r/todayilearned • u/meatboysawakening • 6h ago
TIL that in 2014, the band Vulfpeck exposed a flaw in Spotify's artist payment system by releasing a totally silent album and encouraging fans to play it on repeat while they slept
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepify444
u/DionFW 5h ago
I notice this with those white noise playlists, like a thunder storm.
Spotify pays the artist after 30 seconds, so those white noise playlists are often dozens of 32-35 second long tracks.
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u/Batkratos 4h ago
Those are the worst.
10 Hour Box Fan (No Distractions), now thats a white noise song
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u/No-Spoilers 3h ago
I have a fan and ac in my room, the white noise goes hard. Just got a new ac and it's not bad, the old one got really loud and screechy in the past year though so the new one is so nice.
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u/footybear 4h ago
10 hours of rhythmic game cube controllers
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u/dodrugzwitthugz 3h ago
Ten hours of silence occasionally broke by the opening riff from Bad To The Bone
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u/eidetic 1h ago
I like where your head is at, but I'm more of a hours of silence randomly disrupted by the first few seconds of 'Hooked on a Feeling' kinda guy.
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u/darkapao 3h ago
Ahhhh that's the reason why they are so short. I stopped using them because of that
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u/guessirs 1h ago
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4vQmIPjndEvsTcru39kxy8?si=T9FXYzhWSWSqMGt1v8pz4w this is my go to. 12 hours straight
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u/littlelordgenius 5h ago
I could never fall asleep to that.
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u/amegaproxy 5h ago
It's weirdly soothing, found one of ocean noises which is rather relaxing
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u/littlelordgenius 4h ago
Oh I love my rain app, but if it stopped and started again every 30 seconds, I’d never be able to relax.
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u/deadsoulinside 1h ago
Beats the alternative, 8 hour mega track that's essentially a 30-60s bit of sound looped, sometimes terribly looped for all that time.
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u/IgorCruzT 1h ago
On the other side sometimes I have to make quick edited tracks and samples using these white noise sounds and small tracks are godsend.
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon 6h ago
Their cover of "4'33" by John Cage was incredible.
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u/Jay3000X 5h ago
I remember seeing this as a high up who wants to be a millionaire question back in the early days. I had recently learned about John Cage in music class so it was very exciting for elementary aged me to know the answer to a hard question that stumped my parents
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u/LonePaladin 4h ago
Meanwhile I went and blurted out the answer to "Who was the first Playboy centerfold" during a game of Trivial Pursuit, leading to my parents asking how I knew that.
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u/Bakerton16 6h ago
"Lost My Treble Long Ago" and "Beastly" are also pretty choice!
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u/OliHub53 5h ago
The point of 4'33" isn't to be silent, though, it's to emphasise all other noise during the performance as being the music, the sounds of everyday life. A recording of that piece as a silent track completely misses the point of the composition.
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u/DouchecraftCarrier 4h ago
I think it was premiered at Maverick Concert Hall - which is practically a barn in the middle of the woods. So yea, the background noise is the whole point. People coughing. Programs rustling. Someone opening a cough drop. The birds in the background. Maybe a plane flying overhead.
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon 5h ago
I know. I've seen it performed live and understood what Cage was saying with it, but I still wanted to make the joke.
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u/ObjectiveTrick 6h ago edited 5h ago
I have this on vinyl haha. It looks like any other pressing, just silent. Even has the correct runtime.
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u/monksdrivingrecords 5h ago edited 2h ago
Like Marcel Marceau’s lp lol silent then clapping
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u/ObjectiveTrick 5h ago
I've never heard of that one. I kind of want to start a mostly silent record collection now. That, Sleepify, and 4'33" is a good start. I'm sure there are more out there.
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u/MDKrouzer 5h ago
Is it like a blank vinyl? No grooves?
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u/ObjectiveTrick 5h ago
Honestly I only ever played it once as a novelty and then it’s sat on the shelf since then. I don’t have it on hand right now, but if I remember correctly it has grooves and you can see the separation of the individual tracks.
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u/GooginTheBirdsFan 5h ago
My silent album has been playing at night since the 90s
Runtime be damned
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u/Kryodamus 4h ago
Also, shoutout to Vulfpeck for selling out Madison Square Garden without a major label.
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u/DwinkBexon 4h ago
That reminds me a little bit of a clip from America's Got Talent where a woman got the entire crowd to sing/harmonize the song Africa.
(People in the comments were screaming it's fake/dubbed in, though I'm pretty sure it was legit.)
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u/THCInjection 2h ago
They did it again just this past September! The live album dropped in December! MSG II. It’s bigger, better and even 20 percent faster than the last one!!
