For a few weeks now, the most used music streaming platform in the world, Spotify, no longer has in its catalog musicians like Magalí Sare, Clara Peya, Salvador Sobral or the group Mujeres. All of them have left for various reasons, and some of them do so asking listeners to boycott the company.
From here, the Plataforma Boicot Spotify Països Catalans has created a website and an Instagram user where it explains everything it is organizing with all the artists who have joined the initiative. They do so following in the footsteps of the Basque initiative Musikariak Palestinarekin, formed by 162 bands that have joined the collective boycott of Spotify.
The main reason for this farewell are the investments of the platform's founder, the Swede Daniel Ek, in a German arms company that develops military drones with artificial intelligence. Added to this is the issue of artist remuneration: the platforms use a payment system that benefits large artists and penalizes smaller ones. According to Boicot Spotify Països Catalans, the platform pays only between €0.001 and €0.003 per stream and especially benefits the big names.
Another reason is that the platform broadcast until only a month ago an advertising campaign of the Trump administration to recruit people for ICE, the American immigration agency. The complaining artists also speak of the increase in music generated with artificial intelligence. A fact that the artists who sign the boycott denounce as violating copyright.
To this boycott, other artists join individually, such as Ariadna Mata (Ariae), a singer-songwriter from the Barcelona neighborhood of La Sagrera. She explains that she has music on the platform "but is in the process of abandoning it." Mata is betting mainly on Soundcloud: "They told me it was a fairer platform and I decided to upload my music there too," although she acknowledges that her distributor also uploads her music to Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer.
The Sagrerina music also tells AMIC Cultura that it started not giving voice to Spotify from this publication that the musician Adala made, where he shares three steps to take to end up withdrawing his music from this renowned platform: "Of the three phases, I am in phase one, which is to stop promoting Spotify and that it does not appear on my Instagram profile."
Who is also in a process of reflection is Plataforma La Instrumental, which is addressing the problem from a "community and anti-capitalist" perspective. In this regard, they have organized a meeting at Antàrtic del Guinardó, on March 3, and another at Ateneu de Sant Boi on March 5.
The question that now arises is: where will these artists who are leaving go? The majority has announced that they will move to more ethical platforms like Bandcamp, SoundCloud and, above all, Qobuz.
Are there alternatives to Spotify?
Below we propose five ethical alternatives to play music, without depending on this platform:
1. Bandcamp
It is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by the co-founder of Oddpost, Ethan Diamond, and the programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and a record store in Oakland, California.
2. SoundCloud
It is a German real-time audio streaming service that allows its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, it is one of the largest real-time music streaming services in the world and is available in 190 countries and territories. The service has more than 76 million monthly active users and more than 200 million audio tracks as of November 2021.
3. Qobuz
It is a digital music store and a real-time music streaming service, born in France in 2007. The service is owned and operated by Xandrie SA. In June 2023, Qobuz already offered more than 100 million tracks. It has become one of the most beloved players.
4. Resonate
It is an ethical cooperative of streaming that operates with a model designed to be fairer than the conventional streaming.
5. Jamendo
Focused on free music and independent artists, ideal for discovering new talents without traditional copyright restrictions.
However, it seems that something is happening in the music industry, which has to do with the way we consume it, and how we access this music in a world where analog seems to be visiting us again, even if it's in the form of small doses for true nostalgics. Even, in a more radical alternative to circumvent Spotify, the Barcelona band Mujeres has gone a step further and has distributed a taste of their new album, Es un dolor inexplicable, in different record stores. In fact, these three songs: La diferencia, Esta vez un recuerdo and Se pierde una voz will not be available on any platform. If you want to know more alternatives, you can do so in this link.
