2023-10-16 08:40:45
No candles, no cake, not even a bouncy castle – JAMAL HACHEM, founder of AFFINE RECORDS, saves money on Spompa needles for his label’s 15th birthday. “There’s nothing to celebrate,” says Vienna’s best-shaven independent label man and says: “There’s an occasion and a reason why I want to talk to you.”
The occasion is 15 years of AFFINE RECORDS. That label that from Dorian Concept above Cid Rim up to Wandl, Zanshin and Araki always publishes the music that makes music editors stuck in their development furtively glance at their Pink Floyd records. The reason is: “We need to talk about music streaming.”
HACHEM may save money on the anniversary with cake and candles, but less with an announcement: “I want to call for a broad exit from the streaming monopoly.” Why? “Because we have been feeding a machine that is eating us all for too long!” Important postscript: “Change is possible if we only want it!”
At this point HACHEM could take a deep breath, blow, make a wish. But he doesn’t. Because there is nothing to blow at the moment. And because a wish has already come true.
HACHEM talks about the streaming economy – what it has to do with bad cards in poker. He talks about the self-inflicted abolition of radio stations like FM4. And about a new collectivism that rejects a failed system and aims to enable a new one.
Let’s talk about a topic: the streaming economy.
Jamal Hachem: Yes, I want to use the 15th anniversary to describe the areas in which this monopolistic streaming dominance is spreading. And what we can do to break them. So for me it’s not just about an inventory or an academic discourse circle, but above all about solutions that should enable us as independent labels and thus the artists represented collectively to exit the streaming despotism and subsequently a new and better one to develop system.
You are interested in exiting the streaming system, not in switching from existing streaming structures. How come?
Jamal Hachem: We have now been living and working with the music streaming top dogs for over ten years. Back then, we stumbled into a dysfunctional system and hardly critically questioned the circumstances and prospects. Artists and labels have been lured with the old trick of “eternal growth”. We now have a period of time that has generated empirical values and allows me to take stock. I therefore want to define and highlight three pillars and thereby explain why the current streaming economy does not work for the absolute majority, I estimate over 90 percent of the music industry. Of course it’s about an economic pillar, there’s the artistic-creative component and, associated with it, a mental health aspect.
Let’s start with the economic pillar.
Jamal Hachem: To do this, one must understand the pro rata model that currently exists and has always existed. It is the worst of all streaming compensation models because, combined with a ritualized playlist fetish, it has led to massive devaluation. If you want to put it bluntly, you can say: We work for Drake and Taylor Swift and clearly accept being the useful idiots.
Why do so many people still take part?
Jamal Hachem: One player dominates the market. This dominance makes it difficult or impossible to move into other areas – unless you break it with a new collectivism. I deliberately say new collectivism because it takes a new approach and consistency to pull this off. Let me give you an example from the past where collectivism unfortunately didn’t help: S.T. Holdings, a British distributor that has distributed major breakbeat, jungle and dubstep labels. 2012 has S.T. Holdings publicly announced the entire catalog of Spotify to withdraw – a point in time at which the market power of Spotify was not yet as manifest as it is today. Afterwards, over 200 labels no longer had their catalogs available Spotify represent. However, it quickly became apparent that this collective exit had no impact on endangering the rise of today’s streaming monopoly.
Die Streaming services say: The music industry needs to be united. Pretty difficult if from Universal-Music-Chef until Indie umbrella organization almost all positions take different approaches.
Jamal Hachem: While some argue and effectively waste their time on sideshows, conditions continue to deteriorate. That’s why the streaming services say this with a certain degree of calculation. I would like this as an example Discovery Mode lead – a mode of the monopolist with which Payola is virtually legalized because: The monopolist’s goal is to save up to 30 percent of all payouts to artists and labels in the long term. Works for that Spotify with a promise: As an artist or label, you will be algorithmically favored by the system if you forego part of the streaming revenue. It’s like the famous carrot that you hold in front of the donkey’s snout. But the so-called favoritism is a false promise. The advantage of nothing remains nothing.
“YOU ALWAYS GET A ASS LEAF.”
Nevertheless, some hope for an advantage opposite to have others.
Jamal Hachem: That’s why many people join in and even more will join in with this false hope if no one puts up a stop sign. Many people actually believe that they can lose less or gain a little more. In reality, a clear majority has lost this perfidious game from the start and de facto cannot be won.
Whoever gets in has the wrong cards in his hand.
Jamal Hachem: To use poker parlance, you permanently have 2-7 offsuits in your hand.
An Oarsch leaf.