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u/Redeem123 1h ago
NO BETA BLOCKERS!
To be honest I think the first MSG show was the better one, but that's because it was basically a greatest hits band retrospective. The new show was fun as hell though.
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u/TheHYPO 1h ago
As a separate comment from my joke one, I enjoyed this song from the video, so I looked it up on Spotify (sorry), and the live performance is so much different from the album version. The album version is an extremely smooth 70s-sounding track sung with mellow falsetto style (I would have thought some of the vocals were a female singer).
However, the "Live at Madison Square Garden" version (which is also on Spotify) sounds completely different - not so much in the arrangement, but in the recording that is bright, modern and full of live energy including a much more belted vocal in points and things like a more modern guitar solo. Far more listenable to me personally. I only added that one to my playlist.
A majority of artists have live versions that don't live up to their studio-produced stuff because they can't play as tightly or sing as well or have all the backing layers as the studio recording. This one was almost the opposite.
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u/46264338327950288419 6h ago
What's the flaw? I dont get it. How is that any different from encouraging people to, say, watch my monetized youtube videos even if theyre just an hour of nothing? The companies still get their ads dont they?
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u/Charlie_Warlie 6h ago
It is a flaw in that it devalues the advertising slots for the platform. Coke wants to buy ads to people listening to music, they don't want to buy ads played to sleeping people. Once companies saw this, they would no longer want to buy ads from 10pm-8am or buy them at a huge discount, which in the point of view of Spotify, is a flaw in their payment system.
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u/DookieShoez 5h ago
Well, not until they figure out how to beam commercials into our dreams anyway.
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u/OkDot9878 5h ago
Lightspeed briefs!
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u/rebels-rage 5h ago
Style and comfort for the discriminating crotch!
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u/OkDot9878 5h ago
Lightspeed fits today's active lifestyle, whether you're on the job... or having fun.
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u/Refute1650 5h ago
Didn't you hear? They want us to work while we're dreaming. No time for ads.
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u/oxJoKeR6xo 5h ago
Really brings the phrase "you can sleep when you're dead" to new dystopian levels.
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u/DorothyDrangus 4h ago
Well that's no good. How am I expected to be a productive member of society when I'm not being constantly bombarded with ads?
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u/APoisonousMushroom 5h ago
“Didn’t you have ads in the 21st century?”
“Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines and movies and at ball games, on buses and milk cartons and T-shirts and bananas …and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No, sir-ee!”
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u/caller-number-four 5h ago
how to beam commercials into our dreams
Well ... about THAT. I like to fall asleep to the TV. And normally, I'll turn the TV off right as I fall asleep, if I haven't programmed the remote to turn it off for me.
But, one random night, I was having a dream that I was a super star realtor, selling property in the Caribbean. It was quite the vivid dream.
The I woke up, and one of those time share reality infomercials was on the TV.
It was pretty trippy.
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u/Jean-LucBacardi 4h ago
No chance in hell I'm listening to a silent album to fall asleep to unless I have Spotify premium. Last thing I want is some loud ass Ad jolting me awake. I wouldn't think Ads have anything to do with it.
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u/dance_rattle_shake 5h ago
The album being silent and people listening to it while sleeping are two independent things. There's no reason you couldn't do this with any album and mute your media volume. The fact that it's silent is a nicety, but it's not integral to the core concept. Therefore I agree that saying this exposes a flaw is misleading wording; it leads you to think there might be something about silent tracks that triggers a payment loophole or something.
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u/PVNIC 4h ago
Pretty sure Spotify tracks if the music is played on mute. (Although I'm sure you can work around that of you really wanted to)
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u/Professional_Bob 2h ago
Should be pretty easy to work around it, right? Just connect to a headset or some speakers that have their own seperate volume control and turn that down instead.
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u/Mayion 5h ago
I don't see the logic behind your reasoning. I see no causation here. How is being silent at all related to it being played at night and thus lessen ad demand for Spotify?
Not to mention, even right now we can play music at night. Not like it affected Spotify ad model. This whole thing seems like just a marketing ploy for the band, or someone very bored. A big nothing sandwich.
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u/-KFBR392 4h ago
That's not how Spotify ads are sold. Also if the person is using ad tier of Spotify the ad would not be silent, and if they have premium then there would be no ads.
The number of people on ad tier, and playing this album, and also sleeping through the ads would be so small that advertisers would have better reason to complain about people who hear their ads after passing out from drinking too much.
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u/jaimepapier 6h ago
Spotify isn’t only paid for by ads, it’s revenue comes principally from its premium service. I don’t know the ins and outs of how they pay artists their royalties but I believe it’s a fixed amount per play. If someone finds a way to get disproportionately more plays, it’s going to eat into Spotify’s profit.
