Curious to hear people's thoughts - this isn't a serious consideration of mine, but the idea has been festering and I want to hear what it's like out there in the real world...
 
I've recorded and sold a CD with my Acoustic Blues and Roots duo through CD Baby - I sprung for the digital distribution even though I knew I was probably going to sell more physical CDs at shows and/or use them for Promo material to get more gigs.  So I have a little bit of experience with CD Baby.
 
Since I've been making a lot of electronic music and been producing what would probably fall into the "Synthwave" genre.  (My gigs as a early 1900s blues man are paying for my soft synths!  ;))   Where I live, my lifestyle, and my age - I'm not going to be going out and hitting the clubs with live acts.  But I've found a lot of people on Spotify that seem to be faceless musicians from the corners of the world.  They also don't seem to be playing live very much.  They are, for the most part, small time acts, but seem to have a niche following...
 
How realistic is it to produce music at home and put it out there on Spotify, or other online outfits?  Make a little extra (not looking to quit my day job, but it would nice to have some extra cashflow for the studio).  Is this even possible?  
 
If you have done this - or know anyone that has - point me in a direction.  I'm just curious.  I might never even try - but I'd like to know other's experiences...

I'M ON SPOTIFY....
thru cdbaby....
 
and i get a regular paycheck from them.
 
i think, if you divide a thousand by a million, 
that's what i get.

there's so much competition you have to do something really strange or weird to get the millenials attention.  Have you thought of getting a bunch of helium balloons and attaching them to a lawn chair? Then you can float above everyone with advertising for your spotify.  Just a thought.

Ha!  Yeah - I suspected as much.  I've made a total of $40 in two years in digital distribution sales...  But I figured someone out there must be making something...
 
I'm also curious - are you able to release an album entirely digital?  I mean, if I've earned $40 and it costs less than that - why not?

At the height of the CD golden age, people playing small clubs would pray that they would somehow be noticed by a "talent scout" and get the recording contract that would be the chance to be heard by the world. There were probably hundreds of thousands of regularly working musicians shut out of contention by that hurdle. Of the thousands of recordings released every year, a couple of hundred would get regular airplay and sales, the rest of the unsold CD's would moulder in the basements of winners who had once had a contract and a one or two release career. The competition was fierce, and the opportunities were limited to those who professional critics believed had a decent chance of making hits, and earning them bonuses at the recording companies. 
 
In the digital age, the barrier to entry can be surmounted by anyone. Literally anyone. That includes people who could never get a job playing in a bar or fill a hat by busking. Spotify presents twenty million songs to the public. Reportedly eighty percent have been played at least once, implying that  four million have never been played at all. Apparently there are millions of musicians who have the wherewithal to post songs there who do not even have any friends or relatives who would be interested in their work. Imagine walking into a craft fair with that many booths or an art exhibit with that many paintings or listening to twenty million songs to find out which ones are worth a listen. It is not that this venue does not offer any real hope of granting wealth, it is that it does not offer any real opportunity to connect with the public for the vast majority of the people involved. A busker can expect to be heard by a couple of hundred listeners a day if he has a good spot and can evade the cops, and he will certainly expect to get a bigger paycheck than the median independant artist who is paying an "artist aggregator" like CD Baby to put their stuff there.
 
Even if you want to give your music away, there is little chance that it will get a significant audience. Spotify and its ilk are in competition with free music services like YouTube ,which was the largest by volume distributor of free music even before the introduction of YouTube Music. Without someone pointing the listener to a particular offering in this vast wasteland, there is little hope that any particular recording will be heard.  Arguably, posting free music, and providing links to it, may be a viable option for a musician who just wants to be heard by his friends and fans or to provide a sample of his work to a prospective employer or use it in his only slightly less hopeless self-promotional strategy. The downside of course, especially for a singer songwriter, is that the terms of service of most of the free to post services are so overbroad that they give any listener the right to create derivative works of his songs under a license that cannot be revoked, essentially vitiating the artist's copyrights, while claiming to leave them in the artist's possession. Since the paid services need to preserve the rights to the work so they can profit from them, they, and the artist aggregators, are usually more careful about what they take. 
 
 

slart,
 
TL;DR but I'm sure what is contained would be considered a "bummer".

