 So according to Spotify, about 0.2% of artists have a chance of making $50,000 a year alone on Spotify. 0.2% of music artists have a chance of making $50,000 on Spotify alone. Now, that's an interesting number. It has a lot of people, you know what I'm saying, pissed off right now, but I want to get into it. So that's what this video is going to be about. Let's break this 0.2% down. It's the network. What's going on? My name is Kory, music marketing co-founder, countryman agency. And today, what I want to get into is this music business worldwide article that I came across. Now, I saw this article because I had a couple of music industry friends going back and forth on Twitter, having a little bit of a debate about the politics of Spotify and the streaming payout and all of that good stuff. Now, of course, I was wondering, where's this coming from? Why is there suddenly a debate? And, you know, what are you guys talking about? Now, I came to find out that this online blog publication called Music Business Worldwide released an article where they talked about Spotify's new Loud & Clear initiative and how they detail that only 0.2% of music artists will make $50,000 a year from Spotify alone. And I thought that was pretty interesting because before this kind of came out, we'd always have to speculate or really just straight up guess what percentage of artists on Spotify are actually making some money or making enough money to even live off of their streams from Spotify alone. And thanks to Spotify's new Loud & Clear initiative, which is just pretty much their way of trying to be transparent with music artists and show people what the numbers look like from their side. We now have a little bit of an insight into those numbers and what they're putting that from. So I want to get into that article for this video. I want to get into that website and show you guys like what they're talking about and what this is coming from in case you've seen the same debate and you're a little bit confused. And I just I just want to open this discussion up. And see what you guys think. But before we get into all that, come and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. Links will be in the description below. Come talk to me, come engage with me, come give me some video ideas, all that good stuff. Also, check out the new Brandman Elite courses. If you have not, the link to that will be in the description below as well. We have reopened it. We are now taking new course members. And you know what I'm saying? If you're trying to learn a little bit more about this market and stuff, then go ahead and check that out. All right. So here's the article, right? Music business worldwide. If you haven't heard of it, really great reputable source to find music business information. Tap into it if you have not because you are already lacking. Cool. Cool. So out the gate, the headline for this is really what's been catching a bunch of people's attention, right? And the headline reads artists have a point two percent chance of generating 50k a year on Spotify. Let's kick that stat around now. I'm not going to read through this whole article. If you want to go check it out, Google it, you know what I'm saying? Go to the website. But I want to touch on a couple of the key points that I thought was pretty interesting and then get into the Spotify loud and clear initiative and some of the data points that they've been reporting that have a lot to do with what pop this article off, right? So yesterday as a March 18th, music business worldwide reported that 13,400 artists generated over $50,000 each in royalty payouts records plus publishing from Spotify in 2020 that 13,400 figure revealed on Spotify's new loud and clear website was nearly double the equivalent number seen in 2017. So they're saying that if you were to extrapolate that data and create a growth trajectory, then it looks like that we can see around 25,000 artists generating $50,000 by 2023 and about 50,000 artists hitting that same milestone by 2026. So within five years as a me making this video and you know, something a lot man, like it doesn't, it doesn't sound crazy, but that seems like a pretty good number to me. Like that number doesn't seem crazy to me because I don't know if I can name, yeah, like, I don't know if I can name like 50 artists right now that's making 50 care year, you know, like net, not gross but net. So they get a little bit more into the article and start talking about all this other stuff that doesn't matter. But the point that music business worldwide is seeking to make or at least I think they're seeking to make is that that number of those projections from Spotify actually isn't crazy when you compare how competitive the music market is with how many people we actually expect to make it and become professional music artists, right? So if we're expecting, what was the number? 