Band records 1000 30-second songs in protest against Spotify

British indie-pop group, The Pocket Gods, announced they will be releasing an album of 1,000 30-second songs in response to Spotify's royalty policy.

Music-streaming platforms are notorious for giving artists little revenue, Spotify currently gives anywhere between $0.003 to $0.0084 per stream to artists and that's only if the song is played for 30 seconds.

Many artists have expressed their frustration with the business model, some have boycotted putting music on streaming services for this reason. But The Pockets Gods have found a pettier way to go about vocalizing their frustration.

The Pocket Gods are an indie-pop band from St. Albans, UK YouTube

The band's new album titled, 1000×30 – Nobody Makes Money Anymore, will feature 1,000 songs all approximately 30 seconds.

“The longest is 36 seconds." Mark Christopher Lee, frontman for the group, said to iNews. "[the album] is designed to raise awareness about the campaign for fair royalty rates.”

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Lee said the band was inspired by New York music professor Mike Errico's comment in The Independent, "why are people still making 10-song buckets of three-minute songs?"

Errico argued if musicians are paid once the song hits the 30-second mark, there's no reason to make it three minutes long. So Lee and The Pocket Gods are exposing this flaw in the system with their album set to drop on Friday, February 11th.

In an interview with talkRadio back in October, Lee spoke about Spotify's royalty rollout saying, "there's a lack of clarity on how companies like Spotify pay artists."

Lee revealed that artists signed to major record labels are able to get paid on the platform because they are given a spot on Spotify's official playlists which garner them more plays than indie artists.

While criticizing the royalty policy, Lee acknowledged the benefit of using Spotify as an indie artist - for example, the band does not need a record label in order to get their music out to the public.

“I also believe in free speech even though I’m a massive Neil Young fan so I don’t support the [Joe Rogan] boycott," Lee said to iNews. "We just want to raise awareness of the royalties issue.”

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