Music streaming service Spotify is notoriously stingy when it comes to paying out royalties to musicians, but Los Angeles funk band Vulfpeck somehow managed to get $20,000 from the company without recording a single note of music. The band's debut album Sleepify is a five-minute, 10 track release containing nothing but absolute silence, and yet it received 5.5 million plays in just seven weeks. Why would anyone possibly want to listen to this album, let alone 5.5 million times?
Billboard explains that when Vulfpeck first posted the album back in March, the band uploaded a Youtube video along with it, explaining to fans that if they repeatedly streamed the album while they were sleeping, the band could conceivably earn enough money from Spotify to go on a tour of the US without having to charge for tickets. Fans played along with the scheme, and when the stunt received media coverage, even more Spotify listeners checked the album out, resulting in a nearly $20,000 payout for the band.
However, after allowing Sleepify to stream for seven weeks, Spotify ended up removing the album, "for an unspecified terms-of-service violation." Vulfpeck keyboardist Jack Stratton told Billboard, "I'm genuinely surprised they took it down...Or at least the timing - that they waited instead of doing it immediately. It maybe would have reflected better on them if they did it right away instead of getting all this press first."
Despite pulling the album, Stratton has said the band will still try to perform its originally planned tour dates in late September, hitting Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and its hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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