Newsletter

The internet is furious at Spotify - and not because of royalties this time

One user wrote: "Spotify really is the Twitter of music platforms. Disgusting."

This week's newsletter is peppered with music recommendations and news. However, the essay section half way down requires a trigger warning due to allegations of serious male violence against women and girls.

February's Albums of the Month

Voted for by the Drowned in Sound community.

1st Richard Dawson - End of the Middle
2nd Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On
3rd Sharon Van Etten - SVE and the Attachment Theory
4th Panda Bear - Sinister Grift
5th Marie Davidson - City Of Clowns
5th Oklou - choke enough
7th Saya Gray - SAYA
8th John Glacier - Like a Ribbon
9th Jules Reidy - Ghost/Spirit
10th DARKSIDE - Nothing
10th Ginnels - The Picturesque
10th Michael J. Blood - Spaces In Between
10th The Murder Capital – Blindness

My pick from this pile of recommended albums is the newie from DARKSIDE (one of Nicolas Jaar's side projects). Nothing is gently funky and squelchy, with plenty of unexpected shifts in and out of focus.

In a recent interview with The Politics of Dancing, Nicolas Jaar writes:

Ultimately, I think political music should be judged on what it is asking of its listener, what kind of demands it makes on the world. These can be political demands but also spiritual demands, often they can be both. So I would say: no sound is innocent. But also: no sound is ever alone. Revolutions and uprisings have always been constellations of sounds, spirits, martyrs, food, jokes, stories, cleaning, dancing, and blood.

Featured New Release

Sound Mirror has released the soundtrack to the Drowned in Sound podcast on her Bandcamp. It's a mind-soothing drone piece. When I use it as a sound-bed, it makes me feel like I'm speaking from inside a nice Twin Peaks mist.

Podcast of the Week

The unstoppable Kate Nash chats to legendary music journalist Mark Sutherland on The Money Trench. At one point, Kate explains, "I'm earning a lot more from my bum than my music right now." Listen here.

In The News

Youth Music, whose CEO recently featured on our podcast, have launched their Rescue the Roots campaign, which says: "Without urgent action, young people across the UK could lose access to grassroots youth music projects within a decade. 41% of these vital projects are at risk of closure. To fight this crisis, we're launching ‘Rescue the Roots’ - a £1 million fundraising campaign to protect the future of the grassroots youth music sector. Every pound raised will be matched by us, doubling the impact." (YouthMusic)
Broadcasting legend Lauren Laverne is to be honoured at the Music Producer's Guild Awards - I'm thrilled to see The Anchoress, who I manage, nominated once again for self-producing artist of the year (Record of the Day)
Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek sold another USD $29.2 million worth of company shares on March 5th 2025, continuing a pattern of stock sales just weeks after the streaming platform’s share price reached record highs. The latest sale marks Ek’s 15th since July 2023, and brings his total earnings from share sales to $695.3 million, with over half, or $376 million, of that coming in 2024 alone. More on Spotify below... (MBW)
New free exhibition: Black Sound London at the Barbican Music Library. Chris Hayward, from the City of London Corporation, said: "With its many styles and charismatic performers, Black Sound London will strike a chord with everyone who enjoys listening to British black music and is keen to find out how LP sales in niche record shops, air time on pirate radio stations, and community spaces played a key role in its success." (BBC)
Massive Attack's first homecoming gig in five years has broken a world record for producing the lowest ever carbon emissions (BBC)
Shocking stat - 4 Out Of 5 Songs Sent To Music Services Are Never Played; What This Means For The Industry (Forbes)
Good news for independent music - Proper Music saved as Drew Hill and Artone conclude strategic acquisition deal to buy the assets of Proper Music Group. Proper makes up 13% of the UK music market. Its clients include Absolute Label Services, ADA, AWAL, Believe, Cherry Red, Concord, Nova Sales & Distribution, Epitaph, Fuga, Hospital, Ingrooves, Kartel, The Orchard, RSK, and SRD, representing artists like Nick Cave, Pet Shop Boys and more. (CMU)
This story didn't get much coverage compared to Katy Perry agreeing to be flown into space by Jeff Bezos or the silent album protesting AI: $500m-valued Suno has admitted training AI on copyrighted music - that hasn’t stopped Amazon from adding its controversial tech to Alexa (MBW)
Prince documentary director speaks out about canceled Netflix project: ‘It’s a Joke’ (Variety)
DiS-favourites iDLEWiLD have announced a "rocktober" UK tour (NME)
American radio still not gonna pay, as Lauri Rechardt from IFPI explained on LinkedIn: The euphemistically named "Local Radio Freedom Act" is reintroduced in the US Senate. The aim of the bill is to ensure that US remains one of the last countries, together with Iran and North Korea, to refuse artists and record companies payment when their recordings are used by broadcast radio. (Radio World)
Eamonn Forde on Spotify's latest data from their annual Loud + Clear report: "We get a better insight into the hard scrabble for smaller artists when Spotify says its 10,000th-ranked artist generated $131,000 last year – up from $34,000 a decade ago – and that 1,500 acts each generated over $1m in royalties in 2024. This is a heartening rise, but last year, Spotify said there were 225,000 “emerging or professional recording acts” (its terminology) on the service globally. That means just 4.4% of professional or near-professional acts stand a chance of generating at least $131,000 a year, while 0.6% are in with a shot of generating $1m or more. A solo act at this level might be encouraged by the potential income, but a band with four or five members will need to heavily rely on income from gigs and merchandise." (Guardian)

