Comment by sehansen
2 months ago
During the entirety of the 90's 11883 records sold at least 50 000 units[0]. If we assume $3 royalty each[1] that's ~1200 artists making $150 000 or more in an average year. That's ~$300 000 adjusted for inflation.
In 2024 1450 artists got over $1 000 000 in royalty from Spotify.[2] Additionally 2.3% (~276 000) earned at least $1000 and 100 000 earned at least "almost $6000".
It seems to me that there now is a long tail of artists making a few thousand a year on Spotify that assume they would have sold tens thousands of records each year in the 90s. E.g. the 100 000th most popular artist on Spotify assuming they would have sold as well as the 1200th most popular artist in 1998.
The more likely case is that the top ~10 000 artists would have made less back then than they do now and the rest would have made essentially zero dollars from selling records back in the 90s.
0: https://bestsellingalbums.org/decade/1990-238 1: https://dailybruin.com/1998/09/27/paying-the-price 2: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2025/03/12/spotify-loud-and...
You're not comparing like for like.
The $1m is gross income, pre-royalty slicing. The actual payout to artists on a label will be much lower.
The $3/album is post-royalty at the other end of the telescope, and the actual number varied by territory. The gross income to labels would be much higher.
So the final premise is incorrect. The real winners - the household name bands, artists, and soundtracks - made incredible numbers from their royalty slices which are impossible on Spotify today, especially once labels take their cut.
Drake may be getting lifetime sales of $400m, but a chunk of that goes to UMG for distribution.
Meanwhile there were vital scene subcultures around indie/rave/dance/hiphop where niche artists turned DIY music production, pressing, and distribution into a workable fairly well-paid full-time career. Those numbers mostly weren't logged.
Spotify dilutes the scene effect because everyone is competing with everyone else, globally, so it's harder to get exposure, even in a specific niche.