Read This: Galaxie 500 made 21 cents from Pandora, and other tales from the changing music industry

By Marah Eakin  |  November 15, 2012 | 7:30pm
Aux Features Music
Read This: Galaxie 500 made 21 cents from Pandora, and other tales from the changing music industry

The Internet is full of interesting things to read outside of The A.V. Club—no, really! In our periodic Read This posts, we point you toward interesting or noteworthy pieces that caught our eye.

While a lot of labels and acts are reticent to dish on how much money they actually make, Galaxie 500 and Damon And Naomi’s Damon Krukowski has no such reservations. In a thought-provoking piece Pitchfork posted yesterday, Krukowski detailed just how little he makes from streaming services like Spotify and Pandora—and the actual figures are pretty shocking.

According to Krukowski,

“Galaxie 500's 'Tugboat,' for example, was played 7,800 times on Pandora that quarter, for which its three songwriters were paid a collective total of 21 cents, or seven cents each. Spotify pays better: For the 5,960 times 'Tugboat' was played there, Galaxie 500's songwriters went collectively into triple digits: $1.05 (35 cents each).”

Or, in simpler terms, “it would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one—one—LP sale.”

He goes on to elaborate about sales figures and percentage breakdowns from there, but it’s a great read, especially for anyone who gets all their music solely from streaming services.

 
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