Spotify CEO Daniel Ek recently said in a podcast interview with Music Ally that "you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough," later adding "artists today that are making it realise that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans." Ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Twisted Sister vocalist Dee Snider, and Every Time I Die vocalist Jordan Buckley all came out against Ek's statement, and now it's bassist James LoMenzo's turn.
In an interview with That Jamieson Show With Don Jamieson, LoMenzo (Firstborne, ex-Megadeth, ex-Black Label Society) did not mince words about how he feels.
"Fuck him!" said LoMenzo. "Right away. God, if he gets into a room with any one of us, man, he's not gonna be very happy about it. This is gluttonous. He should be in jail with Bernard Madoff. He's robbing us all blind. And you know what? There was no way out of it."
"I know everybody enjoys the convenience of MP3s — I do — but the point is that we used to be able to take months and months, if not a year or two years, and if it took five years, we could sit there and make a piece of art for people that would last forever. You wonder why music is turning so disposable. It's part of this consciousness of just, you know, music's just… it's for the moment.
"You and I grew up in a time where we would have an album and that would be our life for a month. And then we'd carry that with us for the rest of our lives. This kind of business model is cheating people out of that experience, and it's propelling people past the art of it, which is, sadly, where we're ending up.
"You can only rebel so much — I mean, if popular taste wants that, that's fine — but exacerbating it through greed, I don't really think that's a noble pursuit, unless you're greedy."
In a recent earnings report, Spotify revealed they generated revenues of 1.89bn in Q2, up by 13% from Q2 2019, reporting an operating loss of €167m and a net loss of €356m for the quarter. Read the full report here.
