Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/19/swedish-composer-johan-rohr-becomes-spotifys-most-famous-musician-youve-never-heard-of

by danols • 2 years ago

110 87 2 years ago

theguardian.com

iamsanteri2• 2 years ago

Yeah, nothing fishy here at all. Why pay tribute to other artists if you can make a deal with one and promote him on all the playlist to pocket back your money. Just give him the machinery and funding to create all of it and voila!

petesergeant2• 2 years ago

Is there the suggestion that he’s getting a sweetheart deal there? I missed it if so

tolerantgravity• 2 years ago

No, this is just an evidence-free speculative conspiracy theory that is now my new head-canon

l33tman3• 2 years ago

You can apparently trade off 3/4 of your royaltys for a higher placement on the coveted Spotify-owned playlists of different types of ambient music, childrens songs etc. According to the article. But stuff like that is not very transparent I guess..

jjallen• 2 years ago

How is Spotify “pocketing back the money”?

iamacyborg2• 2 years ago

Smaller revenue share with these SEO artists.

wafflemaker• 2 years ago

Just a guess but maybe not all deals between Spotify and artists are the same (% royalties paid)? If that was the case and Spotify music picking algorithms chose artists with lower % royalty, Spotify would save money.

iamsanteri2• 2 years ago

To answer your question, they pocket it back by paying it to themselves. The artist is only formally an external ”artist”, but in this case he’s essentially one of their own. They curate him, let him on all the most promoted playlists and keep an appearance as if they’re paying it to some artist just like they do to anyone else. That artist gets all this firepower by agreeing to keep less of the cut while paying more of it back to Spotify in some other ways and it is all kept under the radar. That’s what I suppose.

vasco• 2 years ago

Why wouldn't Spotify just do it themselves then? As they are doing: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/14/spotify-confirms-test-of-p...

spiderice• 2 years ago

A “secret” composer who has released music under hundreds of different names has been identified as Sweden’s most-listened-to artist on Spotify – pulling in more plays than Britney Spears or Abba.

Wow.. this is sketchy as hell.

resolutebat2• 2 years ago

He's basically SEOing Spotify. Search for "peaceful piano" or whatever, and you'll likely find the guy's tracks.

At home, whenever we eat X, we have a habit of asking Spotify to play X. We've made some great discoveries this way (Cornflakes 3D is an Israeli psytrance group, while The Dumplings is a Czech indie band), but these days almost all the searches have been hijacked by "playlist called Italian Restaurant Music" etc.

sdfhbdf• 2 years ago

The Dumplings is a polish band :)

MrJohz• 2 years ago

At home, whenever we eat X, we have a habit of asking Spotify to play X.

I love this idea! It's a shame it doesn't work so well any more, but I love finding new ways to find music that you'd just never listen to normally. It reminds me of the guy who made it is mission to listen to every album that was made in 2016 specifically, and now has hundreds of albums with so much variety, just by picking some specific theme and going wild with it.

notnaut• 2 years ago

You sound like a fun parent/partner.

hobs• 2 years ago

The only thing that's sketchy is Spotify directing everyone to the same content, making stuff that appeals to the audience isn't against the rules.

TylerE2• 2 years ago

He seems to be essentially releasing content PURELY to make the algorithms light up, though, not out of any sort of "honest" artistic intention.

Like all those "$bandname for kids" releases that are just midis played through xylophone, marimba patches, or occasionally strings. Credited to legitimate sounding "artists" like the "Vitamin Quartet".

edu3• 2 years ago

Agree. Actually I’m feed quite feed up with Spotify, and this week decided to get a proper HiRes audio and buy music from places like BandCamp or the CD edition and ripping it.

I miss curating my collection and playlists. It seems that the convenience of having almost all music available in a couple of clicks is making the listening experience less valuable.

jamesblonde• 2 years ago

I would assume this is part of Spotify's business model. If 10% of the music played is from their "preferred" artists, who get say 5% of the commission that Brittney Spears gets, they make more money. Right? That the guy is based in Stockholm is even more evidence this is the case.

They don't need to collude to do this - if Spotify and the guy follow self-interest, you get this outcome.

Beldin2• 2 years ago

I am more bothered by the part with having over 650 different artist names that hide their link to each other (unlike Prince/TAFKAP, Kanye/Ye, etc).

I mean: your gripe is basically Spotify's entire raison d'etre. On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason to hide your true identity to such an extent, except to be able to act as your own competition.

