Brikkuni frontman Mario Vella stressed that ticket sales are the band’s “only real lifeline” as he revealed the band's low payouts from Spotify.  

In a post on Facebook, Vella highlighted the disparity between the number of times listeners streamed the group’s music on Spotify and the royalties paid out by the streaming giant. 

This year, Brikkuni – one of the country’s most popular Maltese-language groups – racked up 91,000 streams across 89 countries, according to a screenshot by Vella showing the band’s statistics on the platform for the last 12 months.  

This equated, however, to less than €300 in royalties paid out by Spotify, a situation Vella said reflected the challenging environment faced by musicians. 

“Those 91,000 streams add up to the stratospheric sum of €273. It's hard to write it but that's the situation that many musicians have to face,” wrote Vella.  

“Therefore, double thanks for buying tickets for concerts because they are our only real lifeline. We appreciate it immensely and will continue to do our best to offer you the best we can with all our limitations.” 

Thanking fans for their support over the year, the Brikkuni frontman said although the figures seemed “humble”, they were considerable for a group that sings in Maltese and does not engage in promotion.  

“We would like to thank our listeners for their support over the past year. A year that had huge ups and downs that will probably mark the rest of everything we have left to accomplish,” Vella said.  

Malta’s artistic community was rocked in June by the death of Brikkuni guitarist and visual artist Andrew Schembri. The last concert he played with the band was opening for popular Ukrainian gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello. 

Two months later, Brikkuni performed a sell-out concert at the Greek Amphitheatre in Mosta as part of the popular Rock for Richmond event alongside fellow Maltese artists Joon and Kym Pepe. This was followed up by two highly successful Halloween performances in October.  

Founded in Sweden in 2006, Spotify has grown to become one of the main players in the music streaming world. Despite its popularity, the platform has drawn sharp criticism from artists complaining the platform doesn’t fairly compensate musicians.  

Taylor Swift famously pulled her back catalogue from the platform in 2014 but returned three years later, while other prominent artists have withheld material upon release. Meanwhile, this year Swift was the UK’s most-streamed artist across all platforms, according to the BBC.  

In 2021, Business Insider said Spotify “generally pays between $.003 and $.005 per stream, meaning you'll need about 250 streams to make a dollar.”  

And with Music Business Worldwide recently reporting the streaming giant is planning on excluding tracks with less than a thousand plays from paying out royalties, the situation facing smaller artists seems unlikely to improve anytime soon.  

In its ‘Loud & Clear’ transparency report last year, Spotify said it has paid out nearly $70 billion in all-time royalties and returns nearly 70% of every dollar it generates back into the music industry.