As an artist I have my music on Spotify, because I feel like I cannot choose not to.
However, I would ask listeners to please listen to my music literally anywhere else.
Update: Jeremy Blake has made a very good video on this topic. I recommend that you watch it.
Another update: I have now removed my music from Spotify, and most other streaming platforms as a consequence.
As I talked about previously, there are many different services for getting your music online with the major streaming providers. Here’s my thoughts on a few that I’ve worked with, and a couple that are on my radar and I plan on trying out in the future.
Of course, the best place to sell your music is on places like Mirlo and Bandcamp, where you actually get paid well for things and your buyers are able to retain access to your music in exchange, but the unfortunate reality of music in the current era is that most listeners are going to the streamers to listen to stuff, so if you want your stuff to be listened to, this is where you have to put it.
I’ve been looking into physical releases again lately. After my recent vinyl releases, my various polls have found that people are much more interested in buying things on CD than vinyl, because they’re a much easier means of doing a physical collection.
The manufacturing space used to be a lot bigger, but these days there’s not a whole lot of options. For most musicians, there are two paths to go down: on-demand and short-run.