Jamal Hachem: Yes, but: you always get an Oarsch sheet. It never changes, changes are only indicated in homeopathic doses. Ultimately, this diffuse hope is very easy to work with. Another goal of Spotify It’s not for nothing that artists and labels are decoupled. Artists should participate directly Spotify deal in order to increase dependencies, avoid annoying administration issues and ultimately reduce payouts even further. We haven’t even talked about the AI aspect, which has the potential for the next escalation level. In any case, we, as a collective body, must not continue to be naive and believe that this ecosystem was made for us – because it is demonstrably not. Ultimately, indie culture’s core values have been abused for its growth mantra. Corporations are primarily responsible for investors; they simply don’t care whether the Hamburg indie band achieves appropriate payouts. Rather, the system of editorial playlists creates an artificial scarcity that manifests this absurd horse race.
What do you mean?
Jamal Hachem: Let’s imagine the following picture: There are 50 vessels. Tons of sand are poured over these 50 containers. The 50 containers are filled, but 90 percent of the sand is scattered around the containers. In addition, most of these 50 vessels were already well filled before the sand was poured out – with their own major repertoire, ghost artists and increasingly more productions from AI. The vessels are nothing other than the coveted playlist placements. They have become a relevant currency even though they encourage passivity. And if you end up on such a big playlist, you won’t automatically sell more tickets in the medium term. Translating the plays into other areas can tell many different stories.
What you sketch…
Jamal Hachem: Shows that the system cannot work for the vast majority! Individual success stories only confirm the exception; you can ignore them because the system needs and produces them in order to function or to survive and to continue to spin this narrative that anyone can make it.
“WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THIS SYSTEM NEVER WAS AND WILL BE FOR US.”
Who does this narrative work for?
For the big major acts, occasionally for protagonists who work through a social-economic template and follow the guidelines artistically and creatively and apparently also producers of piano kitsch generics. Spotify is not interested in establishing a system that works for the majority. Very current: the prices of subscriptions are being increased, which increases sales by a rumored billion dollars. At the same time, it is said that hundreds of employees will be laid off. Between all of this you forget that it is Spotify It’s not even primarily about music, but rather about the lucrative podcast business. That’s why we indie players have to realize that this system never was and never will be for us. We must stop chasing a promise that will never be fulfilled. We must finally break with the naive idea that a monopolist can be changed from outside. It’s simply a waste of time. The resale of Bandcamp (i.e. the indie monopoly on the other side) a few days ago should be warning enough and confirms here too that we can de facto rely on nothing with investor-driven platform capitalism. The same, of course, also applies to TikTokwhich turns out to be new Spotify-Opponent positioned. Currently the largest social network in the world TikTok is currently launching a streaming service in selected markets – with the difference that the promise of visibility there will be much greater. So it’s a gigantic carrot that will soon be waved across the board – a kind of re-education program from artist to content creator.
This means you are no longer competing against other artists, but…
Jamal Hachem: In any case, it has long been against everyone and everything in a spiral of content bites. But if streaming services and social media platforms continue to merge and 15 seconds become the standard, the dopamine kick from the preview buffet will be enough for many people. How is fandom supposed to develop? I don’t blame any user for using these often well-made and seductive platforms, especially the young generation who grow up with them as a matter of course. That would be too simplistic and has an element of snobbery that I reject. But it’s about creating attractive alternatives, because the mechanisms described are not a law of nature.
Which you will explain later. Before that, you wanted to outline two further pillars of the current problem: the artistic-creative and that of mental health.
Jamal Hachem: Exactly, because: What happens if, for systemic reasons, you can hardly develop a perspective? You will open up sideshows and, due to economic constraints – if you don’t belong to a privileged class – second and third projects will have to be carried out. “Make your own merch”it is often said or: “Start a Patreon channel.” It is not said that this again consumes economic, intellectual and time resources and in most cases makes no sense anyway for various reasons.
You mean: You have to earn art because otherwise you can’t afford it anymore?
Jamal Hachem: Yes, at the same time you have to be louder and louder to be noticed. This promotes desperate marketing. Unfortunately, the fear of being forgotten or barely noticed is often and constantly felt by many actors and can have a paralyzing effect. The combination of these hamster wheels too often produces average art because you can’t work on art most of your time, or too often you can only work on art in disadvantageous situations. The technical standards and systemically produced, short attention spans interfere far too much in creative processes – regardless of whether you produce electronic club music, indie rock or pop in between. This robs art of its integrity. If songs are only counted as full plays after 31 seconds, you shouldn’t be surprised if songs conform to these specifications. If you always act from a defensive position in a toxic, turbo-capitalist environment, it’s no wonder that the burnout rate in the music sector is increasing and that it feels like every third promotional campaign deals with mental health issues.
