Transcription
Last week, I posted a video called "I invested $100,000 to create my album, and Spotify deleted it." And this video ended up going pretty viral, accumulating over a quarter million views in the first few days, plus thousands of comments and numerous reaction videos from fellow music channels.
Cara had this to say about what she's going to be doing related to Spotify moving forward.
All right, so the artist Cara, she has released the album. She did a video on YouTube or whatnot and she's talking about Spotify deleting the album. She spent like $100,000 on it or whatever. So,
hello nerds. Welcome back to an episode of Weaver Reacts. Today, we'll be reacting to Cara investing $100,000 to create an album and Spotify deleted it. Honestly, it's not that shocking.
Shout out Cara. I saw the video. I was going to give it a day or two before I reacted to it, gave my thoughts. So, I was stumbling across YouTube and I saw this video saying, "I invested $100,000 to create my album and Spotify deleted it." Now, someone that worked in the music industry, I'm very curious to see what she says. Thank you all so much for the love and support. Even if you think I'm a little crazy for spending all that money to create an album. In this video, I want to follow up and respond to the top comments, suggestions, and criticisms that my video received and provide more info and insight into this insane situation.
Before addressing any individual comment, the most shocking takeaway from the comment section as a whole is how many independent artists are in the same exact situation. Hundreds of people shared depressing stories of songs, albums, entire discographies being entirely wiped out of existence for so-called fake streams. When you're all alone, it's easy to wonder if some bad person attacked you personally. But the more and more people I see stuck in this situation, the more you got to wonder if it's a systemic attack on a group of artists, not just individuals attacking the work of other individuals. But now, let's get into the comments and start with the top comment.
The music industry is absolutely broken. And apparently over 2,000 people agree, including me. It seems like the music industry has pretty much been broken since the internet piracy era of the early 2000s. It's only changed flavors, lost value, and gotten worse since. I'm 33, and people my age or older remember buying albums and CDs from our favorite artists. However, people younger than me grew up with infinite unlimited access to music through the internet. Basically, you pay for your cell phone bill and all entertainment thereafter is free. And technically, this is true as long as you're willing to sit through ads. Since entertainment is already everywhere, for many consumers, paying for music is equal to paying for air. It's intrinsically valuable and necessary, but it's already everywhere at all times, so why pay for it?
The next popular topic was going back to physical media. While countries like Japan are still selling CDs in 2025, Western countries are barely selling any CDs at all. In fact, this is one of the reasons why K-pop and J-pop is so lucrative because they still buy physical media. I know this from personal experience because my highest publishing payouts came from J-pop and K-pop releases. In Western countries, most major department stores still have an aisle for CDs, but you barely see anyone shopping in those aisles. As much as I would love for consumers to value physical music, it's an uphill battle.
The next common theme you'll find in the comments is suggesting that this is just a DistroKid problem. It appears that DistroKid isn't the only music distribution company that sucks. They all suck. Just read through my comments and see for yourself. The big ones, the small ones, they're all just the same path to pennies with a unique logo on the surface, but equally horrific payouts and treatment of independent artists on the back end. Music makers need a reliable road to dollars, not another path to pennies.
On the streaming service side, it's not just Spotify that sucks. They all do. For example, I have two Apple Music profiles. My SoundCloud is covered in songs I didn't even make, and I will never reach a human for assistance. It's clear that independent artist issues don't really matter to anybody except for other independent artists. Streaming platforms don't care. Casual listeners don't care. And distributors don't care either as long as you keep swiping your credit cards.
To all the people saying that I should sue Spotify, the system is so international and decentralized that there's not any one clear set of laws that everybody follows. Spotify is Swedish and a lot of distributors are American and those are two completely different sets of laws. So, they exist in a legal gray area.
In addition to music being falsely deleted, I've also had hundreds of unauthorized songs released on my personal profiles just because some random person wanted an official collaboration with me.
It It's crazy. Like, if we go back and look at some of the look at the artwork,
opposite were songs that I didn't make are appearing on my page.
You know what I'm saying? So, DJ Dookie remix [Laughter] Yo, the disrespect, dog. That's disrespectful as hell.
People need to realize that music streaming technology is so bad right now that anyone can upload any offensive song that you didn't make to your profile. And to make it worse, your followers will get a notification as if you created it. Congratulations. I hope you and your fans like your new release. Cuz in many situations, those songs will be stuck up there forever, like mine are, no matter how many takedown requests I submit. So, I made an entire documentary on this issue alone called "This Is Not My Song," which you can watch on my YouTube channel. So, not only can people easily delete your music, but people can easily upload their music to your profile without your consent. They don't need your username or password. They don't need any hacking skills. The platforms have left the door wide open for anyone to do anything and nobody sees an issue with it. These music platforms are literally a living nightmare.
