@exitthelemming
Pinned post
www.theguardian.com ‘The end of an era’: Scillonian III sets sail on final voyage from Isles of Scilly Much-loved passenger ship has traversed Atlantic swells between islands and Cornish mainland for almost 50 years Spotify just announced a feature that could either save the music industry or destroy it.View quoted post on X
Starting as early as Q1 2027, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to use AI to transform any participating artist’s song into a completely different version. Turn a folk ballad into a dance track. Make a hip-hop song sound acoustic. Generate a cover where one artist’s voice performs another artist’s song. Remix a pop hit into lo-fi study music. Create the version of your favorite song that only existed in your head until now.
The remixes will be uploaded directly to Spotify. They’ll appear in playlists. They’ll count toward the original song’s chart position. And most importantly the original artist will earn royalties every time someone listens to a fan-created remix of their work.
Spotify has already signed a landmark licensing deal with Universal Music Group the world’s largest record label. Negotiations with Sony Music and Warner Music are ongoing. The feature will cost an additional $4–$5/month on top of Spotify Premium. And analysts project 7–8% of American subscribers will adopt it by 2028.
This is not Suno or Udio generating music from text prompts. This is fans remixing real songs by real artists with the artists’ permission, on the world’s largest streaming platform, with royalties flowing back to the creators.
A music industry analyst who’s covered streaming economics for 15 years told her team something after reading the licensing agreement that reframed how she understood the future of recorded music.
“Spotify just turned 640 million listeners into 640 million potential remixers. The question isn’t whether people will use it they will. The question is whether paying artists for fan remixes solves the economics of streaming or creates a world where the original recording is worth less than the infinite remixes generated from it.”
Here’s what Spotify’s AI remix feature actually is, who wins, who loses, and why this might be the most consequential decision in the music industry since the launch of streaming itself 🧵
“An incarnational politics would take seriously the idea that every person is God”
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
View quoted post on X
