Spotify Executive Explains How Spotify ACTUALLY Works feat. Sam Duboff

Thanks to Sam for the answers. I think that, deep down, we’re also part of the problem. We’ve reached a point where there’s too much music, and it’s essential to invest money into promoting your own tracks. The system isn’t perfect, but if we create good music (which isn’t a given) and invest something into it, in the long run we might start to see results.

It doesn't matter if it's "just sitting there". It's not yours. That's stealing.

A quick video walkthrough of the music project would solve all of this AI issue.

"Authentic and AI in the same sentence". LMFAO I feel that It shouldn't be allowed in any form. WTF Its not used in every studio like he says...

they need to bring back that daily drive while they even still have an app and something like a user base

Hi Andrew! Could you make audio line for Russian language please. I understand English, but some of my friends do really not.
If it is not difficult for you, make it please. I think we are not alone.

I saw a new R&B artist LuquawnTey Love At First Sight on a few playlist saves ❤so he’s accurate

7:29 Am I tripping or is 14k artist making over $100k not seem like a lot when you consider how many artists are on Spotify? 🤔

Super helpful!!!! thanks

Commenting again because I think this was one of the coolest interviews yet. Thanks Sam for coming on and giving us answers!

Great interview. Unfortunately I think if Spotify keeps their current stance on fully generative AI songs they’re going to lose the game 😢. (It’s so much deeper than was let on in this interview). I really want to see Spotify succeed!
I listen to radio a lot and it seems every other song recommended now is fully AI. It’s strange because I literally skip every AI song and they still keep showing up. (Maybe a good start would be not allowing fully AI songs in radio).

Great interview.

Why is it that some tools given to artists with larger audiences, that aren’t available for smaller artists within Spotify for artists? (Context: Currently at 2.5k monthlies, have got a song at 19% popularity index, about to get to 20% to hopefully trigger discovery weekly!)

some of the stats on the DIY is an eye-opener, e specially regarding those that can "easily" make $1 mil a year without ever radio, chart topping, etc. Eye-opener for me because I never understood why anyone would want the hassle of fame and having to have that chased-around, privacy as luxury lifestyle, when you can just make good music, have people relate to it, make some money to be an artist as your permanent money maker, and not deal with the fame. i think that is more a viable goal for DIY musicians, in terms of practicality and business sense, try to first reach those DIY stats of making $1 mil a year. And your good, bro.

Do you know why Spotify Discovery Mode has gotten worse in recent times? I know a person that was getting thousands to TENS of thousands streams per song through radio at the end of 2024 / start of 2025, and now it's dropped to the low hundreds per song.

I currently have around 200,000 streams per month and I’m trying to better understand how Spotify’s recommendation algorithm works, specifically, whether it focuses more on recommending artists or individual songs.

In other words, how stylistically diverse can I be as an artist without negatively affecting how the algorithm recommends my music?

My main style is downtempo, dub, and trip-hop, but I also have some afro-house tracks that I’d like to release. My concern is the following:

If I release an afro house track under the same artist name as my downtempo material, will Spotify mainly recommend that track to listeners who might like my downtempo tracks (which might not be the right audience)?
Or will Spotify recommend the track primarily to listeners who like afro house, based on the musical DNA and listening behavior associated with afro-house?

I’m trying to understand whether Spotify’s algorithm is more artist-based or track-based when it comes to recommendations.

Thanks a lot for any insight!

It's all nice talk, but whenever he says that for them the goal is to maximise payout to artists, you just know you're being sweet talked. legally, there are only goal is maximising shareholder revenue

Yesterday I meant to talk to a chatbot on the Spotify for Artists help page to look up some things, and a human answered all my questions on a Saturday night. Great customer service!

Please, differentiate between artists and songwriters.

Damn this is depressing

This talk had some interesting tidbits that I didn't know about. And it was great to hear it directly from "Spotify". Awesome talk Andrew. Got a lot of information out of this! Thank you for setting it up.