That's enough about Spotify and all the music industry issues outside of my control. Let's switch gears and talk about some of my choices. I chose to invest $100,000 producing the music, photos, and visuals for my album, "Beauty and the Boss." Naturally, there was a lot of criticism for how much money I invested because there are obviously alternatives that I could have gone for for much less. So, why didn't I do that? I always wanted to know what you get when you hire the best of the best. But, I never had the money to actually go for it. When I moved to LA, I was working in food service, recording other singers, writing songs for other artists, and had the bestselling vocal sample packs on Splice. But it wasn't until I was older and more established that I was making enough money to invest in my own artistry. I figured now's my chance to go all in on my vision. Aside from improved quality, the education that I got through actually working one-on-one with these professionals was infinitely better than any college education I could have paid for. And guess what? College easily cost three times as much as this album. Yet, people congratulate you even though you don't yet have any plans on how you're going to pay your tuition loans off. They congratulate you for the education. and I received an excellent education along the way. I learned from experience way better than I learned from a classroom.
You want to be leaning forward a little bit,
you know, not back.
So, this album was kind of like a master's degree in music, video, photography, mixing, mastering, and even the business. Any of you understood the value in failure and success stories. So, shout out to everyone who showed appreciation for my documentary. I'd imagine most successful people probably took risks and failed along the way.
With the amount of people upset with AI and music, there was a surprising amount of people telling me that I should have used it to cut corners in videography, photography, and music production. I want to bring my audience the most original product, not the easiest product. Additionally, I support other art forms with the same value that I value music. I don't want to ditch my morals when it comes to photography or videography. I want to support real creatives from start to finish. And I pay them their asking rates instead of trying to haggle them, devalue them, delay payments, or avoid paying them altogether the same way other artists and companies have done to me. I'm not here to repeat that cycle of abuse. I'm happy to pay people.
Yay. Cut. And then just while we're here, let's get one without any singing.
And side note, if you think the music industry is bad, wait till you meet some friends in the TV and movie industry. Coincidentally, the writer strikes were happening the same summer as my video shoots, and my album project was one of the only gigs that many of those professionals had that entire summer. So, looking back, I am very proud of myself for supporting very skilled, talented visual artists during that crazy time.
If you haven't noticed yet, one of the main ways that music becomes profitable is when it gets paired with something visual. Music on its own isn't worth much, but music in a commercial, a TikTok trend, a sold-out concert, or a hit TV show, all of a sudden it's worth lots of money. And why is that? Because video is valuable, and you want your music in videos. Video without music can become boring. Music without video could also become boring. But when you have exciting music paired with an exciting video, story, or experience, you're in a whole different tier of profitability and entertainment. This is exactly why video views are worth way more than audio streams. It's just inherently more entertaining to the masses.
A lot of people noticed that as I went through my expenses list that there was no marketing budget. Anytime I attempted to gain the interest of a PR company, a management company, a record label, distributor, it never led to any real interest or contracts. So by that point, I was completely on my own for marketing. And truthfully, I was happy to do it all organically. And organic growth is exactly what I got. A solid medium amount of streams. And I'm honestly really pleasantly surprised from the amount of support I got because after all, it was my debut album and a new style of music from my fans.
Wow, that looks amazing, you guys.
Shut up, dude. So, it's easy to assume that I'm here complaining that I got a million streams, but really the issue is that a million streams was only worth $1,200 and then they delete your work whenever they feel like it. I'm quite satisfied with the steady growth in streams. But I'm extremely dissatisfied with my work getting deleted for no reason. If the album hadn't been deleted and it was still up, I would have never made this documentary. I would have just happily let it grow slow and steady and moved on to the next project like I have been this whole time. But it got deleted and here we are. Thank god we did not waste any money on marketing now that we know the album was deleted. Imagine spending $50,000, half my budget, funneling people to a link that's now inactive. What a waste that would have been. At least the audio sessions, videos, photos, and behind-the-scenes footage can all be resalvaged, repurposed, and profited from in the future, whereas a marketing budget that would have been pure unforgivable loss in this situation. Funny enough, my documentary has already generated more revenue in one week than the royalties that DistroKid could pay me for 1 and 1/2 years of streaming. Let me repeat that for you. My YouTube documentary generated more money in one week than my entire album did for a year and a half of streaming. Look at this chart. You see the spike, right? That's not bots. That's guap because we're on YouTube now. We've been sold a dream that's hardly profitable unless you get creative and carve your own path or join a record label and hope for the best.
The next issue in the comments was about my music itself. A lot of people don't enjoy female pop music, rap music, or music with sexual humor, and that's okay. I totally understand. I was fully aware of that when I created it. Everybody should be able to enjoy the music that they like and skip the music that they don't like. However, there seems to be this recurring sentiment that trash music should be deleted. I disagree. My music might sound like trash to you, but satisfying random music critics is not a prerequisite to music distribution. These companies are supposed to host everybody equally who follow the terms of use. So, to argue that one style of music deserves to exist on a platform over the other is simply an idiotic take. Usually, these comments are coming from blank do nothing profiles. So, I'm not trying to change your opinion. However, I believe all music deserves not to be deleted. Just pretend that your favorite artist was in my shoes, better yet, yourself, and try to empathize with somebody who just had years of their hard work unjustly deleted.
