Embrace One & the Tyrannized Music Industry

Before I switched to full time composing, teaching and performing, I was a well established Electronic Dance Music producer under the alias Embrace One. My vision was to incorporate elements of music theory and classical orchestration into Electronic Dance Music, transcending it to new heights.

After eight or so years of producing EDM, which I was fond of from the age of 14, I was forced to remove myself from the industry, as there was no real place for niche artistry of my type.

Before my retire, I created three pieces in my catalog which, in my own eyes, were of great technical and musical worth. These pieces; Altitude (VIP), Flight and Gravity, all featuring Shaz Sparks, have remained close to me throughout my musical career since.

All three of these pieces charted high on the Beatport Genre Charts; with my single Flight reaching #3 on the relevant top 100 genre category. Embrace One was listed alongside household names like Skrillex and Knife Party.

Altitude (VIP Mix) on the Beatport top 10 Dubstep Charts - December 2015

Digital Downloads and Charting Positions

My charting positions were determined by digital downloads (sales) of my tracks. Some platforms' charting systems are based on analytics such as total plays, but the Beatport charts only consider digital downloads as a factor.

Both scenarios create several problems:

• Social hype plays a larger role in charting positions than musical merit.
• Artists and labels can pay third parties to purchase or play their music in order to improve their position.
• Charts update constantly, and activity needs to remain consistently high in order to retain positions: This kind of traction is only realistic for the top 1% of artists and labels.

The result is a false sense of worth around a controlled selection of largely undeserving music.

Regardless, one might expect that charting as high as #3 on an internationally regarded charting system would yield a decent return. Unfortunately my hopes in this regard were not realized. After Flight's charting, I was permitted to under $200 in revenue for myself; of which Beatport had taken a considerable portion; and after which High Intensity Records, the record label I was signed to at the time, had left me with a generous 60% of the customary artist / label split - a large portion compared to what most labels offer their artists.

Streaming Subscriptions

The digital downloads is not the only industry revenue stream which is seriously disproportionate. As you are potentially listening to my music on the embedded SoundCloud links right now, I am earning nothing as a result.

Although SoundCloud does not pay artists who do not apply to monetize their tracks; most streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music pay all of their artists per play.

The pay-out on popular streaming platforms like Spotify usually ranges from US$0.004 - US$0.007 per play.

Source

Apart from the immediate and obvious fact that this is a strikingly low payout, requiring artists to obtain roughly 180 plays before receiving a single dollar of income pre artist / label split; more total plays on these platforms at the end of each quarter result in less money paid per play. Ultimately as time passes, smaller artists exponentially suffer as the gap between them and larger artists grows as a result - their 1000 plays becoming ever smaller in the vast expanse of total plays on the platform. 

The top 75 000 artists of over 2 million on Spotify, account for 90% of total play revenue.

Source

Furthermore, sites like YouTube, Amazon Cloud and SoundCloud (when monetized), as well as Spotify's free ad-tier, can pay as little as $0.0001 per play. Under this model, artists need to obtain 10 000 plays in order to obtain a single dollar - an unrealistic figure for most niche players.

Source

Gaining Exposure: Festivals & Music Channels

Apart from the money, I was at least expecting to gain some kind of social legitimacy which would encourage international festival hosts like Ultra Music Festival and Electric Daisy Carnival to book me. This however was not the case. Club hosts were focused on booking acts which would draw an audience to their venues, regardless of the level of their actual performance or how well they had done in charting systems. The artists they were interested in were the artists with millions of fans on social media - which, by the way, can also be purchased online with ease.

Alright, so what about large YouTube channels which promote various genre categories? Surely UKF Dubstep or MrSuicideSheep would consider posting some of my music after multiple chartings, right? My manager, Colton Gamby, sent through my new and ultimately final production Gravity to both household channels as well as several others. MrSuicideSheep responded saying that they 'loved my work, but felt that it just wouldn't appeal to their fan-base'. I was astounded that the quality of my music did not influence their selection process, and I ultimately became disheartened to continue.

Fortunately, along the way I was able to receive support from, among others, a well known gaming channel FaZe Clan, who used two of my works in their Call of Duty compilation videos, as well as ENM who promoted my original Altitude release with Shaz Sparks. Unfortunately, I did not receive a cent in remuneration for the YouTube revenue of these videos: It just isn't customary for artists to receive fair compensation for the synchronization of their music on YouTube. I could have refused to allow them to use my music, but I would have sacrificed ample exposure as a result.

The Reality

The music industry is being throttled by large record labels, DSPs, artists, channels and federations who claim to have the industry and all of its artists' best interests at heart. The reality however, is that they only have their own interests in mind. Are consumers really determining which music channels like MrSuicideSheep upload, and which artists Ultra Music Festival are booking for their sets; or have these parties and countless others just adhered to a generic standard in order to play it safe in an industry dominated by hit singles and one hit wonders?

Countless artists under similar circumstances to my own have been forced to find other means to secure a reasonable income and stable career: They cannot thrive due to the top 1% who have unwavering command of the industry.

The system in place is designed to benefit those in control. Unless the system is drastically altered to promote fairness, the music industry will continue to disregard true artistry and reward those who value monetary gain over global music development and innovation.

I would like to leave you with two direct quotations from a Universal Music Group representative whom I have personally engaged with:

"We want to make money for the artist, it's that simple".

"Every track we've spent time and money getting vocals on stood on it's own as a hit record without vocals."

My question to you is this: What is a hit record? And more importantly; who truly has the right to determine what constitutes one?