Indie band The Pocket Gods have released their final album, Vegetal Digital, for the staggering price of £1 million. The album is available as a one-off vinyl copy at Empire Records in St Albans. The proceeds from the album will go towards funding the band’s own streaming platform, NUBPLAY, which will guarantee to pay artists and songwriters a minimum of 1p per stream – a rate that is 50 times higher than the current rate from Spotify.
The band have been campaigning for fairer royalties since 2015, releasing albums of 30 second songs to highlight the lack of fair payment from streaming services. The stunt has resulted in numerous Guinness World Records, with their last album, Vegetal Digital, featuring 1000 songs all 30 seconds long and holding the world record.
Frontman Mark Christopher Lee said: “We started releasing just albums of 30 second songs back in 2015 and being ‘inspired’ by an article by US music professor Mike Errico who asked why artists weren’t just writing 30 second songs as this is when Spotify pays out a royalty in full and as artists don’t get paid much from streaming – why write longer songs!”
The Pocket Gods have had high profile champions over the years, including late BBC DJ John Peel and Tom Robinson of 2,4,6,8 Motorway fame and BBC Introducing pioneer. They have also recently featured in the film Inspired The 30 Second Song Story, which is now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime and Roku.
The band have also experimented with AI, releasing two albums at the same time – one created by the band in the studio and the other fashioned by AI – to let the band’s fans decide which is best. Lee adds: “There’s a lot of fear surrounding AI especially in the creative sectors but as our experiment showed AI is no match for true human creativity – AI will never have a soul or get the blues or feel inspired to write a song out of some bizarre situation – that’s what makes us human.”
Indie band The Pocket Gods have released their final album, Vegetal Digital, for £1 million. The proceeds from the album will be used to fund their own streaming platform, NUBPLAY, which will guarantee to pay artists and songwriters a minimum of 1p per stream – 50 times more than the current rate from Spotify. The band have been campaigning for fairer royalties since 2015, using albums of 30 second songs to highlight the lack of fair payment from streaming services.
Frontman Mark Christopher Lee said: “We started releasing just albums of 30 second songs back in 2015 and being ‘inspired’ by an article by US music professor Mike Errico who asked why artists weren’t just writing 30 second songs as this is when Spotify pays out a royalty in full and as artists don’t get paid much from streaming – why write longer songs!”
The album is available as a one-off vinyl copy at Empire Records in St Albans and is featured in their new film, Inspired The 30 Second Song Story, which is now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime and Roku. The Pocket Gods have also experimented with AI, releasing two albums at the same time to let the band’s fans decide which is best. Lee added: “There’s a lot of fear surrounding AI especially in the creative sectors but as our experiment showed AI is no match for true human creativity – AI will never have a soul or get the blues or feel inspired to write a song out of some bizarre situation – that’s what makes us human.”
Indie band The Pocket Gods have released their final album, Vegetal Digital, for the extraordinary price of £1 million. The proceeds from the album will go towards funding the band’s own streaming platform, NUBPLAY, which will guarantee to pay artists and songwriters a minimum of 1p per stream – 50 times more than the current rate from Spotify.
The band have been campaigning for fairer royalties since 2015, releasing albums of 30 second songs to highlight the lack of fair payment from streaming services. This stunt has resulted in numerous Guinness World Records, with the last album featuring 1000 songs all 30 seconds long and holding the world record.
Frontman Mark Christopher Lee said: “We started releasing just albums of 30 second songs back in 2015 and being ‘inspired’ by an article by US music professor Mike Errico who asked why artists weren’t just writing 30 second songs as this is when Spotify pays out a royalty in full and as artists don’t get paid much from streaming – why write longer songs!”
The album is available as a one-off vinyl copy at Empire Records in St Albans and is featured in the new film, Inspired The 30 Second Song Story, which is now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime and Roku. The band have also recently experimented with AI, releasing
Derick is an experienced reporter having held multiple senior roles for large publishers across Europe. Specialist subjects include small business and financial emerging markets.