A MODERN SONG MACHINE

The rise of Spotify is in many ways the rise of the music industry as a mechanised tool that can produce hits and music in assembly line fashion. Has the creative flair and the emotion of this genre been lost in the process? Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine–Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist provides many of the answers.

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According to royaltyexchange.com: "Daniel Ek (founder and CEO) has made more money from Spotify in the past year than any artist. Artists like Taylor Swift, Drake, and Ed Sheeran rake up billions of streams, but Ek's earnings far surpass those figures. Royalty accountant Hunter Giles explained that Ek had made $345 million since July 2023 from selling shares. That is hypothetically the equivalent of 115 billion streams, which would make him the world's most-streamed "artist" if he were an artist. Co-founder of Spotify, Martin Lorentzon, follows him with $166.8 million, which is equivalent to 55.6 billion streams, hypothetically catapulting him to the ninth most-streamed artist on Spotify. Alex Norström, Spotify's Co-President, ranks 185th with an estimated value of $26.4 million, with 8.8 billion streams."