Crisis In Grassroots Music Updates

Los Campesinos! have shared a detailed breakdown of their live costs to explain how they lost over £1000 playing a show in Dublin. It's a really revealing piece that has sparked a very healthy debate about the crisis in grassroots music (DiS Community)
It seems that the organiser of Isle of Wight Festival doesn't think the booming live industry should "prop up" grassroots music with a levy on stadium and arena tickets (Bluesky)
This is a really good deep dive by Mark Sutherland that explains why many of massively disagree with Mr Isle of Wight - A Lifeline for Indie Venues: Can a New Tax on Arena and Stadium Concert Tickets Save the U.K.’s Grassroots Circuit? (Variety)
Are Tours Shrinking? Eamonn Forde examines the evolving nature of touring across Europe, as artists and their representatives plan tighter runs of dates (IQ)
In 2025, £1 from every ticket at a live music arena and stadium show would raise a minimum of £22 million, with a maximum possible scope of £30 million. (Mark Davyd from Music Venue Trust estimates on Substack)
"The British Beer & Pub Association reports that nearly 300 pubs closed across England and Wales in 2024. Accountancy firm Price Bailey have estimated that 1 in 10 British restaurants are at imminent risk of closure, while the Night Time Industries Association recently revealed that the UK has lost 37% of nightclubs over the past four years. Grassroots music venues are equally vulnerable to this chilling complex of dynamics." (Featured Artist Coalition board writing in Music Week)

This week's essay is free to read thanks to reader support.
In the coming months, we will be paywalling more of our posts. You can upgrade to become a member for as little as £1 per month. If you prefer, you can make a one-off tip to support my independent journalism in this newsletter and on our podcast.

THIS WEEK'S ESSAY

Over 60,000 People Are Angry That An Andrew Tate Course Is Available On Spotify

If you've been following me since Spotify was in beta back in the late 2000s, you will remember that I was a huge advocate for the platform. I've made hundreds if not thousands of Spotify playlists over the years, including a monthly playlist for their official blog back in the day. I've experimented with their features, setup projects like Independent Music Monday with [PIAS], and been a vocal champion of the streaming age, despite my criticisms of some of the financial model. The latter frustration comes from a place of wanting to protect the music I love and ensure fans money flows to the acts they adore, so that being said, this wasn't easy to write...

In recent years, you may have noticed Spotify has pivoted away from being purely a music platform and invested vast sums in other forms of audio. This has included adding audiobooks, which upset some in the music industry whilst confusing authors and concerning some narrators of audiobooks.

Far bigger than its shift into audiobooks was the Swedish firm's investment into podcasting. This included lots of tools being made for podcasters, dedicating homepage real estate to pods, buying various firms, funding celebrity podcasts, and backing successful but controversial podcasters like Joe Rogan, who has reportedly received $450m of funding. If you're unsure why Rogan is deemed controversial, Media Matters have been documenting comments on The JRE for many years, long before Trump or Musk were guests on the hugely popular podcast. (Relatedly, Spotify's founder also donated to Trump's inauguration and hosted an inauguration brunch)

In addition to podcasts and audiobooks, Spotify now proudly offers "courses", some of which are a packaged as podcast series, some of which you can buy for a fee. This weekend, amongst the international women's day posts in my social feeds was a series of posts about one of the podcasts/courses available on Spotify, which is by another controversial figure, Andrew Tate.

Whilst clearly not commissioned by Spotify, the user-uploaded Tate "course" has sparked a wave of backlash and seen over 60,000 people sign a petition asking for its removal.

Since I began writing this piece, Spotify have quietly removed the episode from 2023 that was initially linked to in the petition but a quick search reveals other versions of the course are still available to stream for free. There also appears to be a version of the PHD course which you can pay for using Spotify for Creators (formerly Anchor):

After reviewing the transcript of the two hour and fourteen minute the PHD or "Pimping Hoes Degree", the course comes across to many commenters online as breaking Spotify's community guidelines by including a guide to what sounds a lot like coercive control.

