If there’s one thing Spotify Wrapped has taught us, it’s that we all spent a fuck-load of time listening to music on the streaming service. So wouldn’t it be nice to give a little extra mullah to those artists we listened to so much?
Well, the folks from Hype Machine have created a new program called Merch Table, that makes giving money to artists a little easier.
Basically the program lets you copy and paste the URL from one of your Spotify playlists, and then shows you which of those tracks you can buy through Bandcamp.
The reason this is such good news is because Bandcamp is an amazing platform for smaller artists and labels to earn money from their music. Artists can sell anything from music, merch to gig tickets.
When you buy anything off Bandcamp 80-85% of your money goes directly to the artist. The rest goes to payment processor fees and Bandcamp’s revenue share.
The program is a great way to still use Spotify, but also give back to some local artists who have been hard hit during the pandemic. For me, this is great, because I can still use Spotify and its algorithms to discover new artists, and then if I really like them I’ll pay for their music on Bandcamp. Because let’s face it, artists hardly get any money per stream.
Artists are only getting paid around $0.004 to $0.007 per stream, according to Business Insider. That means you’d have to be hitting about 632,656 Spotify streams per month to hit the pre-corona JobSeeker wage of $500 a fortnight.
A recent campaign launched by the Union of Musicians and Allied workers demanded that Spotify pay artists at least one cent per stream. It currently has 25,191 artist signatures.
Disappointingly it looks like Spotify won’t be changing its pricing structure anytime soon, as their CEO Daniel Ek made some controversial comments regarding how much artists are paid earlier this year.
“You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists today that are making it realise that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans,” he said.
Merch Table can be found here.
