Weird Al takes brutal swipe at Spotify in Wrapped video message to fans
Weird Al, who is well-known for his comedic music that often revolves around current pop culture events, has spoken out against Spotify.
The music star, 64, was open in his Spotify Wrapped message to fans about how much exactly he earns from his songs being streamed on the platform. But you may be surprised to learn it really isn’t a lot.
Weird Al gets frank about his earnings from Spotify in Wrapped video
In his message, which appeared yesterday (November 29), the celebrity was critical of how Spotify pays artists. It’s something that has been a hot topic among those who put their music on the platform for a while now.
In his message, he said: “Hey, how you doing? Al here. Look, I’ll make this really quick. I just wanna thank you all for your amazing support. It’s my understanding that I had over 80 million streams on Spotify this year.”
He continued by laying into the music streaming service for their paying system and stating how much he earned during 2023 from Spotify alone.
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“So if I’m doing the math right that means I earned … $12! So you know, enough to get myself a nice sandwich at a restaurant,” he quipped. “So from the bottom of my heart thanks for your support, and thanks for the sandwich.”
How are artists paid by Spotify?
As Weird Al explained, there isn’t a lot of money from streams on the platform, even for those who get thousands, millions, or billions of plays on their songs. It has been estimated those who release their catalog on Spotify earn between $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, and that it’s a 70/30 split for the money between those who own the rights to the music (at 70 percent) and Spotify (at 30%).
However, Spotify doesn’t actually pay per one stream and instead pays by calculating what they call streamshare. It’s flexible depending on agreements with those who own the rights and how exactly music is streamed.
The company explains: “Every month, in each country we operate in, we calculate streamshare by adding up how many times music owned or controlled by a particular rights holder was streamed and dividing it by the total number of streams in that market.”
After all the drama, Spotify’s founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, finally spoke out earlier this year. In an interview with CBS.
“We don’t pay artists directly. [Artists] have their deals with their record companies and their deals with their publishers, et cetera,” he said. “And what Spotify does is we pay out to those record companies and these publishers, and don’t know what individual deals these artists may have.”
Fans react to Weird Al’s Spotify Wrapped message
Fans have reacted to the singer’s message and have labeled him a “legend.”
“What a bada**.” wrote one person.
Another simply stated that Weird Al was a “legend.”
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