Spoti-Five

So my first online streaming revenue statement was made available today.

And Wow. Just Wow.

Now it would be totally gauche and unladylike to talk in specific dollars, but lets just say that bankable rockstars have a lot to complain about.

I feel for them. I really do. I have never seen so many zeros to the right of the decimal point since taking a Pre-Calculas class back in 1994. These are atomic numbers. These are numbers with negative exponents. These are the kind of numbers your mother warned you about, but you just wouldn't listen cause she couldn't possibly know how you feel, cause she's never been in love like this before.

Yet, to be totally fair, I have never once entered streaming revenue in to my budgetary calculations. Performance fees, CD sales, and music licensing are the only (relatively) logical income that one can expect until one is Bono. Spotify, Pandora, and the rest, are part of the mix solely for the egotistical reason of wanting to be everywhere for everybody, all the time.

If it buys me a pastrami sandwich at some point, I'd consider it a wash.

It would be fascinating to get a little peak at the accounting numbers of the major online streaming companies just to get a sense of scale.

But on second thought, that might just make me sad.

And I don't want to be sad.

So let us have a little fun with numbers:

8,253,968
That's the number of songs need to be streamed in order to replace my modest middle class income for one year.

550,264
That's the number of hours of entertainment I would have provided to the listeners who collectively streamed my songs 8.25 million times, in comparison to:

2,080
Which is the number of hours I used to spend making Pumpkin Spice Lattes. And they say musicians are lazy.

58
Which, based on the current trend of streaming, is the number of months it will take before I have enough to buy myself a pastrami sandwich.

0
Is what I'd get if I didn't try.

And if given the choice between nothing and a pastrami sandwich in October 2018, well, I think we all know who the winner is.