"The brainwashing has worked": James Blake slams streaming platforms for devaluing music
"Musicians should be able to generate income via their music. Do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?"
James Blake has shared his thoughts on the monetisation of music on streaming platforms, claiming the current climate has led consumers to think "music is free."
The British producer responded to a post on Twitter yesterday (March 3), that quoted him discussing how he and Frank Ocean "never made a cent" from the viral success of their track 'Godspeed' on TikTok — due to the track being listed as "original sound" in the majority of clips.
"It’s worth noting this is just an example I used in a post talking about the wider effect of TikTok on music," his repost reads. "Just seeing this part makes it seem navel-gazing but I’m speaking on a thing that’s affecting artists all over the world."
Blake then posted another Tweet, expanding the subject to discuss how the current streaming industry has created a climate of consumers not valuing music as a product: "Something I keep seeing is ‘if you’re lucky enough to go viral, just use the exposure to generate income some other way’. Musicians should be able to generate income via their music. Do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?"
Read this next: "Terrifying" figures show how many streams an artist needs to earn minimum wage
"If we want quality music somebody is gonna have to pay for it," Blake adds. "Streaming services don’t pay properly, labels want a bigger cut than ever and just sit and wait for you to go viral, TikTok doesn’t pay properly, and touring is getting prohibitively expensive for most artists."
“The brainwashing worked and now people think music is free” he adds in another Tweet.
"And by the way, since it’s cheaper to produce fast, synthetic music to drop on streaming every week to capitalize on the strengths of the model, watch how the model is preparing you for AI generated music that pays musicians nothing at all."
Read this next: Spotify will reportedly start paying less royalties to less popular artists
Since his posts, many other artists have spoken out in support of Blake such as JME, CamelPhat, Tyler, The Creator and Kanye West.
James Blake has since combined his full statement in a video you can watch below.
Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Multimedia Editor, follow her on Twitter
