🔵 Unpicking Spotify's rumoured AI remixing feature

How this next step might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back

If there is one story I’ve seen swirling more than any other in the last 10 days or so, it is this continued rumour that Spotify, as part of its forthcoming ”Super Premium” tier, will enable subscribers to use AI to remix existing works on the platform and create new content to share on social media. Note my use of the term “content” there, as it feels right to apply a valueless term to what might prove rather valueless output.

So far, I have seen plenty of outrage, most of it directed at distributors like DistroKid who, it is claimed, have updated T&Cs to permit remixing and “derivative works” based on the music you’ve supplied for distribution.

Alongside this are rumours that the majors have also signed on for this arrangement.

With little by way of concrete evidence that this is what Spotify is planning, I felt it might be interesting to unpick the motivations and logic behind this move - if it ever comes to pass.

For Spotify, the strategy seems fairly clear: allowing remixing of songs, possibly using AI to split stems and then mash them up with stems from other songs, provides a whole new level of engagement for its users. It also - in someone’s logic anyway - makes Spotify a great ground zero for social content. Essentially, just a clone of what the AI remix app Hook is already doing, if you want a sense of this all. Think of all those TikTok-branded videos that kept popping up on Instagram. Now imagine that, but with a “Remixed on Spotify” badge instead, appearing on both TikTok and Insta (and indeed any other social platform).

For Spotify then, this would certainly amount to a game-changer of sorts (if we view this through the usual Silicon Valley mindset that values growth and market share above everything, including ethics, anyway).

How about the majors though; does this work for them? This is where I struggle a little with the logic at work from their side. Granted, the likes of Universal tend to take a view that anything is fine provided it is getting paid. However in the context of that, I struggle to see how this feature on Spotify would yield drastically increased income. A little more, certainly, but it is up for debate whether the trade-off here - namely pissing off swathes of artists - warrants that return. Lest we forget, the monies earned from the likes of TikTok are painfully small and certainly no great contributor to any majors’ bottom line, so the social win this provides for Spotify won’t translate across to them.

In that context, it feels harder to believe that the majors would sign off on this.

Of course there is also the issue of artists protesting this entire approach, but let’s come back to that in a moment.

For smaller distributors often representing DIY artists, one would imagine there being a warped logic around this generating yet more income. The likes of DistroKid are volume operators. They hold to the notion that a distributor is in great shape if it can make, say, $1 per year from every track it is representing. It is all about scale, and the more catalogue they have, the better things will be. In that context then, one can see the logic: even if the gains are extremely marginal, it is all additional money in, and therefore warrants doing.

Of course, all of this negates one inconvenient truth, namely that the artists themselves may be none too enamoured with remixes and mashups of their work getting pushed across socials.

Granted, unofficial remixes have been around forever, and generally seemed to exist in a logical space where they were never monetised enough to warrant suing, and so were mostly left to their own devices. There are high profile exceptions of varying types, be that the out-and-out bear-poking insanity of Danger Mouse’s Grey Album (that put Jay Z acapellas over Beatles instrumentals), or things like Frank Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra (which saw the artist singing over, among other things, large samples of Coldplay and The Eagles, among others), but on the whole, this was under-the-counter culture.

By providing this all as a feature to further engage users however, Spotify’s move positively encourages this kind of bootlegging and that, coupled with an ever-growing “this company does not care about artists” narrative that continues apace, may well cause a backlash of a significant nature.

It is actually the major labels’ involvement that I struggle with the most here. Spotify and the DIY distributors I get: that’s simply a money move that couldn’t care less about the art. However Lucian Grainge has made much of how Universal values music as an artform, and this kind of AI remixing approach seems entirely antithetical to that.

One thing I certainly know to be true though: everywhere I look, artists are not impressed by any of this and it feels like another example of the growing divergence in the position of arts and culture, and that of even the companies supposedly there to represent them.

Ultimately, it feels like the Silicon Valley logic is now pervading most corners of the music industry. If - and I should stress that I don’t know it to be true just yet - the majors have signed on for this AI remixing, they are making a grave mistake in further devaluing music to just being “content”, that is, something for users to play with and share among friends, not - crucially - to celebrate the art itself, but to make themselves and their own “creative efforts” the focal point here.

Doubtless much will be made of how this is all good for business, because the music is still monetised on Spotify blah blah blah, but as we already know, the realities are that for each individual artist, the revenues are so microscopic that it won’t amount to a win of any kind for them. At scale? Sure, it will bump income a little bit, so senior execs will cite it as a win and slap each others backs in celebration of yet more money earned, but ultimately this is another scenario where, in a bid to drive up revenues, the core product itself is becoming so devalued that this will ultimately become a zero sum game.