50,000 artists to hit 20 to hit 50,000 a year about 2026. I mean, that sounds pretty good to me. You know, like, I don't know if I can name more than 50 artists right now that are making more than 50 care year net, you know, like, I know a couple of artists hitting it gross and I know artists that are like right under it, you know, saying after after gross, but I can't think off the top of my head, you know, how many artists I know that are really hitting 50 care year net, you know, so that number increases to 50,000 within five years. I mean, it sounds pretty dope so far. You know, I know a lot of you. So they get further into it and they talk about how last month Daniel Eck, who is the founder of Spotify revealed that there are now over 8 million creators would work on Spotify platform. So Spotify has pretty much lumped music artists and podcasts into one big category and they've called them creators. You know what I'm saying? I call you guys creators. Now music business worldwide estimates that there are about 7 million music artists on Spotify. So they make up, you know, a majority of the 8 million creator network that Spotify hosts. So if we're looking at, you know, or they're looking at 13,400 artists who made over 50 care year out of 7 million total acts that comes down to the point. 2% of artists on Spotify generating 50 care year, you know, and they're using 50 care year because that's equivalent to the median US wage. So we're looking at 13,400 artists were able to generate, you know, saying a pretty good income, a pretty good wage just off of Spotify streams alone. And please remember this while listening to this. This is just Spotify strings, just Spotify strings. You know, so what I like about this article in the way they broke it down is they compared it to FIFA, right? They compared it to the FIFA League and football and just how many people in the world total play this game and then how many people actually go on to become professional soccer players or professional football players, which, you know, we can equate that to music because music is done by a lot of people. There are a lot of hobbyists, a lot of people who get into music because it's a form of self-expression and it's an artistic thing. And they like it and it looks cool. But, you know, how many of them do we know that actually translates into becoming a professional music artist? It's not a lot, you know what I'm saying? But they equated to FIFA. They equated to football and how many people actually become professional soccer players. So based on a survey that they pulled about 265 million people were playing association level soccer or football around the globe. And that number and that was from a statistic found in 2006. They're estimating that the number had jumped by 23 million over six years between 2006 and 2012. And they're using that same point to further estimate that there's about 320 million people worldwide playing football based off of that statistic and the way that things were going. And they're not talking about hobbyist footballers. They're not talking about people who like, you know, they said right here, we're not talking about kick about in the park footballers. We're talking about people who are recognized by some sort of league as being at least a recognized football player. You know, so 320 million people who are recognized by the sport within itself as being a football player. Now they go down and break it down to according to the 2019 FIFA survey. It's about 130,000 players across 187 countries that actually become professionals. Right. So they break it down in soccer terms. That means that if you care about playing soccer, you care about playing football, you want to become a professional football player. You have about a 0.04% chance of becoming a professional soccer player. You know, comparing that to you have a 0.2 chance of being an artist that generates 50K on Spotify. You know what I'm saying? That's a much bigger number. So it looks like you have a much better chance of becoming a professional music artist through Spotify means alone than you do of becoming a professional soccer player. Right. They break that down to 0.6% of artists end up generating 10K or more a year on Spotify alone. So once again, you have a much higher chance of becoming an artist who makes 10K to 50K off of their Spotify streams alone than you do becoming a professional soccer player, a professional football player. And so what I think is interesting between this example that they've given is, and I think the point that they're trying to make is that nobody bats an eye at football players. Like no one goes like, yo, it's a shame that there aren't so many football players who are being pro. You know, the same way that we tend to see indie artists and hobbyist artists kind of look at the Spotify numbers and go like, oh, that's not fair, you know what I'm saying? Like there should be more artists who are able to live off of this. It's not that there isn't a chance for a lot of artists to make a living off of music. Everyone just isn't going to be able to make a living off of music, you know what I'm saying? But it's like that in any industry that's super competitive, where people can just hop into it without any real limitations, right? Like what does it take to be a music artist in 2021 and moving forward? You need access to some software which isn't super expensive to get. Most of y'all probably steal it anyway, you know what I'm saying? You need access to studio equipment which has become massively affordable compared to studio equipment five, 10, 15, 20 years ago. And then you need access to the internet which is like a $80 a month Xfinity