What is coercive control?

Coercive control has been a crime in the UK since 2015. Here's is domestic abuse charity Women's Aid definition of the crime:

"Coercive control is an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim."

In terms of the contents of this course, CMU reports:

The ‘Pimping Hoes Degree’ content includes Tate expounding his views on women, promoting psychological manipulation and emotional control, advocating for power imbalances in relationships and using deception to achieve sexual goals, and generally describes a model that champions coercive control and the exploitation of women.

Tate says that “women like to be led, they don’t like to be asked”, and tells listeners, “if you don’t have a webcam company you need to look into it, because as soon as you have a couple of girls in love with you, it’s the fucking easiest money in the world”.

He also describes how he pressured one woman to move to the UK to be with him, and another British woman to then join them, so that they could work for his webcam business, adding “I was making loads of money”.

The Petition

The troubling nature of the "course" was underlined in comments by Renee Chopping who says:

“I’ve counseled survivors - some trafficked as young as 9 - who have endured repeated abuse at the hands of men who used the same tactics Tate brags about. It takes years, if not a lifetime, of rehabilitative care to undo the damage, yet Tate boasts about profiting from their pain. And Spotify is helping him cash in.”

Ms. Chopping started the petition. The introduction to the petition reads as follows:

"Spotify is cashing in on the exploitation of women and girls. The platform is hosting courses by misogynist influencer and accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate - courses that actively teach men how to manipulate, control, and profit from the exploitation of women."

DiS reached out to Renee for her reaction to one of the Tate courses that had been live since October 2023 being removed whilst other versions of it remain live, and she said:

“It’s astounding that a company as large and well-resourced as Spotify allowed these courses to remain online for so long. This isn’t just a failure—it’s a choice. Despite clear violations of their own platform rules, it is taking massive public pressure, thousands of petition signatures, and direct outreach to Spotify’s leadership just to get them to act.

Tech giants like Spotify have the power and resources to prevent this kind of harmful content from ever being published, yet they consistently fail to take proactive measures. Instead, they rely on the public to do the work of identifying and flagging dangerous material—by then, the damage is already done. If they can invest billions into expanding their platform, they can invest in ensuring it isn’t a breeding ground for misogyny and exploitation.”

You can sign the petition here:

If it isn't obvious to you why this "course" is an issue and why so many people are concerned, here's Jennifer Sayles, the solicitor representing women who claim they were attacked by Tate. Daily Mirror reports her comments as follows:

"We must rid our social media feeds of Andrew Tate's hateful, sexist content that celebrates violence against women and girls. If the authorities do not step up and take action against Tate then I fear that there will be further tragedies.
The fact that Kyle Clifford was watching Andrew Tate videos in the lead up to raping and killing his former partner, Louise Hunt, and killing Louise’s mother and sister is the devastating reality we are faced with as violent misogyny online rises.
We can’t prevent or control every time a man does the unthinkable to a woman or girl in his life, but we can do things to decrease its likelihood. Starting with social media companies removing dangerous Tate content from their platforms.
The UK accusers have called for immediate action from those that continue to platform Tate."

For context, Sayles represents four British women suing Tate in the UK's High Court. One of her clients alleges that Andrew Tate choked her so severely that blood vessels burst in her eyes. You can read more about their case in this piece for Marie Claire by Patsy Stevenson.

It's not just in the UK and Romania Tate faces charges as last week the BBC reported on the Tate brothers arriving in America:

“In the US, the brothers also face a civil suit from a woman alleging they coerced her into sex work, and then defamed her after she gave evidence to Romanian authorities... Andrew and his brother Tristan, face separate charges in the UK of rape and human trafficking….”

The Tate brothers deny all allegations.

The Internet Reacts

Aside from the petition, here is a sample of the reaction to a post on my Bluesky:

"I’m not going to have a Spotify sub for much longer if this garbage is not taken down"

"Spotify really is the Twitter of music platforms. Disgusting."

"It is unbelievable how institutions, both private and public, act like this is a normal, admirable person and the poison he's peddling is an okay thing."

"Thanks for the heads up. There’s so much content from him on there! I’ve started reporting it but Spotify makes reporting anything tortuous."

"Glad I cancelled Spotify. They are a force for evil. They pay a lower amount to artists than other streaming services and they fund Joe Rogan."

"Due to this matter, I am considering closing my Spotify account. However, where should I go? YouTube Music? Or something called Deezer? Or what?"

"Jesus christ can we just stop using Spotify already... If you're a user, switch to something else. If you're an artist, just pull your music. F*ck it all off. We can (and have to) do better than this FFS."

It's not just the sorts of people who follow me that are angry, hundreds of people who follow Eloisa Tovee, a campaigner for UN Women, are reacting to her powerful post on the social network for professionals, LinkedIn.

