Spotify changes playlist rules post Pocket Gods’ protest album

After the release of British indie band, The Pocket God’s latest album 1000×30 Nobody Makes Money Anymore, Spotify has finally agreed to change its rules on their playlists considerations.

The album featured one thousand songs, each about 30 seconds long, as a form of protest against Spotify as the music streaming giant is known for paying artists a very low pay rate for every time their song is played. In addition to this much-condemned practice, Spotify only pays when the song has been listened to for 30 seconds.

Apart from the duration of the album’s songs, their titles also make many mocking references to playlist rules. For example, their first track, “0.002,” directly hits out at the meager amount they are paid each time their song is played on Spotify. how much a stream pays you on Spotify. Some of the songs in the album also called out other artists such as Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Adele to join the protest by making their own 30-second songs and releasing them on the platform.

During an interview with iNews, The Pocket God’s frontman Mark Christopher Lee said that it was a 2015 article by the publication, titled “How streaming is changing everything we know about making music,” that gave him the idea to create a protest album.

“I saw the article and it made me think, ‘Why write longer songs when we get paid little enough for just 30 seconds?’ It’s a ‘work to rule’ to raise awareness on behalf of all the artists, musicians & songwriters.”

Since the release of the album, the album has reached 600 000 streams. Seeing their swift progress, Spotify has commended Lee and his band for being “ahead of the curve.”

“Spotify said we’re ahead of the curve as shorter songs are the future – just look at TikTok. They said that I can pitch 30-second tracks to their playlists for consideration. I wasn’t able to do this previously as the songs were considered too short. So next week I’m releasing a 30-second single called Noel Gallagher Is Jealous Of My Studio.”

After the unique protest and the major response to the same, Spotify has agreed to change its rules to allow short songs to be considered for its official playlists. Its founder Daniel Ek has reportedly even reached out to the band to work out a meeting between them and Spotify’s head of artist relations.

As revealed by Lee, Spotify is planning to amp up its pay rates to artists by increasing its subscription charges for its Premium service, which is currently at £9.99 a month.