If you've ever used Spotify, you'll know that typing 'new music' into the search bar will yield a selection of curated mainstream newness from the likes of Lady Gaga, Ella Eyre, Jake Bugg and Stormzy, (and New Music Friday UK is always a good playlist shout here) but what if you're looking for something a bit different? That's where we come in. And the platform is always trying to offer something new, whether it be artist-led algorithms to better personalise your music recommendations, listing virtual events in lieu of real ones or giving Spotify account-holders a chance to 'tip' acts while listening – acts who are clearly losing gig revenue right now. Spotify isn't our reigning champion when it comes to value, variety and audio quality, but its popularity and accessibility is undeniable.
That’s no different from the old days of albums sales when a hit record usually had a lot of different totals attached to it ( Michael Jackson and The Beatles are just a couple of examples). For instance, Ed Sheeran is at 9.084 billion, Justin Bieber is just behind at 8.69 billion and Kendrick Lamar is at 4.589 billion streams just on Spotify.Īlthough there are a number of companies that provide streaming data, as does both Spotify and Apple Music, there are enough variables that no one ever seems to be sure what the real numbers are. Given that it doesn’t cost a subscriber anything to check a track out, it’s easy enough for a popular artist to receive a lot of streams against his or her total catalog.
One of the reasons why Drake has a lot of streams (besides the fact that he’s so popular) is the fact that he’s very prolific, with 168 songs available for streaming that all play into the total stream count. Just how much has Drake earned? Music Business Worldwide used an average figure of $0.005 per stream (it’s likely higher than that since Apple Music pays an average of $0.00735 while Spotify pays $0.00437), which means that the rapper has brought in around $115 million just from these two services alone! Thanks to the ever increasing number of subscribers on both platforms, the rapper has total more than 23 billion streams that has generated more than $100 million so far. You may recall that Drake smashed all the streaming records on both Spotify and Apple Music recently during the release of his latest album Scorpion. Who says that streaming doesn’t pay? Yes, it only pays a fraction of a cent per stream, but those fractions really add up, especially when streams are in the billions for an artist like Drake. Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0