Also on LinkedIn, people are flooding the replies to posts by the Spotify founder Daniel Ek. Since July 2023, Ek has earned $695.3 million from share sales, we mention this as you might expect Spotify to have allocated resources to check his replies, as well as the standard corporate practice of analysing online sentiment and monitoring discussion about the service online for reputational reasons.

Here's a random selection of comments on one of Ek's posts:

Spotify allows comments on podcasts, so people were also commenting on the podcast episode itself:

What Can Be Done?

Spotify - who in 2024 posted revenues of €15.673 billion, up 18.3% - has a large team (reportedly in the realm of 7000 employees), some of whom we understand have a role to enforce their platform rules to protect the safety users of their platform - especially important given how easy it is for children to access the service.

Every day a huge volume of music is uploaded (some reports suggest 140k tracks a day) and thousands more podcasts are published on their platform, so it's understandable that some things are missed, which is why, alongside help from the public, most global corporations use tech tools to filter and help highlight content for review by moderation teams. For instance, Apple Music's quality control team paused the uploading of a recent DiS release with "god damn" in its lyrics, which didn't have a parental advisory warning, and we had to reupload it as explicit content. Similarly, YouTube will demonetise a live stream if their Content ID system picks up any copyrighted music playing quietly in the background.

Tools to monitor uploads are really sophisticated, and Spotify has recently begun removing podcasts that include copyrighted music, so there is clearly some analysing of their library of podcasts occurring but even with their vast resources and tech wizardy, versions of this Tate content, flagged by many distressed users in the past week, still appear on their platform.

How Has Spotify Reacted?

Firstly, it's great to see that following several days of public outcry one version of the course that was the focus of the petition has been removed but surprising to see other versions of it still appear to be live on the platform.

The lack of a prompt public response to provide assurance and transparency about why this was removed but other versions are still up, leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

On Monday morning (10th March 2025), Drowned in Sound contacted Spotify's press team to ask about their procedures, whether there is an editorial or corporate justification for keeping these shows on their platform, and if they plan to remove this course. We have given them several days to respond but currently have had no response to these questions.

It's not just us who have had no response, various media outlets and users have been met with silence. For instance, a post from a week ago by a user on Spotify's official forums has had lots of replies from other users but no reply from anyone at the platform, which means their moderators either are not monitoring their forums or the company has chosen not to respond.

Here's what a member of Spotify's customer service support team said when we reported this "PHD" course at the weekend:

My followers have also discovered similar content appearing on Soundcloud and we will be investigating other platforms in the coming days, especially those that made powerful International Women's Day statements at the weekend, like Spotify did.

Concerned? Found Something Else? What Can You Do?

You can highlight content to the streaming platform in one of the following ways:

Report this to Spotify here, here, and if the podcast is hosted by Spotify for Creators, here. Episodes to let Spotify know about are here and here.
You can also email Spotify, here (perhaps also point out how hard it is to report content on their platform, it isn't a simple one-click process).
Additionally, if you're in the UK, you can write to OfCom who oversee online safety.

Legal disclaimer: Andrew Tate and his legal representatives have denied all allegations made against him. Any legal or regulatory actions mentioned are ongoing or subject to change. We will continue to reach out to Spotify for comment and update you if we get a response or see a response online.

Must Reads/Watch

Femi from Ezra Collective expands on his comments about the need to fund Youth Clubs (Guardian)
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes - this is a really fascinating 80 minute discussion between Matt Bernstein, Taylor Lorenz, and DiS podcast guest Kat Tenbarge that goes really deep on Grimes and uses some examples of coercive control / domestic violence that may be useful to hear (YouTube)
Flooding the zone against Blake Lively. The aforementioned Kat Tenbarge has launched her own media outlet, and this piece discusses the billionaire-backed Justin Baldoni's attempt to overpower the media (Spitfire News)
Another nepo baby gets a podcast/radio show. Alexis Petridis ponders King Charles’s Apple Music playlist: are they really his favourite songs? (Guardian)
Not at all music-related but spend 10 minutes with one of the best analytical political commentators on the internet breaking down the news in 10 mins and introducing "the miserable" (Jessica Burbank, YouTube)

Image of the Week

This is a page from a beautiful goth 'zine called Fresh Hell, which features interviews with the punk & nature lovin' legend that is Chris Packham, poet/songwriter/DJ Freya Beer and more. It's goth meets nature, and yes, that's my venn diagram eclipse, as you may remember from my review of The Cure last year. You can - and really should - download the zine for free.

Outro Track

Artist of the moment Lola Young (who featured in this newsletter last February) covers The Cure's 'Close To Me' for Aussie radio station Triple J's Like A Version

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