Beck has joined the ranks of Thom Yorke, David Byrne and others in an increasing number of artists rejecting the idea that Spotify is the future of music consumption.
In a recent interview with Argentina’s Pagina12, Scientology’s chief weirdo songman followed Yorke’s sentiments that the streaming service is a “desperate fart of a dying corpse” by accepting that streaming services are “inevitable” with the progress of technology. “But I pose the question of how I can hold on,” he explains, “because what Spotify pays me is not even enough to pay the musicians playing with me or the people working on the disks. The model does not work.”
He went on: “So many musicians feel that we are taking some time to acclimate to the new environment, we are trying to figure out what it all means. As a society, what does it all mean? What are you doing to our brains, our nervous systems and our souls?
“I think most musicians feel alienated from the business side of music. We are in a business created specifically for business people, marketing. And that’s how the world works, because music is like any other product they have to sell. I need to think about how to deliver it to people. But if left to musicians it would be something completely different, I’m sure. I’ll try to keep that in mind.
“I think the saddest thing about streaming is the issue of sound quality…it’s like watching The Citizen on your phone. That’s what people are listening to!
Hopefully, we will find the way to change that. There are many opportunities to improve the digital files and I know that Neil Young is working on a system for that. Eventually it will happen and people will fall in love with the music.”
The “Loser” superstar has a point, but is it powerful enough to derail the technological trends of the modern world? Hardly. In the meantime, Beck’s new album Morning Phase is due out in February 2014, the details of which you can check out here.
Photo: Johnny Firecloud
