If there’s one thing we know about the Black Keys — who are playing a free outdoor show in New Orleans this coming weekend in conjunction with the Final Four — it’s that they don’t like Spotify, or any music streaming service for that matter, and that the duo (Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach) aren’t afraid to say exactly what’s on their minds, especially Carney.
So it probably shouldn’t come as any surprise then that they don’t like Sean Parker, the former Napster co-founder and Facebook president who currently sits on Spotify’s board of directors.
Less than a week after apologizing – sort of – to Nickelback for calling them “sh–” in a Rolling Stone interview, drummer Carney threw around some more verbal jabs, this time at former Facebook president and current Spotify board member Sean Parker. Commenting on Parker’s claim at SXSW that at Spotify’s current growth rate they’d be bigger than iTunes in revenue paid to artists within two years – an unlikely one at that – Carney let loose in an interview with WGRD’s Dave Kim.
“He’s an a–hole,” Carney said, disagreeing with Parker’s assessment. “That guy has $2 billion that he made from figuring out ways to steal royalties from artists, and that’s the bottom line. You can’t really trust anybody like that,” later adding, “I honestly don’t want to see Sean Parker succeed in anything.”
Seeing how Parker isn’t exactly bashful himself, I fully expect an expletive-laced response via Twitter within 24 hours.
(Pic via “Gold on the Ceiling” Video)
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From everything I have read about streaming music services like Spotify, it’s the record labels that are to blame for poor royalties paid out to artists, not the services. Spotify pays X number of dollars to the record label (based on ad dollars, subscribers, total plays, etc), and unless something was stipulated in the record deal, the label doesn’t have to pay much of that back to the artist.
Moving forward, most record contracts will include stipulations regarding royalties from Spotify and the like, and from that point on artists should see their fair share coming back to them.
Honestly, artists and labels alike just need to realize that this is the route that music is going to be consumed moving forward and get on board.
The Black Keys are filling stadiums and arenas all across the country and their songs are featured on every third TV commercial, so they are doing just fine. I’m a big fan of their music, but Carney comes off as a whiney bitch with comments like these.
I don’t have time to go back and dig up links for you right now, but I am on record on this website as agreeing with everything you just said.
I think the point of Carney’s comment was not about streaming music per se, but Sean Parker’s way of doing things and hoping that Parker gets his junk eaten by wild dogs. No question Napster took money out of artists’ pockets, regardless of your opinion on its legality or morality.
@EM – I get what you’re saying, but even that’s debatable in a lot of cases. Napster didn’t cost me anything, but it led me to discover a bunch of bands that were on tiny-at-the-time labels (Vagrant comes to mind) that didn’t have the capacity to advertise like the big boys. From there, I went to many shows and bought a lot of merch, both avenues that are considerably more profitable for a band. Hell, I even bought albums I already had downloaded while I was there, just because or to get signed or whatever. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
“Biggest Sell Outs In The World Want More Money!” should be the headline here.