Björk has offered damning comments on tech giants Spotify and the effects of streaming culture on music and society, in a new interview, where she contrasted her position with younger artists: “I’m lucky because I no longer have to raise money on touring, which younger musicians are often forced to do,” Björk explained “In that respect, Spotify is probably the worst thing that has happened to musicians. The streaming culture has changed an entire society and an entire generation of artists.”
“For the seed to grow into a healthy and vigorous plant, you need privacy,” she said about her approach “You need a few years of no one knowing what you are doing, not even yourself.”
She made the comments promoting her new concert film Apple Music Live: Björk in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (via NME),
She added she is concentrating on “getting out all the ideas I have inside me” and said she was grateful to not have to rush out “20 more albums” due to the nature of streaming.
In 2015, Björk kept her album Vulnicura off streaming initially. “This streaming thing just does not feel right,” she commented then, “To work on something for two or three years and then just, ‘Oh, here it is for free.’ It’s not about the money; it’s about respect… or the craft and the amount of work you put into it.”
A report entitled ‘Ghost in the Machine’ by author Liz Pelly last year, uncovered the Spotify practise of filling playlists with ghost artists to further squeeze royalty payments to artists, the internal directive became, “If the metrics went up, then let’s just keep replacing more and more, because if the user doesn’t notice, then it’s fine.”. She called this a “plot against musicians”.
Meanwhile, CEO Daniel Ek ridiculously stated that “creating content” costs “close to zero” while he is reportedly making more than any artist using his platform. While Taylor Swift, Drake and Ed Sheeran have racked up billions of streams on Spotify, Ek’s earnings far outstrip theirs. According to royalty accountant Hunter Giles, Ek has earned a whopping £275m pounds since July 2023 through the sale of shares, he has a net worth of $7.3 billion dollars according to Forbes.