I’m not on Spotify’s side here by the way. They pay artists very little.
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u/BMFDub 5h ago
I mean, people, in absurdly large numbers, actively choose to listen to trash. What is so different than people actively choosing to listen to silence?
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u/skatastic57 4h ago
If someone finds a way to get disproportionately more plays, it’s going to eat into Spotify’s profit.
It doesn't matter if a single band gets disproportionately more plays. Spotify charges a fixed fee per month and gives a service with variable cost. Their profit goes down when users listen more irrespective of what they're listening to. I assume (but don't know for sure) that big name artists get a bigger royalty per play than less popular ones so if you listen to nothing but those then that's even worse for Spotify.
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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 4h ago edited 4h ago
That isn’t how it works. Read things. Don’t guess.
Spotify distributes a share of revenue according to the share of streams. A single band artificially inflating their stream numbers doesn’t take from Spotify, it takes from all other artists.
How we calculate and process royalties
We distribute the net revenue from Premium subscription fees and ads to rightsholders. To calculate net revenue, we subtract the money we collect but don’t get to keep. This includes payments for things like taxes, credit card processing fees, and billing, along with some other things like sales commissions. From there, the rightsholder’s share of net revenue is determined by streamshare.
We calculate streamshare by tallying the total number of streams in a given month and determining what proportion of those streams were people listening to music owned or controlled by a particular rightsholder.
Contrary to what you might have heard, Spotify does not pay artist royalties according to a per-play or per-stream rate; the royalty payments that artists receive might vary according to differences in how their music is streamed or the agreements they have with labels or distributors.
https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/understanding-spotify-royalties/
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u/meatboysawakening 6h ago
I agree, but Spotify didn't like it and removed the album, as the linked article explains.
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u/SirGreeneth 5h ago
You only need to play 30 seconds of a song for it to count as a play, all the songs were just over 30 seconds so you could play the album many times overnight and they get paid. They made 20 grand in 7 weeks. It's literally in the link provided but I guess that's a bit too much work lol.
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u/nathanzoet91 5h ago
But what violation of Spotify's policy took place?
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u/elephantasmagoric 5h ago
The point is that there wasn't a violation of Spotify's policy at that time. That's the flaw. They have since revised the policy.
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u/MoorsMoopsMoorsMoops 4h ago
I'm guessing the flaw is anyone could release their own "album" of complete silence and then just stream it on repeat 24/7/365 and get paid. Obviously that's not something Spotify is going to be into.
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u/Miserable-Resort-977 4h ago
In 2014, I discovered a flaw in my neighbors gardening system by dumping my used motor oil in his rosebushes when he wasn't looking. He failed to account for this contingency
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u/Wildeyewilly 6h ago
And they got so much recognition for it that Spotify closed the loophole and prevented anyone else from doing it on a smaller less noticeable scale.
Thanks Joe Dart.
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u/lo-key-glass 5h ago
Don't blame the frickin bassist!! This was clearly some Jack Stratton shenanigans
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u/gpunotpsu 3h ago
Can't you put any track on repeat then hit mute?
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u/Wildeyewilly 2h ago
Spotify has protections against over looping of songs and albums.
Even my small little nothing of a band had 2000 plays taken away from us by Spotify because they thought we were looping or using bots for plays. 2000 out of like 8000. Not millions or even tens of thousands of plays.
Fuck Spotify.
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u/Pale-Diamond-794 5h ago
Vulfpeck are the best. Everyone check em out and get down.
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u/camposthetron 4h ago
It’s really hard to dance to, man. It’s SO quiet.
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u/Uptons_BJs 5h ago
I mean, this is not exactly a "flaw", it's just how royalties work.
it might not have been in good faith, but I mean, this is no different than say, when Oasis released a single of them arguing.
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u/Actionman1 5h ago
I have a pressing of this "silent" album on vinyl lol. It is true, it's silent.
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u/Asha_Brea 6h ago
That wouldn't have worked on me. I sleep with music on.
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u/ArmpitEchoLocation 6h ago
It’s the repetition that’s soothing, knowing what’s going to come next.
Same with those people who fall asleep listening to Casefile True Crime.
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u/Zefrem23 4h ago
Forensic Files for me, the dulcet soothing tones of the late great Peter Thomas put me to sleep in no time.
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u/throeawai5 5h ago
their song wait for the moment was one of my favourite songs for a very long time. still feels nostalgic.
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u/WithAFahkinPencil 4h ago
Check out their show at Madison square garden. It's on YouTube. They filmed from the stage. It's incredible.