OK, I lied.
 
I did read it.
 
And....... it was a bummer.

...and yet..I see plenty of young (and old) bands and musicians getting their music heard. There are many, many bloggers and music websites promoting new music, publishing their 'top 50 new albums' etc. When Nettlesmith produced a CD a couple of years ago we sent a copy to Folk Radio UK, who posted a review on their website. That one review garnered us over 1000 plays on Soundcloud. It's not all negative.

slartabartfast ...

Apparently there are millions of musicians who have the wherewithal to post songs there who do not even have any friends or relatives who would be interested in their work...

 
This has been like that since time immemorial. There are hundreds of composers over the years, whose stories have been in novels, movies, plays and ... everywhere else. It can be as bad as someone's wife who does not understand his music, he writes a Symphony for her, and she still leaves! It could be your children that just don't get it, just like you don't get their stuff. Regardless, one has to create because they want to satisfy their own inner curiosity and feel, and not someone else's taste or crap! PERIOD.
 
I think, just like the old contracts of yesterday, that we .. WOWOW ... I'm gonna get famous!
With the public, it's all a crap shoot, and 1 in a million, regardless of how good, bad or indifferent, although there is a massive audience for weirdness, quarks, strangeness and whatever charm you can smudge in it. The point there is that no one will EVER agree on what is good or bad, or right or wrong, and anything can get done, and in the end, it will feel like no one cares, but I sincerely doubt that some painters in the modern age, cared a lot for what they thought ... it's all about what they feel, and how eventually it turns out! Someone out there will find a meaning in it, even when you had none!
 
AND THAT whole PART, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SPOTIFY, OR ANYTHING ELSE.
 
And this is the real issue of the computer age. Spotify, Blowhairdry, Bapuemycry ... are nothing ... absolutely nothing ... than a DATABASE. Heck, the other website about "progressive" says that ... and it's like ... it's the fans because of the numbers. 
 
As such, a little report every day ... simple enough! ... can tell you that this one got 2 hits, that one 15 and that one 175 and that one 200,000, and the rest none ... and that big one will have 5 distributors at your door immediately before you are done with sex and coffee, and they will likely try to get you to go somewhere else where the delivery method might expand your possibilities. They might even have a small offer, like a tour of all the bars in Pluto! Or Texas! Or Nicaragua!
 
I'm not sure how to get the "attention" any better than most anyone else here. I think that one has to blow out the audience, and sometimes give them the finger ... not that you have to have just about anything to get the attention, but when your own family is not interested (or have heard it a thousand times), then it's time for a kick in the butt somewhere.
 
Are you going to stand up for your work? Or are you going to go back to the back room and disappear and change the song into something else again? You have to make a decision. You put blue paint and green paint on that canvas and did something with it ... and now because 2 people didn't care for it, you are going to put different paint over it? What does that accomplish? YOU decide!

All great perspectives...
 
@slart - it sounds like you are basically saying that there are new opportunities here in that the artist has more control and self-determination, however that does not mean that the process will be any easier...  And in many ways there are new hurdles and it can be MORE difficult to get your music heard - but at least it's not at the will of the "Man"...  I can see that...
 

jamesg1213
...and yet..I see plenty of young (and old) bands and musicians getting their music heard. There are many, many bloggers and music websites promoting new music, publishing their 'top 50 new albums' etc. When Nettlesmith produced a CD a couple of years ago we sent a copy to Folk Radio UK, who posted a review on their website. That one review garnered us over 1000 plays on Soundcloud. It's not all negative.

I think I agree with this.  I was surprised that my Acoustic Duo got some hits at all.  I did very very little promotion beyond my small regional effort.  (And where I live, busking is legal and in some places encouraged - and I make more money busking at the Farmer's market on Saturday mornings than I do in the Venues or selling CDs...)  My music seems to have caught the attention of some people in Europe because I'm getting some listens out there...  I think that's cool!  I also know that I'm listening to many bands on Spotify that have less than a 1000 listens and found them through bloggers or by browsing Spotify...  Makes me think it might be worth putting out an album digitally (If it's up to snuff musically)...  If I could make up the price of digital distribution, I'd say it's worth it...
 
Has anyone done that?  If so, what service did you use?