Dani Filth – ‘Spotify Are the Biggest Criminals in the World’

Like most digital music streaming platforms, Spotify has drawn criticism for various reasons (including making it difficult for new artists to get noticed and/or possibly giving preference to AI-generated music). One person who’s certainly not a fan is Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth; in fact, he thinks it’s downright reprehensible.

In a new video interview with Rock Hard Greece (posted on June 16), Filth and host Sakis Fragos discussed how the music industry – including consumers – has been negatively impacted by miscellaneous practices and standards.

Filth remarked [via Blabbermouth]: “It’s been deteriorating ever since . . . I think 2006 was the year that everything swapped from being comfortable for musicians — well, not necessarily comfortable; it was never comfortable. But [it went to] just being a lot harder with the onset of the digital age, the onset of music streaming platforms that don’t pay anybody.”

In particular, he says that Spotify are “the biggest criminals in the world,” adding [via Blabbermouth]:

I think we had 25, 26 million plays last year, and I think personally I got about 20 pounds, which is less than an hourly work rate. . . . I think people just have this amazing ability to [believe] that when you have stuff out there, like physical product, that you’re earning a fortune from it. They don’t realize you have so many people taking pieces of the pie — record company, management, accountants, blah blah blah blah; it doesn’t matter. . . . And nowadays, the reason why people put out limited-edition vinyls and stuff, it’s for collectors — they’re the only people that buy it; other people just stream it for nothing.

READ MORE: System of a Down’s ‘Chop Suey!’ Hits 1 Billion Streams on Spotify

Filth also argued that such financial woes – tied to consumer entitlement – are a big part of why many bands aren’t touring post-pandemic [via Blabbermouth]:

Petrol’s gone up. Tour bus hire’s gone up. The cost of living’s gone up. Yeah, it’s very hard for bands at the moment. But it doesn’t help when people just have this in-built idea that it’s not a privilege to get music, that music is something that should be given away free. I mean, I don’t walk into someone’s shop and just pick up — I don’t know — a pack of bananas and say, “Well, these grow on trees. They should be free. I’m walking out with these.”

I’d be arrested for shoplifting. But it’s fine for people to download. . . . Even before albums are out, you find fans, like, “Oh, I’ve got a link to it,” and they put it up and then instantly any sales you’re gonna get from people buying it for a surprise are out the window because they’ve already heard it and then they just move on to the next thing.

Yeah, the music industry is on its knees at the moment. I still enjoy making music — don’t get me wrong; I love it — but, yeah, the musician nowadays is finding a million things against them. It’s a hard time.

He’s certainly making some good points, right?

Last year, Cradle of Filth signed with Napalm Records, and this past March, they joined DevilDriver on the “Double Trouble Live” tour. Of course, Filth and Ed Sheeran have been bonding recently, too, and back in May 2023, Cradle of Filth took to social media to provide an update on the upcoming follow-up to 2021’s Existence Is Futile. Lastly, their latest live record – Trouble and Their Double Lives – released this past April and featured two new studio tracks: “She Is A Fire” and “Demon Prince Regent.”

What do you think of Filth’s assessment of the modern digital music scene? Are you looking forward to the new Cradle of Filth LP? Let us know!

Dani Filth Discusses Spotify + Other Streaming Music Woes on ‘Rock Hard Greece’