roskilde University in Denmark, who researches music streaming. “The streaming services have had several years to develop tools to combat this type of fraud and apparently they haven’t been doing a very good job.” There are still services advertising sales of fake streams, he adds.

In February, a court in the Danish city of Aarhus heard how the man, whose name was withheld, was accused of using bots to generate a suspiciously high number of plays on 689 tracks, which he had registered as his own music. In one week, 244 music tracks were listened to 5.5 million times, with 20 accounts responsible for the majority of the streams. The defendant had previously argued these playbacks were linked to his job in the music industry. He plans to appeal, his lawyer Henrik Garlik Jensen told WIRED.

The man created software that played the music automatically, claims Maria Fredenslund, CEO of the Danish Rights Alliance, which protects copyright on the internet and first reported the case to the police. “So he didn’t really listen to the music. No one really listened to the music.” According to the Danish Rights Alliance, the defendant had 69 accounts with music streaming services, including 20 with Spotify alone. Due to his network of accounts, he was at one point the 46th highest-earning musician in Denmark.

While the defendant created much of the music himself, 37 tracks were altered versions of Danish folk music, where the tempo and pitch had been changed, adds Fredenslund, who attended court.

Starting in 2016, Danish artists noticed altered versions of their tracks circulating on streaming platforms. They reported the suspicious activity to Koda, a Danish organization that collects and distributes fees for songwriters and composers when their music is played online. In an investigation, Koda uncovered how amounts paid to the consultant went from zero to substantial sums in a short time. Koda then reported the case to the Danish Rights Alliance, which investigates fraudulent behavior. “It’s not just immoral, but blatantly unfair to manipulate payments that should rightfully go to dedicated and hardworking music creators,” says Jakob Hüttel, legal chief at Koda.

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March 21, 2024
How to Open Spotify Links If You Aren’t a Spotify User

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Spotify dominates the music industry. This becomes really obvious if you don’t use Spotify: You end up being sent, and inevitably clicking on, Spotify links all the time. It happens on social media, yes, but also in text exchanges with friends, in emails, and in DMs. The thought is a good one; someone enjoyed a piece of music and wanted to share it with you. The problem, though, is that the Spotify link is mostly useless if you don’t use Spotify.

What if you use other streaming apps, such as those offered by Apple, Amazon, and YouTube, to listen to music? Are you doomed to search for the track, album, or artist on those services manually? Is that forever your fate? Absolutely not. Here are a few tools that can help you turn Spotify links into links for your preferred music service. (Just note, these tools will work to locate songs, artists, and albums across platforms, but since playlists are usually unique to each platform, these methods won’t work with custom playlists.)

Google Chrome: An Extension to Automatically Redirect Links

If you use Google Chrome or a compatible browser like Microsoft Edge, the browser extension Music Link can automatically open all Spotify links in whatever music app you like. Just install the extension and click its icon to configure it. Choose which music service you prefer and you’re done: Any Spotify link you get from now on will redirect to your app of choice.

You can optionally uncheck whatever services you’re fine with getting links to. SoundCloud, for example, tends to let you play music regardless of whether you have an account, and a lot of its offerings aren’t on other platforms, so you might as well not redirect those links. For the most part, though, this is the kind of extension you can install and never think about ever again.

iPhone and iPad: Song.link for Apple Shortcuts

Chrome extensions may not always work on iPhones or iPads, but thankfully there’s an Apple shortcut for redirecting Spotify links. Just copy any Spotify URL to the clipboard then launch the shortcut Song.Link. This will find the URL in your clipboard and offer you links to the song on other platforms. There’s even a YouTube link, which is helpful if you don’t subscribe to any streaming service.

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March 5, 2024
Spotify’s War on Apple Just Cost the Giant $2 Billion

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Apple has a Spotify problem—and it just cost the iPhone maker a $2 billion fine from the European Commission.

For years, the two companies have been at war as the streaming service lured users away from Apple’s iTunes and accused the tech giant of exploiting its dominance to stifle innovation. In their long-running conflict, each has made incursions into the other’s territory. When Apple launched its own streaming service Apple Music in 2015, Spotify claimed Apple was able to undercut the platform’s prices because it didn’t have to pay the same App Store fees as rivals. In 2019, Spotify began an ambitious podcast spending spree, splashing out on high profile shows, in another direct challenge to Apple.

The feud’s early days were civil with few barbs traded in public. “We worry about the humanity being drained out of music,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2018, a cryptic comment widely interpreted as a jibe at Spotify’s heavy use of algorithmic recommendations. But Spotify became more outspoken as EU politicians started to call for laws to reign in Big Tech. The €1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) fine on Apple announced by the European Commission today shows that its tactics are working.

The fine originates in a legal complaint filed with the European Commission by Spotify in 2019, challenging the restrictions and fees Apple places on developers listing their apps in the Apple App Store. Today the European Commission agreed, saying that Apple’s app store restrictions amount to unfair trading conditions that may have led iOS users to pay significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions.

“For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store,” said Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, in a statement. “They did so by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem.”

Apple’s app store rules restrict music streaming companies and other apps from informing their users on Apple devices about how to upgrade or sign up for subscription offers outside of the app. Instead app users can only see sign up options for in-app subscriptions via Apple’s payments system, where prices are likely to be higher because Apple takes a cut. Some app makers, including Spotify, that do not offer in-app purchases because they don’t want to pay this commission. “Some consumers may have paid more because they were unaware they could pay less if they subscribed outside the app,” Vestager said. “This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.” Apple, which says the EU has failed to provide credible evidence of consumer harm, has already pledged to appeal.

Big Number

The fine is far bigger than expected, prompting Apple’s stock to drop 3 percent on Monday. Media reports based on unnamed sources had predicted a penalty of around €500 million. It’s also one of the biggest fines the EU has ever issued against a tech company, ranking below only two Google fines of $5.1 billion and $2.4 billion. Vestager explained in a press conference that the scale of the fine is intended to prevent the company from breaking rules in future. She added that the amount includes a “lump sum” to “achieve deterrence.” $1.9 billion amounts to 0.5 percent of Apple’s global turnover, she said.

Although Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has expressed disapproval of Apple’s business tactics, he’s also something of a reluctant figurehead in Europe’s fight against Apple. The self-described introvert has adopted the role of spokesperson for disgruntled European app developers, who finally feel their complaints about big tech are finally being heard.

On Monday, Ek posted a video on X in which he described Apple as a threat to the open internet. “Apple has decided that they want to close down the internet and make it theirs and they view every single person using an iPhone to be their user, and that they should be able to dictate what that user experience should be,” he said. Ek also claimed Apple also wants to effectively levy a tax on Spotify while exempting its own music service, Apple Music.

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March 4, 2024