I don't feel that the man said anything of value for the small bands/artists. Just some generic platitudes. All these platforms are made for Drakes and Talyor Swifts of this world. The rest of us is just a background, some kind of NPCs almost. Obsessing about Spotify numbers makes people spend money in a stupid way just to see these numbers rather than actually get heard and - most of all - build some meaningful relationships.

ty! 50:39

Great interview, but you're letting him off the hook way too easy by cherry-picking how to present data. What you could have asked:

- How is it that Spotify premium subscription is actually lower today than back in 2009 adjusted for inflation, when it also includes all music made in that 17 years? This is a double whammy devaluing of music
- How is the distribution of revenue to artists not increasing by scale? In any other business the margins will improve with scale, but artists are seeing none of that
- Why does not all distros have access to the discovery mode tools within the SFA platform itself?

Etc etc. Again, not to fault you at all Andrew - but this guy comes off as someone Spotify put in charge to make it seem like they care deeply about artists when a lot of things tell a different story.

Nice interview, from both sides. I wish politicians would hear Sam talking about why it wouldn't be a good thing for Spotify to implement 1p per stream payouts. So that they could realize that streaming payout regulation HAS to come from governance, i.e. outside the industry, because it will never be in the streaming platforms' own interests.

I am a music producer with around 6K monthly listeners on Spotify. I make instrumental melodic house / progressive house music. It takes me 2 to 3 weeks to compose and produce a song on Ableton Live Suite. I also work full time and have a family. Then I have to spend hundreds of dollars and hours and hours for marketing and promoting the song.

Then come these Suno hobby "Prompt Engineers" and they have thousands of dollars to promote their prompt created music on Suno. These people have absolutely no clue about music production or music theory.

Unless DSPs like Spotify figure out a way to stop these people, it is going to completely push real musicians and music producers out of the game. In a few years. No one will be making any original music but the entire market will be a "cum dump" of AI generate slop. This is extremely worrisome.

Spotify should also worry about this because eventually everyone is just going to make their own music and listen to it. There will be no need to even go into Spotify. Everyone will have their own music. By allowing AI generated music on its own platform, Spotify has already invited the vampire into its own house. Suno is soon going to open its own DSP eventually (very likely). But right now AI generated music is simply using Spotify to grow and become big enough.

lol

Found this super insightful and I really appreciate Sam's perspective! Sorry so many of these comments are so negative!!

Question Andrew: at what point do you think an artist SHOULD leave Spotify? What circumstances, personally for you, would justify abandoning big streaming as a source?

"I completely get where artists are coming from.... blah blah blah, we are not going to change the policies... but we completely get where artists are coming from"

Sam - what is the IG handle for the Spotify broadcast channel that you mentioned at the end?

Allowing artists to only have access to a Marquee campaign within a limited time after release is a horrible practice. Artists should have up to one year to do a Marqee campaign - otherwise it gives an unfair advantage to entities like major labels.

For Sam - the 30 day window to promote a song is a cruel nightmare. Some times it takes longer to get Spotify the data it needs for a quality song. This standard is just malicious and gives favor to big budgets over quality content. This practice is adverse for the listeners. The best songs with the best production should win. I know plenty of artists who can spend 4k on promotion on release day and get major algorithmic traction - but their content is absolute trash. There is absolutely a quality control problem.

Another thing for Sam - we are releasing one song a week and two songs every other week. My collaborators and I pitch in advance to editorials through our spotify for artist portal - and yet - we are never added. This is on top of the fact that we are spending at the minimum 6,000 in meta ads a month driving traffic to Spotify. It just feels like there is no one there.

For Sam - one thing that Spotify should do is make it so that all artists have access to discovery mode. It is otherwise a consumer protection violation of unfair business practices - it is unfair competition. I have 120,000 monthly listeners and do not have access to Discovery Mode.

I believe the artists should be paid only from those that play their music. For example, If Bob plays my song... and he pays $15 a month... his $15 should be divided by the songs that Bob Streamed.. so if he only plays my song.. I get $15. Right now... it is divided by all users... and so each time Taylor Swift gets a stream.. it actually makes everyone else's shares much smaller. Plus.. as a person who subscribes.. I would rather my fee only go to the artists I am listening to.

I will say I like this guy a lot more than Ek 🤙. Edit: wow these comments are so negative haha. I think if Spotify can solve the problem of bot streaming as well as random people being able to upload to your profile, that would be amazing. Of course the bot streaming problem is a complicated one unfortunately.