Spotify Loud & Clear sheds light on the music industry with its 2024 report

Spotify shared the 2024 version of its annual “Loud & Clear” report. This report prepared by the popular online music platform contains important information about the “streaming” economy and is an enlightening resource for both artists and music lovers.

Thanks to the report in question, “Who makes money?” or “Who makes how much money?” It is possible to find answers to questions such as. The 10 prominent titles in this year’s Loud & Clear are listed as follows:

overcoming the language barrier

More than half of the artists who earn at least $10,000 in revenue from Spotify are from countries where English is not the first language. Streaming’s lowering of barriers to entry is old news, but its impact on artists’ livelihoods, and the diversity of that impact globally, is becoming increasingly clear. More than half of the 66,000 artists earning at least $10,000 from Spotify alone (and possibly $40,000 across all registered revenue sources) come from countries where English is not the primary language. Artists who may have had difficulty achieving the success they wanted in the past can now reach their audiences more easily. On the other hand, today’s music industry has become a more diverse and accurate reflection of the world we live in. In terms of performance in languages ​​other than English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, French and Korean stood out, while Hindi, Indonesian, Punjabi, Tamil and Greek showed a big increase in 2023.

Record year for independents

In 2023, independent artists generated almost $4.5 billion in revenue on Spotify. This marks the first year that independent artists accounted for nearly half of the entire music industry’s total $9 billion in revenue on Spotify. In 2023, for the first time, the catalogs of self-employed artists and artists affiliated with independent labels represented nearly half of all revenues generated on Spotify, totaling almost $4.5 billion. This is a 4x increase since 2017 and represents the highest revenue independent artists have made in a single year from a single platform or institution.

More income with each level

Since 2017, the number of artists earning at least $1 million, $100 thousand and $10 thousand in income has almost tripled. Spotify royalties support artists’ careers at every stage. In fact, the number of artists earning annual income at every threshold, from $1,000 to $10 million, has nearly tripled since 2017. These figures represent revenue generated on the Spotify platform only. When earnings from other services and recorded revenue streams are taken into account, it is estimated that these artists earn 4 times this revenue in total, including recorded music sources and concert tickets and merchandise.

unexpected millionaires

Most of the artists who earned at least $1 million in revenue from Spotify in 2023 were not household names and did not need a “hit” song to have a successful year. 80 percent of these artists did not have a song that made Spotify’s Global Top 50 chart. In the age of streaming, the charts are not large enough to include all the artists who have achieved success. On the other hand, fans’ tastes are now more diverse and the copyright revenue pool is becoming increasingly larger (more than $9 billion to be exact!). This means more income for a wider range of artists. You might be surprised to see which artists made $1 million on Spotify last year.

Spotify paid artists at record levels

This year, Spotify paid more than $9 billion, the largest annual payment made to the music industry by a single platform or institution. That figure has nearly tripled in the last six years and represents a large portion of the more than $48 billion total Spotify has paid out since its founding. Spotify has been paying out more and more in streaming royalties each year, delivering record revenue and growth to rights holders on behalf of artists and songwriters. The rights holders in question include record companies, publishers, independent distributors, performance rights organizations and professional associations.

Music streaming reaches a new peak

Over the past two years, Spotify has paid $4 billion to publishing rights holders who represent songwriters. Songwriters, through publishing rights holders, are earning record incomes thanks to streaming services. Over the past two years, Spotify has paid almost $4 billion to publishers, performing rights organizations and associations representing songwriters. Publishers, songwriters and their collective management organizations (CMOs) have more than doubled their revenues in the streaming era ($5.5 billion in 2022) compared to the CD/sales era (up from 2 in 2001), according to the Global Music Royalty Value. $.5 billion), meaning they are generating more revenue than ever before.

numbers

As Spotify, we focus on the artists whose livelihood depends most on streaming, that is, the 225 thousand new and professional artists who will debut in 2023. More than 10 million artists who upload content to the platform have at least one song. Approximately 8 million artists have fewer than 10 tracks available on the platform at all times. The total number of streams of all catalogs of more than 5 million artists on the platform is less than 100 times in total. More artists are finding success, and as a result, more are becoming interested in becoming “artists.” Sure, more than 10 million artists have at least one track on Spotify, but when it comes to creating financial opportunities, we focus on the 225,000 artists whose livelihoods are most dependent on streaming, whether they’re early-career breakouts or professionals.

Growth in artists’ careers

Almost half of the artists who earned more than $10,000 on Spotify in 2017 are now making more than $50,000. It is thought that these artists earned over 200 thousand dollars from all registered income sources. Artists’ careers not only start on Spotify, they also grow on Spotify. We are focused on helping emerging artists, as well as professional artists, to create a sustainable model of earning a living from their work, year after year. Four of the five artists who earned at least $10,000 in income in 2017 also earned at least this amount last year. Almost half of the 23,400 artists who earned an income of 10 thousand dollars in 2017 will have an income of more than 50 thousand dollars in 2023. It is generally thought that they earned an income of 200 thousand dollars from all registered income sources.

Streaming opportunity

A radio station plays top 40 hits to its listeners; In a record store, it may be possible to access the music of several thousand artists. In 2023, 50 thousand artists will receive at least 16 thousand 500 dollars from Spotify; It probably generated $65,000 in revenue from all recorded music. Today, streaming has truly transformed the music industry, providing more room for more artists to find success. The overwhelming majority of artists on Spotify wouldn’t be available on music store shelves if the CD era were still around right now. If we could rank all the artists on Spotify according to how much revenue they generate, we would see that even the 50,000th in the ranking earns a minimum of $16,500 in revenue from Spotify alone.