Two days ago on Twitter, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow was talking about Spotify’s paltry royalty rates, claiming that it was basically impossible for artists to make any money from the streaming service. In the process, he asked his fellow artists a rhetorical question about their experience with the company:
Ok quick question for musicians
How many of you have personally made more than £500 from @Spotify— Geoff Barrow (@jetfury) December 27, 2017
And as Paste reports, Car Seat Headrest frontman Will Toledo chimed in, claiming that he actually had made money from Spotify in the last few years — enough to, at least theoretically, support him. Here’s what he wrote in a string of tweets:
Since 2013 I’ve made almost $30k from spotify streams of non-matador albums https://t.co/QvZIUjD4EG
— car seat headrest (@carseatheadrest) December 28, 2017
I use Distrokid. Income from those streams (again, not even counting my two most recent albums) would be enough to support me month to month
— car seat headrest (@carseatheadrest) December 28, 2017
Not trying to brag, I just want some transparency. I see a lot of voices of authority disparaging streaming services as a source of income, and as someone who actually came up using them, it always seemed much better than relying on album sales.
— car seat headrest (@carseatheadrest) December 28, 2017
Toledo’s experience is certainly atypical; he self-released a whole lot of lo-fi solo music before signing with Matador. Still, it’s nice to know that someone, somewhere, is getting paid for music.
This post originally appeared on Stereogum.