plan, you know what I'm saying? So you have all those things together. You can call yourself a music artist. You can say that you're a music artist and that you're in the game. Now, you may not be doing it at a level to where people may take you seriously, but you can call yourself a music artist, right? Now, they go on to further break down that because of streaming, becoming a music professional artist has become in one sense, a little bit more attainable but then also hyper competitive. Now, I don't know if you guys remember the article that came out. I think it was either last year 2020 or the year before 2019, but it was something along the lines of like, I don't know, like thousands of songs are uploaded to Spotify like every couple of seconds. So like right now as I'm making this video, probably like 2000 songs got uploaded to Spotify just in the last couple of seconds alone. So you compare that to the music market of 10, 15, 20 years ago where it was a lot harder for people to be able to access the means to put their music out. That has now made music, like I said, one much more attainable because the barrier to entry is a lot lower but also a lot harder to achieve because there are much more people competing, not even just for the top spot but just for a chance to be in the game at all, you know? So like there's levels to this. Some people think they're only competing with the top artists but you're realizing like, yo, there's not many people who even get to make it to the point to what they're making 10K a year off of just Spotify alone. Like that in itself is an achievement that most artists don't get to hit. You know what I'm saying? If we talk about just how many total music artists that there are in the world which I don't know if anyone's done a census and taken that number but it's a lot, you know what I'm saying? I'm wondering to bet it's more than the 320 million soccer players, you know what I'm saying? Like there's probably a lot more music artists out there in the entire world, not just the U.S., not just the major markets but just the world overall. They didn't go on to further break down some of the popular milestones that artists like to talk about and just whether it really makes you stand in the general consensus of Spotify, right? So once again going back to the saturation and just how many people are actually putting stuff out. So if you're an artist that hit 1,000 monthly listeners then you are one amongst 1.2 million artists, right? 1.2 million artists are at 1,000 monthly listeners. If you're at 1,000 monthly listeners right now on Spotify you are amongst 1.2 million other artists. If you hit 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify then you are in the top 44,000 artists, right? And we'll get to the loud and clear website and go over it but I did a little bit of mapping before doing this even if you're an artist who's at like a million monthly listeners you're only in the top I think it was like 2,000, 3,000 of artists or something like that. So once again, the main thing out of this is that while that 0.2% doesn't seem like a lot when you compare how competitive or when you think about how competitive it is just to get in music and be able to generate income the fact that they're projecting there to be another couple of tens of thousands to hit that bare minimum benchmark within the next five to six years I think is really dope because if you had told me I don't know five years ago that more than 50,000 artists would be able to generate a living income off of just Spotify because we're not once again we're not accounting for Apple or title or Amazon or merch sales or tourism or something like that just off of Spotify. I would have thought you were crazy because it didn't seem like a thing that was possible but now we know it's possible and we know a lot more artists would get there and get to that milestone. So I personally think is dope. So let's actually get into the Loud and Clear website right. Let's look at it and see what it's about. So if you've been on the rock, if you missed it Loud and Clear is Spotify's website that they designed to be able to bring a lot more clarity over and it says it right here the economics of the music streaming industry. So they say that this site aims to increase transparency by sharing new data on the global streaming economy streaming economy and breaking down the royalty system the players in the process blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this is pretty much Spotify's way of responding to people saying they don't put enough information out there about what's going on behind the scenes and how it's affecting artists. So the part about this that is extremely interesting to me right is if we come down here to the streaming numbers in context and you can go and check this out Loud and Clear by Spotify.com is right here but you can come here and check it out for yourself is you can click on these different dollar amounts and see what the growth has been like for different artists in that in these categories right. So let's look at okay right like how many artists make a thousand dollars a year off of their streaming catalog. So right here they're saying that it's grown by 105% since 2017 and 2017 there were 89,000 artists who made at least $1,000 a year off their streaming catalog on Spotify alone. 