The thin thread between artistry and business is an important one. In the former camp you have ideals such as beauty, creativity, passion and, well, art. In the latter, there are far more nefarious elements such as money, admin, greed, and power.
So for any UK acoustic singer, why would they want their acoustic music on Spotify ?
Exposure to a global audience
Most bands and singers will grimace when a venue offers them Exposure rather than payment for a gig. But that's usually because their local venue is only going to have a few dozen patrons at most.
Spotify is the biggest music streaming platform, so your music has the potential to reach the ears of listeners on a completely different continent! Far better than old drunk Joe down the pub...poor Joe.
Money making opportunities
Making money from your art is personal to you and how you want to present yourself to the world. The great thing about streaming music is that everyone has access to nearly everything, the downside being that any monetary value gets reduced massively.
Gone are the days of paying £15.99 for a CD in HMV.
However, once you have your acoustic music on Spotify, you can look at all the various ways of making money whilst being part of the platform.
More on that in a later blog post, stay tuned.
Promote your Spotify listing at gigs
Get fans at your gigs to follow you on Spotify. Ask the crowd then and there to pull out their phones, open the app and find you. This builds a following of your actual music fans rather than asking them to follow on Facebook or Twitter, where the content is not that relevant to your tunes.
Embed your Spotify elements
If you have a website, Spotify allow you to embed your songs or your artist page. Take a look around my acoustic singer website and you will be able to see a few of these.
Integrating these elements is a fantastic way to use their platform to bolster your own branding and image. Artists on Spotify look more legitimate than SoundCloud or such like.
Legacy
The main reason why I put my acoustic music on Spotify is that I wanted it to be somewhere people could easily find it.
Not to be too morbid but if I popped my clogs, and with my diet...eek, I would hate for my music to be lost to a forgotten platform, or even worse still in my head. A head now rotting in the ground, sorry that's a bit dark.
So I personally will be putting more of my acoustic music on Spotify over the coming weeks, months, and years so please follow and see what comes out.
And stay tuned for more acoustic singer UK articles.