#sleepify

Think out of the box with Spotify, guys

An enterprising Los Angeles band named Vulfpeck figured out how to make $20,000 from Spotify by doing absolutely nothing.

The band wrote a completely silent album they called 'Sleepify' and asked their friends to stream it while they slept.

Vulfpeck - Wait for the Moment

A groovy tune with a serious message. 

What do you do if you are a small Indie band and you want to go on tour, but you don't have any money? 

With streaming songs now dominating the music industry, and music giant spotify paying all of $0.007 per stream, it's nearly impossible for independent bands to get out and play in front of their fans. (n.b Spotify had been promising to pay bands more money, just as soon as they grow their premium user base from 6 million to 40 million. I.E. never)

So Vulfpeck came up with a ingenious plan. They uploaded 10 tracks of silence to Spotify, titled Sleepify (a thinly veiled dig), and then put out a video urging their fans to stream the album on repeat as they slept, with the pledge that all royalties would be used to fund a tour. 

And it appears to have worked, netting them about $20,000 in royalties. (Each song on Sleepify runs 32 seconds long, the minimum allowed for Spotify, so if one fan listened to the album all night on repeat (800ish plays) it would net the band about $4 from Spotify. 

Even though Spotify quickly realised what was going on and removed the album for violating their terms of service, Vulfpeck get to keep the money. 

What this does demonstrate, however, is a fundamental shift in the music industry itself. Spotify is causing actual physical and digital album sales to tank at all levels, not just for smaller artists. Unless you are Beyonce or Bruce, and can augment your income with massive stadium tours and merchandise sales, you're going to find it difficult at the best of times. 

This week, the top 10 albums in the chart sold a cumulative 320,000 copies. 14 years ago, Eminem's Marshall Mathers EP sold 1.76 million copies in it's first week. 

Albums, in 2014, just don't pay. This is a sad indictment of an industry where the album is an important tool in the artists' armoury, allowing them to tell and develop a story or narrative around the collection of songs within.

Vulfpeck aren't an anomaly, which is even more of a shame. But until the industry figures out a way to reward artists, whilst keeping music prices competitive and music enjoyment ubiquitous, then artists will continue to have to use stunt and surprise in order to survive. 

Or we could all just listen to One Direction. 

Enjoy

Crisp