Oso Oso - Track One, Side A

they/them please!

banner by my close friend rainer adams (https://on.soundcloud.com/ppJxmsZVRYROPm6Xxa) as the cover of a spotify playlist he made for my bday!
clippy pfp by me !!

i need new headphones sobs

"Thus, considering the entirety of the preceding evidence, it can be concluded that streaming services harm the music industry more than they help it because, although opponents may try to argue that it’s always been this way and that, without streaming services, artists wouldn’t have the capability to build a strong following in the first place, the truth is that deals with record labels were, in actuality, quite sympathetic to artists and that artists managed to build followings even prior to the dominance of streaming services. Additionally, the remuneration model put in effect by dominant streaming platforms is riddled with inequity, the interactions of streaming platforms to artists are opaque and unintelligible to artists, and the heterogeneity of music itself is threatened by commoditization. With knowledge of all the negatives that streaming has been bringing about for the music industry, you may find it difficult to return to your favorite music streaming service. In fact, you might even feel guilty for having used it at all. If streaming is such a flawed system with so many negative impacts on artists and their music, what kind of a person does it make you to contribute to and support it? However, in the same breath, you might consider how much it would cost you to buy physical copies of all the music you stream, and you might find that you’re unable to resign yourself to the investment. What are you to do in this horrible dilemma? Continue to stream, aware of its harm, commit yourself to sacrificing your paycheck towards something you once took for granted, or just give up on something you love? Fortunately, there is a dialectical solution: switching to music streaming services that implement a user-centric remuneration model. A user-centric remuneration model, as implemented by alternative music streaming platforms such as Deezer, SoundCloud, and Tidal and described by Arenal et al., “... tracks the user’s consumption and matches revenue from the user to the titles [they listen] to” (2022, p.10). In short, with the implementation of a user-centric model, users’ subscription fees are directed solely towards artists they specifically stream, instead of going to artists streamed in the aggregate. This logic leads the user-centric model to be far more equitable than the more mainstream market-centric model because it resolves the issue of users paying for music they didn’t stream and mostly resolves the issue of artists being unfairly paid. While it’s bound to come with its own flaws, user-centric artist compensation is the clearest and most viable alternative to the market-centric model. It’s unlikely that major platforms will switch to it anytime soon, since making the switch would have to involve the renegotiation of every single one of the platform’s licenses and would require that each licensor agree to the change, a 2020 study conducted by the Centre National de la Musique of France using data from Spotify and Deezer found that “an eventual switch to a ‘user-centric’ model would make it possible to make the distribution of income consistent with the respective weight of the different types of music consumers[.] … In particular, the study found that the move to a ‘user-centric’ model could promote a redistribution of income for the benefit of artists, titles and aesthetics to smaller audiences. In this very sense, the ‘user centric’ model is closer to a symmetric revenue distribution model. According to the study, the shift to a user-centric model would have the effect of greatly reducing the royalties received by the Top 10 artists (-17.2%), stabilizing the middle of the ranking with a small increase in royalties received, and allowing the artists the least listened to (>10,000th rank) to benefit from an increase in their royalties (+ 5.2%). In terms of musical genres, classical music (+24%), hard rock (+22%), blues (+18%), pop rock (+17%), disco (+17%) and jazz (+ 10%) would benefit from significant increases in percentage, while rap (-21%), hip hop (-19%) and, to a lesser degree, Afrobeat (-9%) and New Age (-7%) would see their royalties drop. Back [catalog] would see a modest increase in royalties (+3.2%). In addition, the switch to the ‘user-centric’ model could encourage a strengthening of the back [catalog] market share (current policy being released prior to 18 months)” (as cited by Arenal et al., 2022, p. 10). Considering all the evidence in favor of user-centric remuneration, if you, as an individual, would like to stream music in a way that better supports artists you love, you clearly have an available option." --- the conclusion of an argumentative essay i wrote in middle school

I’m just here to complain and hope that someone relates.

Oso Oso - Track One, Side A

Soft Speak Records