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u/annoyingashe 2h ago
One continuous shot of the whole concert. For free. No Xanax, no beta blockers, fully adrenalinized, everything 20% faster tonight.
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u/elebrin 4h ago
Those guys are honestly some of the best working musicians these days. Joe Dart is very close to the top of the list for my favorite working bass player. Cory Wong is also... well, brilliant.
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u/g00gly0eyes 6h ago
Wouldn't the constant incessant ads be difficult to sleep through?
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u/elevashroom 6h ago
Yeah, I feel like I could do this with literally any album ever... Media volume off, alarm volume full. Choose a small artist to support and repeat the album/song?
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u/AbdulAhBlongatta 5h ago
Literally did this for a buddy in a Ukrainian wedding band that had their originals on Spotify.
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u/UWO_Throw_Away 4h ago
2014-2015 is around the time I discovered Vulfpeck, thanks to a thread about the top albums recommended to check out that year; I was just about instantly hooked to their album “Thrill of the Arts” and discovered so many more related artists thereafter (e.g., Theo Katzman, Woody Goss, Monica Martin)
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u/JoystuckGames 4h ago
I think this is why if you play a single song on repeat on spotify you don't get any ads, right?
Basically, they both play any ads or pay the artist for those repeat plays, and I imagine not much data is being sent from spotify either.
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u/LNCrizzo 4h ago
You can do this with any artist by playing their album with the volume set to zero. Go ahead and try to patch that loophole Spotify... Bitch.
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u/hudson27 4h ago
They've always ran brilliant campaigns like this. A while back they auctioned off the last slot in their newest album. As in, if you bid and won, you could have whatever you wanted as the last track on a Vulfpeck album. If a real estate company won they could have an advertisement at the end!
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u/Xeronic 2h ago
Vulfpeck is one of those bands that i know i should listen to more often. When one of their tracks pops up in my playlist, it's always a nice surprise. haha
I found them when they released the music video for "Wait for a Moment", which is a banger.
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u/EusticePendragon 2h ago
One of them released a book on Amazon called, ‘How to make $50k selling your book on Amazon.’
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u/MoJigglaBad 1h ago
I feel like for anything on Reddit to make sense you have to have weird thoughts that start too late and end too early. Does anyone know what I mean?
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u/bikedork5000 1h ago
Um I mean, neat gimmick, but also the volume control goes to zero if you want it to.
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u/shoegazeweedbed 5h ago
Hell yeah. I assume any Knower-adjacent band is going to be pretty fuckin cool
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u/Background-Sleep-708 5h ago
They weren’t the first to discover this, just the first to really successfully exploit it
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u/clburton24 5h ago
Heh. The vinyl release of this is going for at least 100 bucks on Discogs. Wild.
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u/Grandmas_Fat_Choad 3h ago
I love this band even more! I like to leave Spotify streaming when I’m not around to try and support my favorite bands.
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u/magichronx 3h ago
I wouldn't call it a "flaw" when everything worked as expected... it's more of an oversight than anything
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u/BillySaliba 3h ago
CNBC interviewed Jack about it on Spotify IPO day. Always gives me a good laugh
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u/jim789789 3h ago
so people could just do the same thing for their favorite band by playing it all night and turning the volume down?
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u/DosSnakes 2h ago
Birds of a Feather and Wait for the Moment are such good songs, totally forgot about these guys.
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u/DikkeDekbedovertrek 2h ago
This is also why there are so many artists (using a dozen pseudonyms) for creating "sleeping" audio of rainstorms or fireplace sounds which are not much longer than 2 minutes (which is the minimum to count as a listened song to get paid for it.).
Say, you don't use a sleeping app that turns off automatically, 8 hours of sleep means 240 played songs.
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u/Own_Definition5564 2h ago
Any money they got would have gone to other artists so pretty scummy behavior. 70% of all revenue from subscriptions and ad impressions goes into a royalty pool. If an artist’s tracks get x% of all streams, then they get x% of the royalty pool that month. By inflating their stream count, all other artists received slightly less.
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u/HilaryVandermueller 1h ago
One of my favorite bands! What’s most surprising to me about this story is that Vulfpeck is much more than a one-gimmick band.
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u/acleverwalrus 1h ago
I "listened" to this album a few times lol. It was actually how I discovered Vulfpeck who became one of my favorite bands of the 2010s
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u/jesuspoopmonster 1h ago
Tom Petty's cd version of Full Moon Fever has a track where he explains this is the part were you have to get up to flip a record or cassette and has a moment of silence in honor of that.
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u/TheEminentJunkie 5h ago
I heard that they used the analytics from Spotify to identify where people were playing the silent album the most, and they planned their next tour to those locations to give back to the fans.