That is, I think this person knows very well that by using different artist names, he will get Spotify revenue the listeners think is going to different artists.

falserum4• 2 years ago

Is that actually sketchy though?

- Each artist has different royalties, some are more expensive than others.

- appearantly people do listen to ”cheaper” artists, in right circumstances

- consumers prefer that cost of subscription would be lower

- I assume scenario in the article saves money for spotify, and in turn allows to remain profitable without increasing subscription prices.

Seems it aligns well with interest of consumers in the long run.

mihalycsaba• 2 years ago

Maybe, this is what people actually want to listen to and the algorithm is just doing what it's supposed to. I see people listening to these no name artists, the most boring unimaginative generic contemporary music. Maybe this guy just really knows what the average listener likes. In my opinion Spotify's algorithm is the best in knowing what I will like and probably will replay, I don't think it would work this well if they were manually directing us towards artists.

nadermx• 2 years ago

What I wonder is if Spotify's algorithm works in such a way that it ranks based on users fully listening and liking most songs, wouldn't he have actually been better off releasing all his music under one name, vs many? Because he is still releasing quite a bit of volume to achieve this

nojs• 2 years ago

Not necessarily, it might be better to stratify by genre (like buying a separate domain for different product verticals), to make the algorithm think each one is super relevant and specific.

chongli• 2 years ago

Exactly. Listeners expect an artist to stay in their lane. A cross-genre artist would be wildly unpopular. Think of a guy releasing both country and hip hop music: he would be disliked by both listeners.

rightbyte2• 2 years ago

It seems to be some sort of common principal component analysis.

E.g.

A likes a. B likes b. B likes c. A maybe likes c.

But with many more nodes. I think they use it for recommendations and subgenre sorting etc.

alexey-salmin2• 2 years ago

How much Röhr, who has worked as a conductor on pop stars’ tours and on TV, has earned from his agreement with Spotify is not known. However, his private company reportedly made 32.7mn kronor (£2.4m) in 2022, when it had a record year.

Doesn't look much

the_other• 2 years ago

Doesn't look much

It’s a life changing amount of money for something like 90% of humanity.

pests2• 2 years ago

Lmao yep.

$2.4mil puts you in the top 2% of Americans.

eberkund• 2 years ago

Try 99.99%

alexey-salmin2• 2 years ago

Well Britney Spears and Abba are not 90% of humanity and he is reportedly listened-to more than them.

This makes me wonder how big musicians make most of their money actually. Live concerts? Selling merchandise? Genuine question. For all I know it's not topping the Spotify.

wasmitnetzen• 2 years ago

Those 32 mSEK is the turnover, not profits. The profits are a mere 27 mSEK.[1] And he runs two more companies[2][3] that made another 21 mSEK.

[1] https://www.allabolag.se/5569664575/j-pipe-productions-ab

[2] https://www.allabolag.se/5566338496/j-pipe-music-ab

[3] https://www.allabolag.se/5593406852/j-pipe-holding-ab

kwhitefoot• 2 years ago

Sounds pretty good, especially when you consider that they only have one employee.

dvh• 2 years ago

Swedish did with music what Japanese did with the cars.

mrtksn2• 2 years ago

Yep, most people never heard of Max Martin - another Swede - but probably listed to his songs so many times.

The Weeknd, Katy Perry, Bon Jovi, Usher, Pink and many more have their hit songs made by this guy. It's amazing, he somehow trained his neural networks to produce global hit songs.

He is doing this straight from 1998 to this day starting with "...Baby One More Time" of Britney Spears. This year he already has 2 songs as #1 on the Billboard HOT 100.

martindbp• 2 years ago

Am I just old to think names like Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys would be bigger names on that list?

adawg4• 2 years ago

Seth everman was my first guess...

publius_0xf3• 2 years ago

Okay, what is it with Swedes min-maxing their way to the top of pop music? How do they do it? Even Pewdiepie is like another case of chasing algorithmic success.

juitpykyk3• 2 years ago

My conspiracy theory is that the weather is so depressing that you stay inside and make music.

Maybe this also explains UK success in music :)

hhmc• 2 years ago

Why is this conspiratorial? It’s simply a theory, no?

Aromasin• 2 years ago

It's also no surprise that Iceland has the highest number of authors per capita!

marginalia_nu• 2 years ago

Probably one of several factors.