Again, look around and it seems artists are worried by this. Certainly more and more appear to be coming to the “fuck Spotify” conclusion and are just removing their music from it entirely.

I see this as a good thing, but perhaps not for the reasons people might think.

Before we can get to a better place with the state of the music industry, things will have to get quite a lot worse, thereby agitating everyone to embrace new models and find paths that properly compensate artists.

Ergo, if Spotify and rights holders burn their bridges by treating music as little more than content to be remixed and shared on socials, that might not be a bad thing if it takes us one step closer to that end point where artists ultimately decide to use, support or even create platforms that feel more aligned with their view of their art.

Ted Gioia wrote a great piece recently about how we might be entering a new age of romanticism, and I think he has a point here. This quote sums it up for me:

”In the old days, movie villains were mobsters or crime syndicates. Nowadays they are tech innovators. This kind of shift in the popular imagination does not happen by chance.”

Fingers crossed he is right, as that is more grist to the mill that 1) the current state of affairs is increasingly unacceptable, and 2) that a sea change is coming. Do read his article though, as it provides some terrific - and frankly uplifting - food for thought regarding the diminishing value of Big Tech.

Granted, all thoughts about these remix ambitions are based on rumour and speculation for now. Frankly though, it doesn’t feel like a ridiculous concept; Spotify needs new places to go in order to drive up revenues, and even just using the term “AI” to investors seems to cause share prices to spike as we’re in one of those mass delusional states around this tech for now. Considered in those terms, I don’t feel this remixing move is a ridiculous notion to consider.

Quite what that does for artists remains the key question here. I could be wrong, but I suspect this might lead to a watershed moment where musicians have to ask whether these companies are still operating in their interests. I refer you back to that Ted Gioia quote above. Culturally things are already moving against Big Tech, with a pervading sense that these companies are not representing anyone’s interests but their own, and that this is no longer benefitting anybody. On that basis then, all signs point towards a fundamental shift in ideology regarding tech companies - and in the context of that, this remix move might just unwittingly be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

(It might also open a gap in the market for ‘ethical’ distributors who will forbid such interpretations and do more to prevent AI training on works etc etc, but let’s see.)

I remain fascinated to see how the story will develop here. Right now though, it feels like something of a ticking time bomb.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 Listening to “Clear Lake Audiotorium” by De La Soul. Reissued by Tommy Boy, this EP only existed in a 500 run limited edition before now and was worth a fair bit. Comprising some tracks that went on to be on Buhloone Mindstate, the band’s wildly under-appreciated third album, this EP also contains a bunch of tracks not available elsewhere. Essential listening! I love this one so much I even ponied up for the insane gel-filled limited vinyl version.

📺 Watching “Lee Scratch Perry at work” on YouTube. A great little snapshot of Perry at work in his legendary Black Ark studio. Producer nerds like me: keep an eye out for that phaser he uses about halfway through, heheh.

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Notes & followups in dispatches:

• I’m still finding it hard to find time to write Network Notes, so apologies for the reduced output of late. Ironically - in the face of so much doom and gloom about the music industry - Motive Unknown continues to grow, and we’re now past 30 members of staff (I think!) and our client list keeps growing, with the likes of Chase & Status, Ninja Tune, AJ Tracey, Essex Music Publishing, Eli Brown and Freak Slug all joining as clients in the last couple of months. Great for me and Motive Unknown; not so great for finding time to write here. So, thank you for your patience!

• Last week I did a session with Martyn’s 3024 Mentoring Program, which has an intake of various amazing, emerging producers from around the world. It was brilliant to talk marketing and the general state of things, and to try and bring a more optimistic tone to things. Overall though it’s wonderful to see these kinds of programs happening out there, and it all gives me plenty of hope for the future. (Sidenote: also interesting to see just how pervasive the “fuck Spotify” position was among the cohort, most of whom don’t even bother with the platform now). Do check out Martyn’s own Substack though for more from him. He’s a brilliant producer himself, and the 3024 label is chock full of great releases to boot. We need more people like that in the world!

• I put my radio presenting hat back on last week to record a show with my old friend Wrongtom for Soho Radio. The show was a tribute to Roberta Flack, but also taking in Les McCann and Eugene McDaniels along the way. It airs this Saturday at 6pm UK on Soho Radio.

• On that tip: I am also looking for a professional podcast studio (or radio station) to record a new show with Wrongtom. It needs to be either around Soho, or around Liverpool St/Shoreditch if possible. We just need the usual setup: mics and means to play music. Recommendations welcome! Thank you!

• I’m still posting over on Bluesky too, so if you want hot takes on stories as they break etc, follow me over there. 🦋

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