Taylor Swift is making her albums available on all music streaming services tonight, including Spotify, Google Play, and Amazon Music, three years after she pulled her back catalog from Spotify. The pop star’s management team confirmed the news via Twitter, saying that the move to make Swift’s catalog available came in celebration of 1989 selling more than 10 million copies worldwide.
The albums — including 2012’s Red and breakout hit Fearless — were yanked from Spotify in 2014, ahead of the release of her latest album, 1989. Swift defended her decision, complaining that streaming services like Spotify didn’t compensate artists fairly. “All I can say is that music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment,” she said in 2014. “I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music.”
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/kcpY03qHLp
— Taylor Nation (@taylornation13) June 8, 2017
Spotify’s free tier seemed to be Swift’s particular bugbear with the service, as she did decide to put her records on both Jay-Z’s Tidal and Apple Music.
Swift announced that she would be putting 1989 on Apple Music in 2015, a year after its release, marking a particularly big milestone for a service that was still a fledgling competitor to Spotify at the time. The star had initially voiced concerns about Apple’s free three-month trial, which under original terms, would withhold royalties for artists whose songs were played by non-paying customers. The company quickly made the decision to flip that deal and agreed to pay royalties to artists played by any user — perhaps due to one of pop’s biggest megastars threatening to withhold her million-selling album unless changes were made.
Now, however, Swift appears to have reconciled any problems she may have had with Spotify and other streaming services. It could be that the landscape has changed in the industry in the three years since she removed her albums, or it could simply be that she’s gearing up for a new album release and wants to ensure all potential fans can hear her old music. Either way, her entire back catalog will be available from midnight ET on your streaming service of choice.
Source: The Verge