Independent artists and music beyond English: this is how Spotify worked in 2023

The year 2023 was the first since the founding of Spotify (2006) in which independent artists represented approximately half of what the industry generated through this platform, the music service announced this Tuesday. ‘streaming’ in its annual Loud & Clear report.

The total billing volume last year was US$9 billion, of which about half went to creators not signed by large companies: “It is the highest amount in history that independents have generated from a single merchant in a year”they expressed from Spotify.

Loud & Clear 2024, which provides economic data and trends in the music market and the ‘streaming’ Globally, it also found that half of the artists who generated at least ten thousand dollars last year came from countries where English is not the first language.

Spanish, German, Portuguese, French and Korean led the rankings for performance in languages ​​other than English, while Hindi, Indonesian, Punjabi, Tamil and Greek saw significant increases last year, according to statistics from Spotify.

“The fact that streaming has lowered barriers to entry is old news, but the impact on artists’ livelihoods and the global diversity of that impact is becoming clearer.”is explained in the statement released this Tuesday.

“Unknown” millionaires without a global hit

All in a year in which Spotify established its historical record for payments to artists with a disbursement of US$ 9,000 million in royalties, which represents one sixth of the total spending on this concept since the platform was born.

In addition, the company reported that the number of creators who bill one million dollars, one hundred thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars annually has “almost tripled” since 2017, achieving “promote artists in all their stages.”

The platform placed special emphasis on the group of those who generated one million dollars annually, because the 80% from them “They are not well-known names” nor did they have a song that reached the Global Top 50 thanks to “The tastes of the fans are more diverse and the royalty fund is getting bigger.”

On the other hand, almost half of the artists who pocketed more than ten thousand dollars in 2017 are now generating more than fifty thousand, according to Loud & Clear 2024.

“When earnings from other services are taken into account (…) these artists are likely to generate four times more revenue from recorded music sources overall, plus additional revenue from concert tickets and merchandising”Spotify detailed.

Streaming, “opportunity” for emerging artists

The giant of ‘streaming’ They also reported that last year they worked with 225,000 artists “emerging” who see a potential livelihood in Spotify and “chance” for their professional careers within a sector where many try to make their way.

In fact, according to the aforementioned report, more than ten million artists had at least one single on the platform in 2023 and around eight million had less than ten songs in their total repertoire.

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