Spotify's Got an Adult Problem and Kids are Stealing Music Again: Link Drop

The news, podcasts, albums, and ephemera that I've enjoyed in the last month.

Can’t Get Much Higher’s link drop is a monthly series for paid subscribers where I discuss art, news, and stories that have gotten me thinking and laughing in the last 30 days. This month, we talk about why Spotify stock is soaring, how Napster is still around, an early Killers’ performance of “Mr. Brightside,” and so much more.

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Musical Trends to Keep an Eye On

“Untitled links” by Away_Palpitation8885 (Reddit)

I am indeed citing a Reddit post here, but what that post highlights isn’t getting any coverage in the mainstream press. In short, an app called [untitled] surged up the Apple App Store charts last week. This app is used by producers to easily store and share music they are working on. Kids recently realized that they can use the app to upload music by popular artists and share it with their friends for free. Though it always feels like streaming has killed music piracy, it continues to lurk around the web.

“Confirmed: Concord acquires Stem” by Murray Stassen (MusicBusinessWorldwide)

I constantly harp on the fact that there are an absurd number of mergers and acquisitions in the music space with little scrutiny from regulators. Here’s another example. Just last week, Concord, a large independent music company, purchased Stem, a popular distributor. On the scale of worrisome mergers, this doesn’t really register, but it still illustrates the growing concentration in the industry.

“Spotify’s Stock Surged Last Year But the Momentum Hasn’t Reached the Major Labels” by Ashley Carman (Bloomberg)

In recent weeks, Spotify’s stock has been near all-time highs and continuing to grow. Major label stocks, like UMG and WMG, haven’t been so lucky. This seems strange. Shouldn’t these stocks be highly correlated? Spotify’s most popular music is licensed from these labels. Investors are weary. While Spotify can grow revenue in other lines of business (e.g., audiobooks, podcasts), labels are limited to music and the growing threat of independent recording and distribution.

Musical History to Write Home About

“Music DNA Legacies” by Stephen Lurie (The Pudding)

The Pudding remains the best website for data-driven journalism. This month, they used their visualization powers to pick apart the history of sampling and interpolation. Below you can see a giant sample tree they built for a single Tupac song. Make sure your volume is up when scrolling through this.

“Napster Sold for $207 Million to Infinite Reality, Which Wants to Launch the Music Streamer Into 3D Virtual Concerts, Ecommerce and More” by Todd Spangler (Variety)

Napster — yes, the file-sharing site from the 1990s — has been sold again. Here’s how my friend

Walter Hickey

hilariously captured the Napster saga in his newsletter

Numlock News

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Whatever remains of “Napster” has been sold off for the umpteenth time to a media company that you’ve never heard of for $207 million, continuing the legacy of a filesharing service bringing the music industry to its knees before imploding. Launched originally in 1999 as the most successful of the peer-to-peer file sharing services, Napster was crushed by lawsuits and shut down in 2001, and filed for bankruptcy a year later. Still, assets remained, and a corpse with a known name can have juice in Silicon Valley. So in 2003, its branding and logos were snapped up by Roxio at the bankruptcy auction, the same company that then rebranded the doomed iTunes rival Pressplay with Napster’s more well-known name. That was then sold off to Best Buy in 2008 for $121 million, which then merged it into Rhapsody, which phased out the brand in favor of Napster yet again. In 2020, this was sold to MelodyVR, a virtual reality concerts company. Given that’s a clearly stupid idea with no juice, it was then sold yet again to Hivemind and Algorand, which are Web3 and blockchain companies. That went about as well as you’d expect, hence the recent sale. The buyer this time is Infinite Reality, a company focused on “3D and AI-powered experiences,” which sounds about right. All I’m saying is that for the past two decades, an industry buying Napster has been god’s way of telling you that you make too much money.

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Here’s a video of The Killer’s performing “Mr. Brightside” to a disinterested crowd before they were famous. It’s hard to know when you’re witnessing something special.

News from Inside the Music World

“Porn on Spotify Is Infiltrating the Platform’s Top Podcast Charts” by Ashley Carman (Bloomberg)