A lot of people saw that more money was spent on the visuals than the music itself. So in their minds, this was a vanity project. But when you look at the accounting on the back end, videos are worth way more than music to begin with. So the expenses are somewhat proportionate to the potential value. Plus, if this was a vanity project, I wouldn't be revealing all of the failures, struggles, collaborators, and layers involved in creating my work. I would just pretend to have done it all myself like a lot of popular artists do. Plus, you don't see the countless years of dance rehearsals, singing lessons, practice, and all the things that weren't done on camera. And that's okay. That's how art usually is. You're just meant to see the finished product. But here on my show, you get to enjoy the entire journey, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
My next favorite comment is, "The money's in touring. Why didn't you tour?" Realistically, there's only one popular genre of music where people are willing to buy tickets to listen to songs that they don't know, and that's EDM. In any other genre of music, it's very unlikely for people to buy tickets to listen to music they don't know. Touring as a DJ has a significantly lower barrier of entry. I'm not saying that it's easy or effortless, but you can tour the world with a USB stick, pair of headphones, a laptop, and a backpack, plus maybe a tour manager, a VJ, and a photographer to help with the show. Not only do club and festival DJs get to avoid traveling with heavy gear, but a lot of the time they're playing other people's songs mixed in with their own. This alleviates some of the pressures from you having all the hits, and it allows you to wow the crowd, blending popular music from other artists. Again, I am certainly not putting DJs down. I'm just explaining the nature of the art form as it relates to touring. Meanwhile, pop artists, singers, rappers, and bands don't necessarily have it that easy. Many genres of music require dancers on stage, costumes, glam, set design, photography, videography, band members with instruments, a music director, stage crew, plus sound, and video operators that specifically travel with these artists to run their show. Plus, if you're in a band, you're further splitting profits between members. And don't forget 15% to your agent, 15% to the manager, and 5% to your lawyer or paying out any other people that you have on your team. I personally don't make acoustic music for coffee shops. And I'm also not an EDM DJ.
Touring as a female pop artist is extremely expensive and would easily cost more than $100,000 to travel around any country independently. Oh yeah, and don't forget flights, buses, hotels, travel expenses. So instead of doing a bunch of local shows to smaller groups of people, I would rather just stay home on the internet making YouTube videos for thousands of people, at least for now. But nonetheless, I have so much respect for any touring artist because that is not easy, especially on your body.
Another common suggestion that people shared is that you should have sold merch. Merch is something that I've both had very good and very bad experiences with. So, I didn't do any physical merch for this album. On the good side of merch, I've been using Shopify to sell digital products like vocal templates, vocal sample packs, Serum presets, courses, and more at imcara.com. The response to my business has been life-changing. However, this falls under music tech more so than artist merch. The one time I tried to sell artist merch was with a company that seemed reputable. They had worked with lots of major artists that I knew, but on the back end it was a disaster. We collaborated on cute custom designs while they handled all the printing, shipping, and orders. Release day drops. My fans start ordering Cara merch, sending me awesome photos, rocking the fits. And two months go by with the store in business and then this company ghosts me. They stopped fulfilling orders and they never showed me accounting or sent a payout. So I just assumed that they were no longer selling my clothes because they ignored me for over 3 years until I logged into my Spotify for Artists account and saw that my old merch was for sale on my Spotify profile. Great, they're back, I guess. Thank god I was finally able to get in touch with somebody that still worked at the company. And in the end, we did a deal where they sent me all the leftover stock instead of the money that they owed me for the sales. This seemed like a fair trade because I received six giant cases of Cara merch that I could ship out and sell myself. But holy, you better hope your fan base is local because the prices of shipping to other countries costs way more than the actual hoodie itself, and it leaves customers or you, the artist, paying unattainable prices for international shipping. Selling merch led to more shipping costs and confusion than the actual clothing profits were worth. Now I just give it away to my fans and supporters across the US who support my work and show extra love.
Finally, the big question that so many people were asking, why not re-release it? I could upload it with a different company and maybe get lucky and get my streams back. So why keep it off every music streaming platform altogether? As I said, audio streams are worth significantly less than video views. I no longer agree to receive 0.00003 cents for a stream, which means I don't agree with the terms of use, which means I will no longer use the services. Even the platforms that claim to pay more than Spotify are still paying fractions of a penny. And it's embarrassing. I don't need traditional music industry clout. I don't need Spotify analytics for my touring agent. And I definitely don't need to be spammed by bots or fake songs or have all of my hard work deleted for no good reason.
On the flip side, YouTube has been an incredible platform for my artistry. It allows me to showcase my musical talents, my storytelling abilities, visual aesthetic, and establishing a meaningful brand while getting paid fairly. That being said, I'm so excited to repurpose my album for future video uploads and studio sessions. Thank you so much again to everyone who has shared my story. And if you want to watch my other documentary called "This Is Not My Song" or my story about how my album got deleted off Spotify, I'll include links in the description below. And I'll catch you guys next time in another video.