Yup, she dumped the streaming service a couple of years ago, everyone’s darling TayTay announced that she will be bringing her full catalogue back to all streaming services including Spotify, Pandora Premium, Tidal, and Amazon Prime Music.
Taylor’s initial apprehension and dislike for streaming services stemmed from her belief that artists weren’t compensated enough by these services. She also called Spotify a “grand experiment” and was not satisfied that her Spotify listeners could also listen to her music on the free ad-served tier. She disliked the idea that music “has no value” and “should be free” because she believes that there should be an inherent value placed on art.
That’s why you could only stream her stuff on Apple Music.
But the power of streaming services like Spotify is hard to ignore. As Spotify approaches 50 million paid subscribers, the payouts have increased enough that they can make up for the big decline in the sales of actual physical records. In fact, the way things are going, TechCrunch reckons that these payouts will approach what musicians made of CD sales at its peak.
And it isn’t hard to see why Spotify is so appealing. For a minimal monthly payment, you get access to millions of songs, ad-free, and have access to a whole bunch of features like high-quality streaming (which sounds pretty good to me) and the ability to save music offline.
In Malaysia, if you wanted to buy physical albums, you had to shell out anywhere from RM40 to over RM100 for just a dozen or so songs from your favourite band. That’s probably why piracy was so rampant here.
On the other hand, Spotify lets you access their entire catalogue of music for just RM14.90/month (less, if you subscribe to their family plan and split it between a few people). In fact, Spotify has a promo on right now that gives you 3 months for RM14.90. No need to waste disk space, no need to have that lingering guilt that you’re essentially robbing the people you call your favourite artists, and no more visiting sketchy ad-ridden websites.
Above all, though, streaming services give an artist’s music reach. Much like YouTube, services like Spotify gives millions of listeners access to your music which is awesome for growing an artist’s fanbase. I can’t tell you how many awesome bands I discovered through Spotify’s curated playlists (Discover Weekly is the best) and what my friends were listening to.
And that builds towards one of an artists’ biggest revenue stream: Merchandise and live shows. So, welcome back TayTay and congratulations on your 10 million albums sold worldwide.
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