This British indie band is selling their final album for £1 MILLION
I’ve been following the exploits of Britain’s The Pocket Gods for years now. In case you don’t know, they’re all about protesting the low payouts from Spotify. They draw attention to the situation by releasing hundreds, nay thousands of songs, all a little over 30 seconds long. Why that length? Because Spotify (and all the other streaming services) pay out once a song runs for 30 seconds. The Pocket Gods’ thinking is “Why bother releasing longer songs when it doesn’t matter?”
But after slogging it out. The Pocket Gods have decided to hang it up with one final album. It’s in the spirit of all their other releases with one notable exception. A single copy is available for sale for £1 million.
I quote from the email the band sent me Sunday morning:
“The band who have been releasing albums of just 30 second songs since 2015 to highlight the lack of fair royalties from Spotify and other streaming services are set to release their final album called Vegetal Digital – of which there will be only one digital copy for sale for £1 million.
The band will then use this money to fund their own rival streaming platform which will guarantee to pay artists and songwriters a minimum of 1p per stream (which is 500 times the rate that the band currently receive from Spotify which is £.002).
“The Pocket Gods’ frontman – Mark Christopher Lee – adds:
“’It’s time we stopped moaning about Spotify and how unfair the current streaming system is for artists and songwriters and did something positive. What I want is for artists and songwriters to be valued by their listeners and to be fairly compensated for their life-changing craft. We are heading to a soulless world without organic music to a world dominated by AI-generated algorithmic playlists. I vision a world where musicians, artists, and songwriters will change the world for the better we must pay them fairly.’
“This will be the band’s 76th and final album to be recorded and will consist of 10 new songs (not 30 seconds long!), and one copy only to be sold digitally along with the artwork on September 1st, 2022 for £1 million. At the same time, they will be removing their entire catalogue from Spotify.
“The album will also come with its own film footage of the making of the album, hi-res photos from the behind-the-scenes footage, and all the lyrics with their own artwork. The band will also record a special personalised message for the owner. This will all come in a wooden personalised flash drive.
Holy Wu-Tang Shaolin, Batman! Best of luck, lads.