‘Broken system’: Newcastle singer lashes out at streaming services

Martha Hill has received support for speaking out (Image: Facebook @marthahillmusic)
Northeastern musician Martha Hill criticized Spotify’s “broken system” and its pay rate for emerging artists following the Spotify Wrapped trend.
The singer, whose tracks include ‘Boom’, ‘Landslide’ and the new hit ‘Empire’ posted to Instagram yesterday, criticizing Spotify’s lack of payments for hours of streaming music.
In their post, Hill said, âI’ve seen a lot of people share their Spotify stats this year as part of their #spotifywrapped campaign, but there’s one important stat missing from that, and that’s what artists are actually making. with these flows.
âOver the past few years my streaming numbers have hit all-time highs for me, with huge numbers like 556.8k streams (and it’s wonderful to know that so many of you are listening), but in reality I don’t earns only £ 0.003 per stream which in me being paid only 6p for every solid hour my music streams through Spotify.
âThis is then further reduced by the distributors, labels, producers and manager taking their respective cuts. “
Spotify Wrapped gives users of the music streaming app an overview of their most listened to artists, favorite tracks and popular genres.
Hill called on Spotify to do more for up-and-coming musicians, saying, âThe money I made from Spotify this year doesn’t even cover the costs of making the music in the first place.
âEven without the fact that we’ve been in a pandemic for the past couple of years, and therefore live earnings and merchandise sales have been incredibly low, there would still be time for companies like Spotify to sit down and to start doing more for the music community.
âIt’s a broken system,â Hill said of Spotify’s current payment system.
With 556.8,000 streams and 145.8,000 listeners, Hill’s music only grossed the streaming giant £ 1,670.40 for the year.