Spotify needs an emissary. Is Troy Carter the guy?
Spotify has another idea for increasing subscriber growth and warming icy artist relations. The platform is now hiring Troy Carter — formerly Lady Gaga’s manager and a huge streaming supporter — to head up its global creator services. Carter will be responsible for creating and maintaining relationships with songwriters, artists and labels in order to boost Spotify’s exclusive content on the service.
Though news comes as a slight shock, with Spotify recently tarring exclusive releases as ”bad for artists, bad for fans.” That stance may be in back-peddle mode, as exclusives seem to be a new strategy that competing streaming services are using to grow subscriber numbers. Maybe Spotify decided to join in.
Meanwhile, Tidal is crushing it with their exclusives – there’s been Rihanna’s ANTI album, Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce’s Lemonade, amongst others. All of which created a spike in sign ups for Tidal. Then, there’s Apple, who recently enjoyed an exclusive with Drake on his Views album.
Spotify’s choice to hire Carter makes a lot of sense. Carter founded an artist management company by the name of Atom Factory, so he’s already been building relationships with artists and is extremely well-connected within the music industry. He’s previously worked with the likes of Meghan Trainor and John Legend, not to mention Gaga.
In a recent Facebook posts, Carter wrote…
”So after 15 years of talent management, I’ve decided that it’s time to explore new roads. I’d like to thank all of the artists that gave me such an incredible opportunity by entrusting me and the Atom Factory team with their careers: Eve, Lady Gaga, John Legend, Meghan Trainor, Charlie Puth, and many many others. THANK YOU! I’m a firm believer that Spotify is the future for music. In my new role as Global Head of Creator Services, my job is just a natural continuation of what I’ve always done – protect the voice of artists. Always have and always will.”
With that being said, we may well see a string of music exclusives on Spotify in the coming months.
(Image by TechCrunch, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic, cc by 2.0)
I think at this point exclusives won’t really be about drawing people in necessarily for specific releases, at least in the way that Life of Pablo was used to pull in new subscribers. It will be more just to keep giving people on the service reason to stay, and be better than the other options for people who are wondering which to sign up for.
For example, I’m sure new subscribers that signed up to Hulu for Seinfeld didn’t nearly make up for the money they spent in getting that, but they’ll make it up in keeping other subscribers and gaining others because it’s just a valuable addition to their offerings.
Obviously music is much easier to throw up somewhere illegally, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think streaming will just be the norm in the not-too-distant-future, so why not start funding some artists as exclusive content, and/or working with labels to do so.
Just another naked industry emporer claiming to lead blind musicians to the promised land so he can make $$$ by exploiting their talent. I’ll pass.
right on the money.
Troy Carter at Spotify is the equivalent of Alicia Keys at Blackberry. It’s destined to fail because it makes zero sense. The guy found a lottery ticket with Gaga and is riding the rails until the wheels fall off. Good for him; bad for Spotify.
Troy Carter? Who cares? Kids don’t know or give a crap about him. Cmon, Spotify, get a clue and connect with someone who is a real tastemaker that people identify with.