A few things come together here, but how?
Jamal Hachem: All of these symptoms have knock-on effects because: The dynamics of the streaming economy radiate out into other important areas. Let’s take public radio stations across Europe as an example. Too often, incompetent decision-makers there establish a competitive situation with streaming services without necessary and thus make the wrong conclusions. It is believed that you can inspire young people by adopting properties of the streaming monopolist. Ultimately, you just become a copy of the copy of the copy and wonder why more and more young people turn away or why no rapprochement ever occurs. In the meantime, however, structures have been created that are oriented towards the free market and not the public service mandate. The fact that the clearly advantageous public structure as a development laboratory and a potential unique selling point is ultimately voluntarily given up is a scandal. Unfortunately it is FM4 in our latitudes it is also part of this whirlpool.
So public radio is being abolished.
Jamal Hachem: Yes, if editorial teams do not defend themselves in time and define red lines, they will ultimately be eliminated. Especially when the intersections with the mothership – in the case of FM4 as we know Ö3 – are getting bigger and bigger both in music programming and in direction, the existing austerity forces, driven by the hysterical tabloid, are given a strong argument for a merger. There is also another knock-on effect due to erroneous conclusions: the institutional promotion of Spotify. If Label The worst thing about it is that public money is being channeled into the wrong system.
This is the present analysis. You already hinted at the beginning that a new collectivism will be needed in the future if you want to change the system. How is that supposed to work?
Jamal Hachem: First of all: get out of the victim role, away from the passenger seat and into a self-confident position in order to gain control in a multi-stage process. The tipping point has been reached. Even if thematically somewhat different, the so-called Hollywood strike may also be well suited to generating even more public awareness. In any case, it’s about creating new facts. Because the current streaming economy is not a law of nature.
“THERE SHOULD NOT BE A NEW MONOPOLY THAT CREATES NEW DEPENDENCIES AGAIN.”
We come to the new collectivism that you mentioned at the beginning.
Jamal Hachem: Yes, the first step is to get on the available national committees. In Austria this is the Association of Indies and FAMA. In the second step, you make the status description together and determine the status quo. This should be possible relatively quickly. If there is the will to change something, sustainable positions can be developed in the third step because then you do not appear as a fragmented industry, but rather speak as a common voice.
So basic work from below?
Jamal Hachem: And working out a position that can gain a majority, on which we can rely sustainably and question the power structure – that’s what it’s primarily about. This process should subsequently serve as an example for other countries and their alliances such as specialist representatives. In order for the matter to gain real momentum, larger countries in particular, such as Germany, France or the UK, must follow suit, because: The crucial step is about developing effectiveness in order to put pressure on Merlin as a representative of independent labels.
Weil?
Jamal Hachem: It will not be enough if Austria, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Malta join forces. It takes the greatest possible bracket and the greatest possible partner – and that’s just how it is Merlin – which conveys the formulations and positions for exiting this streaming economy. At the same time, you have to generate publicity for this process or accompany it publicly and transparently. Platform and web developers must realize that the potential of the independent repertoire – at least 30 percent of the entire market – is being redistributed.
So that a new platform is created?
Jamal Hachem: Yes, but one with new game rules and in which indie players retain control. So no new monopoly should arise that creates new dependencies and makes them vulnerable to blackmail. It’s about developing and firmly establishing standards – a common basis on which new platforms can rely.
That sounds like …
Jamal Hachem: Bandcamp for streaming – but not through one player, but ideally through several that can coexist.
I wanted to say: a cooperative of independent labels.
Jamal Hachem: Let’s call it that if you like. In any case, independent labels that are on new platforms or with existing outlets that support exactly these new standards – Soundcloud has recently attracted positive attention with a new user-centric model – and sets its own rules. Rules that the majors don’t impose on us: We’re turning the process around.
This “we” presupposes a united solidarity: “We as an independent scene”.
Jamal Hachem: Exactly, it’s about a shared rejection of a system from which hardly anyone benefits. I am convinced that this position can be formulated – taking into account facts and a lot of experience.
What is considered to be without alternative must be experienced as an alternative.
Jamal Hachem: Yes, it’s about new standards that break the current situation. This is possible by rebelling. By that I don’t mean that we are going on strike against a company like this Spotify. The point is that we no longer regard him and other actors acting like him as legitimate participants in the game. I’m tired of feeding a machine that will push us further to the brink and ultimately eat us up.
Christoph Benkeser
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Links:
Affine Records (Homepage)
Affine Records (Bandcamp)
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