Nobody really talks about the numbers behind being an independent musician, but actually all the musicians I know kind of obsessively browse through their “Spotify for Artist” analytics, and I guess today I wanted to share a little bit of that excitement and joy of seeing how far the music is actually going!
Refreshing that Spotify for Artists dashboard wondering what it all means is definitely something all musicians who’ve ever released stuff in the past 10 years have been secretly doing, so today, one month after releasing Unfiltered Tapes Vol. 1 (April 16th) and two weeks after Unfiltered Tapes Vol. 2 (May 1st), I’m sharing the actual numbers.
Fair warning: They’re not crazy, but I think that’s kind of the point too!
What these albums even are
The Unfiltered Tapes concept was just to take the covers I’ve been posting on my YouTube (rock songs, folk, video game music, metal), and record them in a freeform “live” format with my voice and my harp.
It goes without saying but it’s literally just me, in my studio, playing the songs through without any big budget or label involved behind it. They are just a handful of songs I love and have felt meaningful enough to me to do it with, and put together for people who might love them too.
Both volumes are available as “pay what you want” on my store, and on on my Patreon, and the music (minus the bonus tracks on Vol. 2), is also on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, and more.
A quick note on stats
Before I share numbers, here’s something worth knowing: as an indie artist, the only platform that gives me full, real-time statistics is Spotify. Everything else (iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube) comes in fragments, often delayed by months. So what you’re seeing here is Spotify-only, and Spotify is, by a large margin, the most popular platform for my music so far.
For context, here’s the platform breakdown by popularity:
- Spotify (by far the biggest)
- iTunes
- Apple Music
- Amazon Downloads
- Amazon Unlimited
- YouTube Red / YouTube Ads
Unfiltered Tapes Vol. 1 - One Month In
Released April 16th
| Stat | Number |
|---|---|
| All-time streams | 246 |
| Unique listeners | 23 |
| Streams per listener | 10.7 |
| Playlist adds | 87 |
| Saves | 100 |
79% of plays came from my artist profile (67%), my own catalog (13%), or listeners’ queues (8%). About 17% came from personalized or algorithmic playlists.
To me, what this indicates is that it’s a pretty healthy release. The ratio of saves to listeners is something I’m particularly happy about: 100 saves from 23 listeners means people are actually adding this to their libraries, which signals real interest instead of skip-through.
The algorithm did pick it up early, which gave it a small boost, but it’s been a bit quieter since Vol. 2 came out, which makes sense. That’s just how releases tend to work when you drop two close together.
You can listen or grab a copy here.
Unfiltered Tapes Vol. 2 - Two Weeks In
Released May 1st
| Stat | Number |
|---|---|
| All-time streams | 125 |
| Unique listeners | 25 |
| Streams per listener | 5 |
| Playlist adds | 32 |
| Saves | 101 |
90% of plays came directly from my artist profile (84%) or catalog (4%), with 12% from algorithmic playlists.
This one came out slower; it launched two weeks after Vol. 1, so the initial burst of attention was split. The algorithmic push wasn’t as strong on this one either, but looking at the saves, we’re already at 101 with fewer overall streams. That tells me people who found it liked it enough to keep it.
Based on the saves count already being almost as high as Vol. 1 with fewer total streams, I’d say it’s picking itself back up!
You can check it out here.
The part that actually blew me away
Streaming numbers are only part of the picture, and there’s something else worth mentioning because I think it really shows how much individual support matters!
Licensing the songs for these two albums (the legal side of covering someone else’s music and distributing it) cost me around 100€ in total, and within the first couple of days after releasing both volumes, purchases from my store had already covered that entire amount, which is honestly a huge win for a “pay what you want” release (technically you can download both releases completely for free)!
Revenue as an independent artist is almost impossible to report cleanly because streaming royalties take months to appear and Distrokid gives me a platform average rather than a per-release breakdown, but what I can say is that direct store support is the part that shows up first, and it showed up fast. This is what I mean when I say that small actions make a real difference: every purchase, even a small one, directly covers concrete costs and is what keeps projects like these going!
What I want you to take from this
I’m proud of these releases, not because of the numbers (lol), but for very personal reasons. A few years ago, I couldn’t have imagined releasing something like this at all. The pitch isn’t perfect, the playing has little errors here and there, and it’s definitely not on a metronomic tempo. Those songs sounds like what you’d hear if I were performing in a bar right in front of you, because that’s essentially what it is. And for a long time, that felt like something I couldn’t put out officially.
The fact that I did is actually the result of a lot of internal work. Many people have loved these covers, and I’m really grateful for that, but beyond the reception, just publishing them in the first place is the thing I’m most proud of, because it means I’ve gotten over a fear I carried for years, which is the fear of showing the imperfect, human side of my music.
And if you’ve ever thought “I’m just one person, what does it matter if I save a song, buy an album, or add something to a playlist?”. it matters more than you know, because to an artist at my level, 23 listeners and 100 saves is not a rounding error, it’s the whole thing.
If you want to listen or support:
- 🎵 Unfiltered Tapes Vol. 1: voice & harp covers of rock, folk, video games & metal
- 🎵 Unfiltered Tapes Vol. 2: more of the same, with bonus tracks exclusive to the store
And if you’re in a playlist mood, I’ve got two on Spotify built for exactly that:
- The Siren & the Harp: fantasy music with female vocals and harp
- Enchanted Voices: haunting and powerful female vocals with relaxing atmospheres
If you wanna hear more from me, you can join my newsletter! You can also join my Patreon & Discord Server for more behind the scene and content!