It's a pretty well known secret that a large part of why there is a Swedish cottage music industry is the historical ease of welfare fraud, on top of the already generous grants for cultural activities. You could basically get the government to not only pay for your rent, but your studio and equipment as well. Generations of Swedish musicians were living off unemployment checks while getting started. That era has drawn to a close, but there's still significant momentum left in the music industry it spawned.

rightbyte2• 2 years ago

In this case he maybe have insider knowledge of how the algorithm works due to friends inside Spotify?

I would suspect the best SEO consultants have worked at Google or have friends inside.

l33tman3• 2 years ago

In this case it's not pop music, it's instrumental ambient music and childrens tunes.. Very particular set of playlists, Spotify-owned, that if you get into them you're essentially guaranteed millions of streams (as those playlists have tens of millions of followers that I'm sure just have them on repeat often - guilty here as well..)

Aside from the sketchy issue with faking 750 artist names, apparently the music is good and has good artistic intent within the genre.

According to the article, you can do deals where you trade away part of your royalty for a higher placement on those Spotify-owned playlists, which in his case seems to be the right business choice to make by far.

fsloth2• 2 years ago

" faking 750 artist names"

Why would this be problematic? Artist commonly work under one or more pseudonyms. 750 is quite a lot for sure, but is there material difference between that and just a few?

j452• 2 years ago

Pen names aren't sketchy.

If it's focusing on SEO, they could be spreading their platform risk to not be across one or a few accounts.

Although if people feel pop music is authentic they might feel betrayed

amelius• 2 years ago

A/B-testing every single note?

Ma8ee• 2 years ago

We used to have Kommunala Musikskolan, where kids for a relatively low fee could learn to play music. In the year 2000 it had 335 000 pupils (at the time the population of Sweden was less than 9 million people).

systemvoltage• 2 years ago

High IQ

j452• 2 years ago

It's a few formulas not different ones.

choonway• 2 years ago

the publishing under psuedonyms parts sounds a lot like overemployment.

tdudhhu• 2 years ago

I wonder if this is the same for all those fireplace and aquarium movies on streaming services.

non-nil• 2 years ago

Whether you think music streaming in its current form is a net good or bad for humanity, consider not supporting Spotify the company. From the very start, they're nothing but grifters.

Daniel Ek has his background in ads, SEO and related stuff –basically every possible way to make a buck using this newfangled internet thing – including selling virtual clothes for virtual dolls to kids age 9-17.

The teaming up with Martin Lorentzon was never about music, but simply finding an untapped market, a niche in which to apply their particular set of skills of hawking stuff online. They teamed up with the guy behind µTorrent and eventually convinced the major labels to buy into the idea (by getting a cut). The idea that they are on the side the art form, let alone artists, is pure mythogenesis to serve their brand.

Recently, music hasn't been enough to feed the growth. They want to colonize podcasts, an open ecosystem, and have put billions of dollars into investments and deals locking popular podcasts onto their platforms. They now intend to do the same with audio books.

Spotify has from the very start had an incestuous relationship with labels and various middlemen. It was never a fair game, they make special deals whenever it serves their purpose (driving the price down). Everyone involved is guaranteed to make a cut before the artist, and the entire ecosystem is built upon the idea that the less they pay out to the artist, the better their numbers look. Nowadays they don't even pay out anything at all unless you have 1000 streams, which just happens to be about two thirds of the catalogue. Is it in their best interest to keep songs with 500 streams from getting more streams, or not?

Why would they care about money laundering, or legitimate artists having their entire body of work deleted by a middleman because someone maliciously sent a bot their way?[1] The cheaper they can amass content, the better. Hence these backroom deals with what are basically content farms. What the featured article describes is not only sanctioned, it's the entire strategy going forward.

Once generative AI comes further along, what their algorithm will push will continue to be what serves their bottom line, i.e. the cheap stuff. You'll soon see the audio book equivalent of Johan Röhr, churning out thousands of books, narrated in real time by a non-human voice, algorithmically pushing out authentic works from all the lists.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVY7-Ti77UQ

tuwtuwtuwtuw• 2 years ago

It's funny that you mention AI, because your comment reads like generative AI to me - longwinded and with lot of vague claims.

Spotify allows me to listen to music. Why would I care that the CEO previously worked with ads?

And obviously a company like this will try to create deals which are cheap to them, so that they can make more money.. they run a business, so...yes?

justanotherjoe• 2 years ago

you have to remember this is the tactic food industry have understood for decades by selling multiple branda of potato chips masquarading as 'choices' to capture as wide a market as possible. Can you blame a person for doing the same.

djmips• 2 years ago

Muzak - most famous muzakian you've never heard of.

Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of

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