Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Spotify is doing well. The company's most recent quarterly earnings statement says that the number of listeners — including the numbers of paying listeners — is on the rise. In an interview with Music Ally, CEO Daniel Ek sounded frustrated with artists who complain that they're not getting much of that streaming revenue.

"In the entire existence [of Spotify] I don't think I've ever seen a single artist saying 'I'm happy with all the money I'm getting from streaming,'" Ek said. "But unequivocally, from the data, there are more and more artists that are able to live off streaming income in itself."

He then went on to explain that "there is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can't record music once every three to four years and think that's going to be enough."

In other words, he's bullish on the "indie" approach of artists like Taylor Swift, whose new album folklore became an immediate blockbuster, racking up the highest-ever single-day streaming total for a female artist.

"I feel, really, that the ones that aren't doing well in streaming are predominantly people who want to release music the way it used to be released," says Ek. That's certainly true of legacy artists like David Crosby, who had some unambiguous words for Ek. But younger indie artists like Zola Jesus aren't thrilled with the streaming situation either.

"Who has the means to generate 2 albums a year?" tweeted artist Matt Dryhurst (h/t Stereogum), adding what might have been a backhanded reference to Taylor Swift's new release. "Either those willing to put out subpar work, or those with big enough names to corral others to do the work for them."

Wherever this all lands, it further erodes the traditional album cycle, in which an artist goes into the studio, releases an album, tours behind that album, and then repeats; a promotional cycle, previously mastered by Swift among others, designed to build maximum expectation and sales for a full-length LP. The economics behind that were different, though, in the era of the $18 CD, though — and even in the era of the $9.99 LP.