Spotify finally have Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool album they were waiting for…
After much anticipation and early speculation, Radiohead’s ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ is finally available on Spotify. Today (June 17th) ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ made its way to the streaming platform, over a month after being available on nearly every other streaming service. Spotify only had access to the two songs – ‘Burn the Witch’ and ‘Daydreaming’ off the album prior to today. But, now the full album is available to stream for all Spotify users.
What’s interesting is that Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke is openly against Spotify (and free streaming in general), and a big advocate for artists getting fair pay. He previously pulled his music from Spotify back in 2013, dubbing the service ”the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.”
So, what’s changed?
It is clearly evident that the music industry has changed significantly over time – the downfall of CDs and now the fall in digital downloads has been combined with the uprise of streaming. Streaming services are now a way that most people are opting to consume and pay for music. Even more so since 2015, when Apple Music and Tidal entered the scene, giving music listeners more choice. Apple also expanded streaming to a global scale spreading more awareness about paid music subscription services.
Streaming is now the biggest revenue generator for the US music industry, and this is a fact that some artists find hard to swallow, especially those artists that have been in the industry long enough to experience these shifts in music consumption. Some artists are resilient to streaming full top, and some, like Radiohead are opposed to streaming platforms like Spotify because of its free tier. But even on the free tier popular artists can generate revenue even if there is a lower per-stream royalty rate .
Why now?
After expressing public hate for the service back in 2013, Radiohead may have come to terms with the shift towards streaming – in particular free streaming, in the music industry. Spotify certainly haven’t made any changes to their rates or business model that would spark new interest in the service.
But, there have been rumours that Radiohead were speaking with Spotify about an exclusive release on their premium tier – something that Spotify haven’t done before. These new talks may have helped to resolve old issues.
Or, it may be a new strategy for Radiohead to release their music on streaming services that do not have a free tier, in order to generate more revenue, and then later make it more widely available. Other artists, like Beyonce with Lemonade, Kanye West with The Life of Pablo album and several other artists are starting to adopt this move.
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