Does The Market Reward Musical Talent?: Vulfpeck, Spotify, and the Changing Face Of The Music Industry

BY JARED SKOFF

At 7:30 every morning this past summer as a counselor at Camp Ramah, I enforced a daily listening of Vulfpeck’s first EP, Mit Peck, in my bunk. “These guys are gonna be big one day,” I would tell my twelve campers as they were waking up, “just wait.” Despite my outward confidence, I was skeptical. There is no doubt in my mind that Vulfpeck is one of the most musically innovative and talented funk rhythm bands out there today. But the reality is that the music industry does not automatically reward strong, or even virtuosic, musicianship. Besides playing Vulfpeck for anyone who would listen and brainwashing sixteen-year-olds into appreciating funk, how can a die-hard fan like me help an independent band succeed?

The short answer: it’s a challenge. For a time, bands made their money on record sales. Not anymore. In an interview with BBC News, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones reflected on his personal experience in the industry, explaining, “there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone.”

With the rise of digital sales and downloading, selling albums is no longer so lucrative unless a band sells millions of copies. If your favorite band is signed to a record label, then for every 99-cent song you buy from iTunes, the band gets 9 cents of that money. Independent artists get a few cents more than that. The bottom line is that artists have to get creative. And they have.

After a hiatus, The Wu-Tang Clan, called “the best rap group ever” by Rolling Stone Magazine, is coming out with a new album. But their anxiety about the record industry and fear of widespread illegal downloading has led to an unprecedented move. Wu-Tang Clan will be releasing only one copy of the new record. ONE COPY. It will be produced in a hand-carved case, made of nickel and silver, and will go on a global tour through various museums and venues. After paying an admission fee and going through a security check for recording devices, visitors will be allowed a single listen to the recording through headphones, so that no one in the world will be able to hear the songs without attending.

By the way, after the museum tour the band plans to auction off the album to the highest bidder. They have already received an offer for $5 million.

While they hope to make more money this way than through typical record sales, Wu-Tang Clan claims they are not primarily concerned about the money. The band is upset with the way that musical talent has been devalued in the current climate of the industry. They want to remind people that music is art, and they want their album to be visited in a museum, like a painting or a sculpture.

This is a clever scheme, but what about a band like Vulfpeck? Lacking the recognition and fame that the Wu-Tang Clan has, they could never make money off such a stunt. And without a label or a manager it would seem impossible for them to make a living, much less achieve fortune and fame. Yet even if they were signed to a label, it seems the cards are stacked against them. Again, they receive only 9 cents for every song sold on iTunes. And when it comes to legal online streaming sites like Spotify, bands get only HALF of a cent each time that someone listens to one of their songs.

So how can an independent band that writes, performs, records, engineers, and produces all their own music get recognition for their musical talent? I’m glad you asked.

Vulfpeck released a new album several weeks ago, exclusively on Spotify. It is completely silent. Ten songs, 30 seconds each. The album is called Sleepify, because Vulfpeck suggests you play it while you sleep. And, again, every time you listen to a song on Spotify, the artist makes half of a cent.

If you listen to a silent album of 30-second songs on repeat for a 7-hour sleep cycle, Vulfpeck makes almost $6. What is in it for the fans who listen? Vulfpeck plans on using Sleepify revenue to fund its first tour. Admission to the shows will be free, and tour locations will be determined based on the locations where the album is streamed the most (using Spotify’s GPS tracking results). For fans it is a worthy investment; listening to Sleepify takes less money and effort than buying a $20 ticket.

Die-hard fans can make a real difference. While they used to make a difference through album sales and following band tours, they need a new medium. Vulfpeck is working within the system as it currently exists.

With the help of these die-hard fans, Vulfpeck has started getting noticed. Billboard, The Guardian, and Bloomberg Businessweek covered the story. Though the band hasn’t seen a cent (or even half a cent) of the money yet, after about three weeks and millions of plays, Vulfpeck stands to make over $21,000 on silent Spotify streams. NPR’s All Things Considered and Rolling Stone Magazine jumped on the bandwagon and interviewed bandleader Jack Stratton. So did I.

“There is an artistic mission statement and a financial mission statement, and one informs the other,” Stratton told me on the phone.

Rather than trying to compete with commercially popular “funk” songs like “Get Lucky” or “Blurred Lines,” Vulfpeck is aiming to be like Booker T. And The MG’s, the house band for legendary Memphis soul label, Stax Records. Back in the day, classic R&B labels like Stax and Motown had house bands populated by the best musicians on the scene who would play on every single recording session for that label. Members of these legendary bands claimed they could make any vocalist sound stellar. In the late sixties and early seventies, this system worked. Stax and Motown were able to regularly churn out #1 hits with a variety of vocalists. Today, record labels have no incentive to hire the best backing musicians when it is so much simpler and cheaper to hire lesser musicians and enhance the singer’s voice using computer technology. In the digital age, the Stax method is no longer an ideal business model. Stratton is campaigning for a return to this era.

“Artistically, it’s very much a reaction to the way records are made now. It looked a lot more fun back in the day where there were live rhythm sections and full takes and now it’s all about overdubbing and doing 20 takes. We want to make something fast and funky with that feel that you can really only get from a good rhythm section,” he said.

In short, Vulfpeck wants to be noticed for being better session musicians than the players who record short snippets that are autotuned, remixed, and looped into the unforgettable sax riff from “Thrift Shop” or the bassline
from “Blurred Lines.”

Stratton went on, “Financially, I have this bizarre goal that I want the highest possible percentage of money spent on the band to go directly to the musicians and engineers. Everything we do is in-house. Everyone is listed as a composer in the credits, so everyone has some ownership when we go in to record. There is that extra motivation, rather than the alternative where session musicians are handed an advance or work for hire.”

Reclaiming profit for musical talent is a noble goal, but did not seem attainable until now. Instead of competing with today’s Top 40 hits and sacrificing their vision, Stratton and Vulfpeck have attempted to level the playing field. If Sleepify can be an economic success, perhaps talented musicians in an authentic rhythm band can maintain both an artistic mission and a profit. They just need to take advantage of the industry as it currently operates. As I said before, die-hard fans can make a real difference, and in a world where it is easiest to get music through legal and illegal downloading, the secret for artists is enabling this audience to make them money without investing much time and energy.

So, does the market reward musical talent? Perhaps not. But fans can. If independent musicians have a dedicated fan base and enough business savvy, there are ways to make the market work in their favor.

With the digitization of music revenue, making money is an increasing challenge for talented musicians who are more committed to the craft of producing tight rhythms and solid grooves than they are to conforming to commercially popular music. In response to this challenge, Stratton explains, “I believe humans are smarter than the Internet. If we work together we can beat this thing.”

UPDATE: After 40 days of Sleepify and well over 5 million plays (netting about $25,900 for Vulfpeck) Spotify has sent Jack Stratton an email, “respectfully” asking him to remove the Sleepify album from their website.