David Byrne believes Spotify is making musicians “uncomfortable”
David Byrne has spoken out against Spotify, saying the platform is making artists feel “uncomfortable”.
The former Talking Heads performer, who removed most of his music catalogue from the streaming service in 2013, claims the publishing of “questionable or controversial content” and “misinformation” is making musicians look for other ways to showcase their music.
He said, "There’s been all these things about platforms having … let’s say questionable or controversial content [and] putting out misinformation or outright lies or … not exactly hate speech, but things that are making a lot of artists uncomfortable.”
“And it’s pretty tough to do anything to help ameliorate that unless you’re a Drake or Taylor Swift, or those kinds of artists. It’s pretty hard for the rest of us to have influence."
He told The Guardian newspaper, "A handful of mega, mega artists are doing really well, and many of the others – especially emerging artists – are having a tough time with it. There was definitely a period where I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be tough for a lot of artists’, especially with Spotify’s ‘freemium’ layer.”
Byrne went on to cite when Taylor Swift withheld one of her albums from Apple Music over their decision to not pay artists, and noted that only a "handful" of stars are "doing really well" out of putting the music on Spotify, which is thought to pay artists an average of $0.004 per stream.
He said, “I watched as Taylor Swift went to Apple and said, ‘You can’t do this; you can’t have a freemium layer that will last forever.’ And she – I mean, bless her heart – she managed to get them to [change their policy]. Which I think was brave for her and good for a lot of the rest of us."
Byrne’s comments come after several artists, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, decided to pull their music from Spotify due to the platform continuing to post controversial material from podcaster Joe Rogan.
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