2020 there was 184,000 so 184,000 artists made at least $1,000. Now let's take it to a little bit more of a number that I'm sure everybody wants to hit. Let's look at 10K right in 2017 there were 22,000 so almost 23,000 artists that made 10K a year off this Spotify catalog and that number increased to 42,000 by 2020 which resulted in an 80% increase. I think that's crazy you know what I'm saying I think that's really dope. Let's look at 100K the thing that well not even 100K let's go back to 50K you know that's what's popped this off right. So in 2017 the estimated 7,300 artists made 50K a year off their streaming catalog that number jumped up to 13,400 in 2020. So look at 100K right what's 100K looking like? 2017 4,200 artists made 100K off the catalog and that number jumped up to 7,800 so resulting in an 85% increase you see this you see how the numbers start to get slimmer the more it goes up because it's really just showing you like how competitive it is to even get to these numbers. Now let's look at the big dog right like how many artists made an M off their streaming catalog like how feasible is that for artists? So in 2017 there was 450 artists that made a million dollars off their streaming catalog on Spotify alone. By 2020 that number increased by 90% to 870 artists who made an M off of just their streaming catalog. So there's not a lot of artists but once again I don't know if we were able to even quantify something like this a couple of years ago and really be able to say like how many artists are actually making a living wage off of just their Spotify streaming catalog alone. So I think this is dope right because if you look at these projections and if everything stays on the uptrend which it seems like things are only going up that means that in another five years we can expect what maybe about 1,500 2,000 artists making an M off their catalog. That means that we can expect probably what maybe another 5 to 10,000 artists making 100K a year off their catalog. You know we break it down to the 10K section we'll probably see what based off of this another 30 to 50K artists being added to the points where they're making $10,000 a year off their streaming catalog on just Spotify alone. If you compare it to the total amount of artists that there are I actually think that's a lot. You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna be real with y'all like I don't think it's as bad as people is making it out to see. I think the bigger conversation from here is that you know of course we can argue all day that Spotify needs to pay artists a lot more. You know I'm completely on that side I agree but for right now what the industry is like it is what it is and this to me is showing that independent artists and artists who just want to drop music on DSPs have a chance of generating income you know something like generating a serious income it may take them a while to get there they are doing it in a competitive market where there are literally millions and millions of other artists who are competing to make the same amount of money but if this shows you anything this shows you that it's possible. You know what I'm saying? And I said earlier in the video that I don't even know if I know 50 artists off the top of my head that made 50K a year net. You know what I'm saying? Now off of just their streaming catalog maybe combined with some other things that have going on like fan donations, merch you know what I'm saying? Shows before COVID all that stuff but net off of just their streaming catalog it's not as common as you guys would think it is especially when you compare to the sheer amount of music artists that are just releasing music in general. So you know the fact that things are on the uptrend to me screams that the music industry is heading in a point to where more artists would be able to make a living income off of just their streaming catalog. Right? So let's come down here to the track streams and monthly listener estimation they have. Right? This is what I say. I was doing this before the video and seeing like what would put you where in the total grand scheme of Spotify. Right? So let's say that your artists that just hit I don't know we have a client that's about to hit 30,000 monthly listeners. She hit me today. It was hot about it. She's about to hit 30K and probably like in today 30,000 monthly listeners puts her in the top 97,000 artists on Spotify globally. The top 97,000 artists. Right? I have an artist homie really good friend of mine. He's approaching 700,000 monthly listeners. Let's see what that puts him 700,000 monthly listeners puts him in the top 10,000 artists on Spotify globally. 