Spotify is saving the record business. There really isn’t much of a debate anymore.
According to our forecasts, Daniel Ek’s company will generate around $5bn this year and pay over $3bn of it back out to music rights-holders.
It will do so by monetizing less than 1% of the world’s population via subscription – leaving an overwhelming expanse of potential growth for its core business.
Yet there are still some choppy waters to navigate for Spotify, which lost the best part of $600m last year.
That’s especially true when it comes to a crucial faction of the music business: songwriters.
There’s one particular area in which, for my mind, Spotify has directly and deeply failed them: the continued non-appearance of any credits for composers on its service.
In the nine years since Spotify launched, we’ve seen a string of stunning technological feats – from its ability to serve pinpoint personalized playlists like Discover Weekly to its industry-changing muscle in handpicking, and then breaking, fresh talent worldwide.
Yet try to ascertain who writes Elton John’s lyrics, or the momentousness of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s contribution to Motown, or the fingerprints of Max Martin on an array of pop smashes… and you’ll fail.
For all of the brilliant things Spotify has – and continues – to bring to the world of music, this, frankly, remains a shabby source of shame.
