Spotify is a constant point of contention for most musicians, as the platform has famously underpaid artists since its inception. Cradle Of Filth is one of the bigger bands in metal when it comes to streaming, but frontman Dani Filth doesn’t consider that to be such a great thing.
In an interview with Sonic Perspective, Filth talked about Spotify. “I owe it to my brethren in metal and music not to have a f*cking Spotify account because they don’t pay people,” he said. “And it’s not just them — it’s just platforms in general. And I appreciate the fact that from that people could discover you from another band and whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever; I’ve heard it a million times.”
“But I’m old school. I want CDs, I want vinyl, I want my bands to be paid because if they’re not paid, they’re not bands anymore. And I know so many people from big bands that since the pandemic have gone, ‘You know what? I’m taking a proper job. So you’ll see me less often. We’ll still be doing albums, but probably once every five years,’ because music — it just seems like daylight robbery.”
He continued: “If you owned a delicatessen or a f*cking supermarket even, people aren’t allowed to just come in and help themselves to free produce, which is what people think they’re entitled to do with music because it’s a periphery thing and it’s in the air. You can’t physically touch music. But how do you expect bands to survive without that? Okay, yeah, sure, music’s getting bigger and bigger.”
“But that’s because Taylor Swifts of the world and the Ed Sheerans, whom we’ve just done a song with, are everywhere. If you work in a delicatessen or you work at a building site and you’ve got the radio on, chances are you can hear one of those two or Beyoncé or whatever, or Megan Thee Stallion within f*cking five minutes of putting it on. And it’s kind of a mind control because you adjusted to that. You remember those songs ’cause that’s all you hear.”
Spotify apparently replied to Filth via Metal Sucks saying: “Spotify has paid out around a million dollars in revenue to Cradle of Filth’s rightsholders for fans’ streams of their catalog. We’re disappointed to hear that Spotify’s payments are not making it through to the band.”
