Working through dad’s estate has made me radically reevaluate Spotify earnings compared to the last 50-60 years of music, particularly when you consider 45-rpm vinyl singles in 1967. Side note: the idea of calling it an “estate” seems, still, rather ridiculous to me as the author of Bell Hammers. But in any case, something stark did appear. Consider this photograph of Woman, woman c/w Don’t Make Promises by The Union Gap (featuring Gary Puckett):

So. I take my issues with it.

But look closer:

But how many streams would it take for your Spotify earnings to hit 87¢?

At least 290 streams.

For one song.

To hit 87¢ — for the average songwriter, it takes a superfan to help you hit that in Spotify earnings. And that’s assuming the album writers of said “proud of native extermination” band got all of the 87¢ — let’s assume the producers got all of the publishing rights and half of the writing. Now you’re down to 25% — that 290 streams turns into 1,000 streams pretty quickly.

All to equal one sale to one person of a 45-RPM vinyl single in 1967.

That was the purchasing power of a single fan back then, but this is America: we want everything for cheap. So we get a little bit of everything and because of that, we have all of nothing. That’s the cost of FOMO and herd instinct and information hoarding.

But Lance, that’s not fair: you haven’t adjusted for inflation.

— a local philosopher

You’re right.

I haven’t been playing fair.

Because when you adjust for inflation, that 87¢ for that 45 rpm cut explodes into $8 in 2022 monies. Sure, you can divide by 2 if you want, half for each song for the double, but at that point we’re talking 10,000 streams per listener to get to the same earning power.

And a full album?

A full album cost $88 — that’s what the Beatles cost that year.

Which, to be comparable, is about what video games used to cost, more or less. So if you’re complaining about microtransactions, subscriptions, and chance-based loot boxes in games, consider this:

Would you rather pay $100 for the game or subscribe for a year?

That’s the same question with Spotify earnings.

Because it’s half a dozen one way, six another if these folks are going to make a living.

You can either want less.

Or you can pay more.

You pick.

But it’s the end consumer in America we have to blame in the end and therefore I blame me: you can’t have everything, Lance. If you want everything, Lance, and try to get a little bit of everything, Lance, you’ll actually end up with nothing in the end, Lance. Want less, create more. That’s always the solution over and over again: play, don’t hoard. Produce, don’t consume. Make, don’t break. Found, don’t manage.

Reminds me of the David Bentley Hart quote:

“Late modern society is principally concerned with purchasing things, in ever greater abundance and variety, and so has to strive to fabricate an ever greater number of desires to gratify, and to abolish as many limits and prohibitions upon desire as it can. Such a society is already implicitly atheist and so must slowly but relentlessly apply itself to the dissolution of transcendent values. It cannot allow ultimate goods to distract us from proximate goods. Our sacred writ is advertising, our piety is shopping, our highest devotion is private choice. God and the soul too often hinder the purely acquisitive longings upon which the market depends, and confront us with values that stand in stark rivalry to the only truly substantial value at the center of the social universe: the price tag.”

—David Bentley Hart

Or perhaps the quote in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov:

“The world says: “You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

One more — it reminds me of the last line of Noah Gundersen’s song Robin Williams:

So I gather my impressions
of the universal sigh
And hope that someone’s listening
to their radio tonight

Though it doesn’t really matter
with so many come before
And who the hell are we fooling,
no one buys records any more

— Noah Gundersen

Perennial reminder that this post was written in Brooklyn, where the Nayack and the Canarsee once resided. I was born and raised in Illinois. It’s in the name, Gary. Make music, not war.

Take good care of each other, folks.

There are two ways to be rich:

1. Gain everything.
2. Need little.

Live like a monk, make like a master.

Don’t be a leviathan.