Sleepify

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Sleepify
Studio album by Vulfpeck

Publication
(s)

March 2014

Label (s) Vulf Records

Genre (s)

Wireless

Title (number)

10

running time

5:16 min.

Sleepify is the fourth album by American indie radio - tape Vulfpeck . It was released in March 2014 as an exclusive Spotify album and consists entirely of songs in absolute silence. At the end of April 2014, the album was removed from Spotify's online streaming service.

Track list

  1. Z - 0:31
  2. Zz - 0:32
  3. Zzz - 0:32
  4. Zzzz - 0:32
  5. Zzzzz - 0:31
  6. Zzzzzz - 0:32
  7. Zzzzzzz - 0:32
  8. Zzzzzzzz - 0:32
  9. Zzzzzzzzz - 0:31
  10. Zzzzzzzzzz - 0:31

background

According to keyboardist and drummer Jack Stratton, the idea for the album came about in an interview with Dave Pensado in his web series Pensado's Place with music producer Ron Fair.

Stratton asked fans in a YouTube video to listen to the songs from the new record in an endless loop on Spotify while sleeping. The band receives around half a cent for each track streamed, or around four euros for a whole night. They want to invest this money in a tour with free concerts, if the concept works. Since a music track on Spotify is only considered to have been played after a minimum running time of 30 seconds and therefore Spotify can only distribute money from this point in time, all of the music tracks deliberately and to a limited extent exceed this limit.

According to Spiegel Online, Sleepify was accessed around 250,000 times in this way, which is said to have brought the band revenues of around $ 20,000. Vulfpeck used the money raised for concerts in the USA and in 2017 for a European tour.

Despite a statement by a spokesman that his company had no plans to do anything against silent music in March 2014, the entire album was released in late April 2014 after Spotify's e-mail, unheeded by the band, to take the work offline , taken from the online offer of the music streaming service because it violates the provisions for Spotify content. Spotify had previously confirmed a stern.de request on April 11th that according to their "current guidelines nothing speaks against this action". Vulfpeck member Jack Stratton responded by uploading an album called Official Statement , in the first track of which #Hurt Stratton gives a statement on the current situation. The second track on this album, called #Reflect , again consists of 31 seconds of silence.

According to Spiegel Online, it was initially unclear whether Vulfpeck would receive payments from Spotify, which, according to Stratton, would be made with a delay of two months. A spokesman for Spotify rejected a request from the online Internet newspaper The Daily Dot : “I'm afraid we don't really have anything to say on the subject. I'm sorry. ”An article on the news website Stern.de from March 8, 2014 reported that a spokesman for Spotify had confirmed that the payments would definitely be made. Nevertheless, Spotify wants to ban the uploading of silent music in the future.

Billboard magazine reported in July 2014 that Vulfpeck had meanwhile received an amount of 19,655.56 dollars from Spotify for the streams.

reception

The idea behind the album was celebrated internationally and judged to be creative. Spotify itself called the project an "original action". Spiegel Online spoke of a "Sleepify" hype.

"Music magazines and scene blogs celebrate Vulfpeck as the band that Spotify tricked into being the ones who expose the absurdity of an entire business model."

- Markus Böhm : Earning money with silence: How an American band tricked Spotify ( Spiegel Online )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steve Knopper: 'Silent Spotify Album' Creator Talks Strategy Behind Unique Plan. In: Rolling Stone magazine website . March 21, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  2. ↑ a b Markus Böhm: Earning money with silence: How an American band tricked Spotify. In: Spiegel Online . March 25, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Tim Jonze: How to make money from Spotify by streaming silence. In: Website of the British daily newspaper The Guardian . March 19, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  4. ↑ a b c Earning money with silence: “Sleepify” album no longer on Spotify. In: Spiegel Online . May 8, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Jared Newman: Silent Album Games Spotify to the Tune of $ 20,000. In: Time .com. May 7, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Vulpeck concert on 19.09.2017 in the Berlin Kulturhaus Astra . accessed on November 20, 2017
  7. ↑ a b c Jens Wiesner: Spotify throws the silent album "Sleepify" out of the program. In: Stern.de. May 8, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Paul Bonanos: Vulfpeck's Half-Joke 'Silent Album' Made Some Serious Cash. Billboard Online, July 22, 2014, accessed November 7, 2015 .