Maybe I'm Wrong: A Conversation with Martyn Deykers
Martyn Deykers sat down to give me his insights on modern music from the perspective of an electronic artist and independent label owner
A few weeks ago, I published an interview with Will Page, Spotify’s former Chief Economist. Given Page’s stature in the music community, the piece garnered a ton of responses. One of the most impassioned came from Martyn Deykers, an electronic artist known by his first name who runs a popular newsletter and respected label. Rather than getting into a comment war about the intricacies of music royalties, I invited Martyn to sit down for an interview.
Over an hour, we touched on how independent labels can thrive in the internet age, what he would do if he took over a streaming service, why artificial intelligence doesn’t scare him, and so much more. If you enjoy our conversation, check out Martyn's music and subscribe to his insightful newsletter, Four Things.
A Conversation with Martyn Deykers
In your musical life, you wear many hats. You’re an active artist and DJ. Prolific live performer. Label owner. I want to talk about your experience in the streaming world in all of those roles. But first tell me how you got your start in music.
I’ve been into discovering and collecting music most of my life. I think I bought my first record when I was seven years old. To me, music was a way of connecting with other people. I was always trading mixtapes and going to concerts together.
When I was at Uni in The Netherlands around 1995, some friends and I were heavily into breakbeats and jungle. To share that enthusiasm with others, we decided to put on a small night at a local bar. This turned into a series of parties called Red Zone. Since we had no clue how to be promoters, we didn’t think about booking any talent. We just brought our own records and played them. That’s how I became a DJ. It wasn’t something I aspired to do at all. It was just music freaks playing records in a dark corner of the room.
So, those parties became quite well known locally. From that, I got asked to play in other cities. Almost as a logical progression, I started to make my own music. In 2007, I founded the record label 3024 with my friend Jeroen Erosie. 3024 is now an umbrella for my own work, other artists’ releases, a mentoring program connecting hundreds of producers and musicians, in-real-life events, a mixtape series, and so much more. I’d say most of what I do in music is the result of a logical sequence of events. One thing just led to another. There wasn’t some master plan.
Can you recall a particular moment when you thought to yourself, “Now I’m a professional musician”?
Between 2010 and 2016 I was continuously touring, so much in fact that it started to have a serious impact on my mental and physical health. Honestly, that might have been the moment where I considered music my job. Before that, I never really thought about whether something was professional or not. Music was just what I did every day whether I was making money or not.
Let’s talk a bit about streaming from the artist perspective. As an artist, what has been your experience with music streaming? In what ways do you think it has improved the music industry for artists from the physical media era? In what ways has it fallen short?
A good analogy for the streaming space would be that it has turned the entire music economy into a giant supermarket that doubles in size every year. Yes, it’s very easy to access for the listener, but the fact of the matter is that most people that frequent grocery stores use the same route through the store to get the same products in the same aisles. In other words, this massive post-Napster consolidation of music to a few platforms has been great for the artists who inhabit those familiar “aisles.” The three most successful groups of artists in the streaming space are artists who were either already big before streaming, those on major labels that have indirectly bought “shelf space” by cutting catalog deals with the streamers, and those that make a certain genre of music that people can listen to while working.
In my own Spotify Artist stats — and I’d like to think they’re pretty exemplary for most indie artist stats — 58% of streams are from passive listeners, meaning they are people that engage with my music through background playlists, possibly not even knowing what artist they are actually listening to. If you would translate that to a pre-2000s situation, roughly 40% would find my music in a record store, and 60% would hear a track on the radio while driving to work.
With that idea in mind, why do you make your music available on Spotify?
The answer I guess is discovery. In this giant grocery store that everybody shops at, people can stray from their familiar route and venture into unknown aisles. That sounds adventurous and exciting. In reality, the chances that you end up somewhere artistically dangerous are pretty slim. Because you can’t search for an artist you’ve never heard of, most discoveries will be algorithmic recommendations to adjacent sounds.
I think you’ve written about this in your newsletter as well: Eventually algorithms send you back to the more familiar aisles. No matter how far you dive into avant garde jazz, Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” will always be lurking at the bottom of your page to bring you back home. Delving into mid-1980s DC hardcore and emo? You’ll be turned back to blink-182 in no time. No Swiftie will ever get served Sun Ra. That’s a shame! Real discovery happens when your tastes are being challenged rather than appeased. That’s what builds a wider musical knowledge. I have Sun Ra records and my daughter plays Taylor Swift all the time. I feel like both of us are benefiting from this unique combo.
Now, let’s talk about the same question from your perspective as a label owner. In what ways has streaming improved the music industry for labels from the physical media era? In what ways has it fallen short?
It’s pretty clear that streaming has massively improved the revenue for major labels and the platforms themselves. But my label 3024 is small and independent. We started at the tail end of physical media and have transitioned through digital downloads to streaming. We’ve been able to survive because we are part of a musical ecosystem.
What do you mean by that?
A good example of a musical ecosystem is 1980s punk music. Punk in that era was a network outside the mainstream based around a host of bands, their dedicated fan bases, a circuit of venues for those bands to play at and fans to go to, small labels putting out records by those bands, dedicated record shops where fans could buy those things, and writers who would talk about the music in fan-zines. The mid-1990s rave scene is another good example of an ecosystem that sustained itself on its own. These systems were hotbeds of creativity, often laying foundations for all kinds of innovations in music, business, and tech. These scenes still exist, some are even thriving both in real life and online, but they are definitely not happening in the “aisles” of the Spotify grocery store.
What options does that leave you with?
As a small independent label, you can do two things.
Spend all your time, money, and energy in the race for “shelf space” on streaming services (e.g., get on playlists, make music that suits the algorithm, etc.) in order to reach as many listeners as possible.
Develop and support independent ecosystems that cater to a more dedicated listener base that’s willing to sustain your work.
I think most labels do a bit of both, but usually their heart is in one or the other. When people come up to me at DJ gigs and tell me they really love what we’re doing with the label, dig through our back-catalog on Bandcamp and pick out lesser known tracks, or post a photo on Instagram wearing our t-shirts, I know we are living in that second world. That keeps me going every day.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen more experimentation with how streaming and digital royalties work. Are there any trends that have you excited that you think could lead to a better future? Are there any that worry you?
Contrary to what you may think, I’m not against streaming in general. But I think the grocery store approach of Spotify and others has promoted an increasingly bland monoculture and largely destroyed access to many of the musical ecosystems that make music exciting. In the same way, supermarkets have eradicated specialist butchers, green grocers, and community delis.
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