Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider says Spotify CEO “should be taken out and shot”

nme.com:

Twisted Sister‘s Dee Snider has hit out at Spotify, suggesting CEO Daniel Ek “should be taken out and shot” for unfairly compensating artists.The streaming platform has frequently come under fire for the low rates at which it pays artists, which has contributed to many artists struggling to make enough money directly from their music.

Recently, Spotify controversially changed its royalty streaming threshold of 1000 plays before songs are able to generate royalties.According to Spotify data, there are around 100million songs on the service, yet only around 37.5million meet the new requirements to generate revenue.Snyder’s criticism for the platform and its CEO, who he didn’t refer to by name, came during an interview with the YouTube podcast The Jeremy White Show.“That guy from Spotify, I wanna tell you, he should be taken out and shot,” Snider said (via Consequence of Sound), presumably referring to Ek. “When he heard that artists were complaining about how little we get paid, his response was ‘Make more music’ — like we’re producing cans of Coke.

Just [increase] the production. [It’s] insulting and belittling.”Snider’s initial criticism was referring to a widely circulated 2020 interview in which Ek said that “you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough.”Snyder went on to reveal his primary source of income from music comes from licensing, mostly from Twisted Sister’s huge hit ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, and he makes very little from Spotify streams.“The licensing is the last godsend, the last oasis where you can actually make some money,” he said. “Steven Spielberg chooses ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ for the finale of Ready Player One.