700,000 monthly listeners and he's still competing with 9,999 other people who could possibly be ahead of him. You know, that's crazy in itself. Let's see who's another artist. I was looking at I think Tira Wack earlier. I think she's at like 1.3 million monthly listeners something like that. Let's see what she's at. Right? Tira Wack as dope as she is as far as she is. She's still only in the top 5,000 artists on Spotify globally. I don't want to say that to like I'm not trying to demean it but that's still to show you that she has that high of a monthly listener account. There's probably some of you who would kill to be at 1.3 million monthly listeners and you still have people ahead of you that are doing better than you. You know what I'm saying? There are probably some of you that will be happy to hit 600k like my homie and there's still all these other artists ahead of you. You know what I'm saying? Some of you might be happy to hit 30,000 like our one client is approaching it and there's still thousands and thousands of people ahead of you because of the sheer amount of music artists that are putting music out. And once again, I don't think this article of this website is meant to discourage anyone from chasing music. I honestly think it would do the opposite. Like if I was an artist and I saw that the chances are increasing that me as a music artist can possibly make money off of just streaming alone. If I'm willing to be different and stand out amongst all of the artists that are putting stuff out, play the game the right way, do the stuff that like me and Sean and probably all of the other music industry professions that you guys listen to actually tell you to do, there's a viable income there for you to be a music artist like it's possible. You know, like that's the one thing that I stand by and I stand by with my whole name is that I think that in the future we will see a lot more professional music artists. We will see a lot more music artists who are solely doing music as a living. All they do every day is they wake up, they make music, they make content, they engage their fans, they do a little bit of e-commerce selling their merch and then that's it. That's their job for the day. And I personally am excited for that future because not only do we get to kind of be, you know, saying a part of it and help artists kind of get there, but we get to be early adopters of the mentality that is possible and I think that's what makes a lot of art stand out. Like if you think it can happen, it's possible to happen. If you don't think it could happen, then I mean, you know what I'm saying, you already put yourself out to race, but data like this shows me that it's possible and it can be done. And just for shits and giggles, let's look at something. Let's say that you hit, let's say you hit this in streams, right? Let's say you hit 1.3 million streams on a song. Where does that put you? 1.3 million streams on a song or all time streams will put you in the top 450,000 tracks on Spotify globally. That's nothing to sneeze at. 1.3 million is a lot. Man, I just, I just got, now I'm here. I got to do one more. Let's do 10 million. Let's do 10, 10 M streams, right? 10 M streams. What that leaves you 10 million streams total puts you in the top 78,000 artists on Spotify. So if you're an artist watching this and you have a thousand streams, you have a hundred streams, you have a hundred thousand streams. You still got a long way to go. You know what I'm saying? So don't don't get caught lacking, bro. You got to keep looking up reveling your small victories but realize that you have a long way to go. And once again, I don't say this to discourage any of you. Hopefully the complete opposite. Like hopefully somebody is watching this and going like, yo, that's fine. I can make some money off music. If I do is the right way. Like the future is pretty bright for me. Right. So if we're looking at these projections that music business worldwide is making and Spotify is making. That means that hopefully by 2026, 2030, 2035, even 2040, a lot more of you guys and music artists past you. But we'll be able to make money off of just the music alone. And you know what I'm saying? If you're not with that, if you don't think that's cool, I can't help you. You know what I'm saying? But I at least wanted to share this with you guys. Definitely go and check this out loud and clear dot by Spotify dot com really dope site. Definitely check that out. I would implore you implore you to come on here and stay really close to these numbers. I'm definitely going to be on this site every couple of months seeing it seeing how Spotify updates it and how they roll out new information and hopefully that can benefit us. And you know, I just want you guys to stay connected to this type of numbers because once again, hopefully this is motivating some of you to keep going because yes, you right now may be in the bottom millionth percentile of music artists. But remember that no matter how up you get, there's a lot more of the people that's right there with you. But the biggest thing that matters is that shit is possible. So I'm actually curious to see what you guys think about this. How do you feel about point two percent of music artists or only point two percent of music artists on Spotify being able to make $50,000 a year or more off that catalog? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you feel like it should be more? You understand how you feel about the Spotify payout? Let me know in the comment section below. Definitely interested in seeing what you guys think about it. Other than that, if you feel like you're learning anything today, please like and share this video. Hit those post notifications as well as I wouldn't want you guys to miss anything. Once again, my name is Kory and I'll see y'all next time.