Has anyone removed all their music.,,

I have not removed any music but I might as well be giving it away on my website. I have not received a dime from streaming in the last few years, though streams are up. I don't have the money to hire a lawyer to sort it out. The current scenario isnt sustainable for artists.

The odd thing is I used to get an annual check. Since COVID hit, I have not received anything, even though we released our two biggest albums in that time. Something is fishy but unless you are a major label, I think your options are few.

I certainly have clients who’ve removed earlier records as a career move. Insecurity I guess?

My view,
Streaming is not sustainable for indie artist's  and it's the same as it ever was of whoever controls distribution, controls the revenue stream for Their sustainability (which is usually not the artist.)

In the old days labels controlled distribution, so you had to get a record deal to get distributed, few got that, and the many to most who did got a less than fair deal since they didn't have the distribution leverage (and marketing budgets etc.)

In the next stage as years passed, culture and media moved to CD's and digital downloads through 3rd party sites that offered indie artists self distribution through their platform for roughly a 8-10% cut or something similar, meant motivated and talented indie artists could cut out a decent to modest living selling CD's at shows and downloads online putting in allot of hours doing their own writing/recording, booking, performing and marketing etc essentially being both the artist and their own label with self distribution. With exceptions to every rule the bread and butter for most during this time were CD sales at shows, so product and touring often enough were important.

As time and culture moved on to streaming, and labels by then had gone through their own evolution of downsizing, closing or merging with other labels to survive, some of those survivors made deals or then merged with streaming co's and platforms reclaiming distribution and controlling the money, And as the Who would say,.. meet the new boss,..same as the old boss.

While there are exceptions to every rule, the constant remained of whoever controls distribution controls the money and their sustainability.

Since Streaming services aren't sustainable for operations to the vast majority of indie artists, I think their only way to financially sustain their work through their own art is to control distribution, offering product that is quality, unique and exclusive to a base that is hopefully already built and growing by going direct to consumer. That means allot of work and more than being the artist but also your own label since you also have to do the marketing and distribution work.

But sustainability through streaming platforms for 99.9% in my view is not an option. My thought is place a sampler only of your music on the streaming sites that gives you presence on their platform without giving away your product content essentially for free and either a link or google search from their site leads the consumer back to your web site for direct marketing and distribution of your unique and exclusive content to your base directly, instead of trying to market and sell your art for less than pennies on the dollar through a streaming site which doesn't really pay at all if sustainability through your art is your goal.

My 2 cents,

I'd agree Mike - but also add that whoever controls the Masters is who is making the $$.  Streaming services are paying out unimaginable amounts every hour, but it's all going to the record companies who own the masters.  And they are doing what they always do.  . Owning your own masters is where it's at.

Mike says, “My thought is place a sampler only of your music on the streaming sites that gives you presence on their platform without giving away your product content essentially for free and either a link or google search from their site leads the consumer back to your web site for direct marketing and distribution of your unique and exclusive content to your base directly, instead of trying to market and sell your art for less than pennies on the dollar through a streaming site which doesn't really pay at all if sustainability through your art is your goal.“


This could make sense if your website offering is in non-streaming formats, like vinyl, CDs or cassette.
Ironically, my personal listening is moving more and more to Apple Music and the radio. With Shazam, if I hear a song on terrestrial radio that I like, I can add it to a playlist with two clicks. Plus Nashville has some fantastic radio stations. Coming from a really bland radio market, turning the dial here is heavenly.

I love discovering new music, and will happily buy a record I really dig. But I gotta hear it first. I’m not plopping down $20 or more based on a sampler. And if I can’t listen to it, I’ll generally move on, unless the album came highly recommended. There’s just so much good music out there.

Oh, you’re def right about that, as well.

Yeah that’s the problem with streaming; someone who likes it will stream it, but they really have to Absolutely LOVE IT to buy it.
I remember in the early days of ITunes streaming there were a couple of things I bought because that was the only way to get them but most of the time it just pissed me off. The other thing was if you had to buy it I knew people who would just buy the song when if they could stream they would add the album.

Spotify has Instagram promotion cornered as far as I can tell. Soundcloud will link there, but not once has a client track been at Soundcloud. I'm not on FB so no idea what music shitshow that is.

I posted the question to see if anyone had problems actually getting all the music off the varying sites that its on...

I go through distrokid and it goes out to a shitload of places...... was wondering how long it took, and how successful it was...


The reasons....

I will do a larger post on this, but basically I am redoing all of my previous releases and want to remove the old stuff and put up the new stuff... and work out where its best to put it...

Which will be another question later....

cheers

Wiz