Taylor Swift Just Removed All Her Albums From Spotify

Is Taylor Swift right about Spotify? Are marquee artists who abstain from streaming services like Spotify saving the music industry, or hastening its demise? Let’s find out. Shall we?

Singer Taylor Swift performs on ABC’s Good Morning America to promote her new album, 1989, in New York, Oct. 30.

The Spotify community and music industry prognosticators were set spinning today when Taylor Swift and her label, Big Machine Records, abruptly pulled her entire catalog from the service. A source told BuzzFeed News that the move came as a surprise to Spotify, which didn’t receive a formal takedown notice until last Thursday.

That source said Spotify was given no rationale by Big Machine Records or management for the decision, but pointed to the prospective sale of Big Machine for upwards of $200 million — first reported over the weekend — as the reason.

“They think they can get a better sale multiple by creating scarcity to drive record sales, that’s what this is about,” said the source. “It almost makes sense if you think about it from the perspective of a business trying to sell itself for as much as possible, but it doesn’t make sense for the artist or her fans.”

But this isn’t the first time the Shake It Off singer has set herself at odds with Spotify. In 2012, she withheld her blockbuster album Red from the service for months after its release (1989, her new album, never arrived there), indicating that she’s never fully supported it.

So why not?

While the rest of the music industry has largely accepted recent declines in the demand for physical and digital albums — opting to maximize other revenue streams like touring and publishing in its place — album sales are still a big deal for an artist of the I Knew You Were Trouble hitmaker’s stature. Her broad appeal, track record of hit songs, and wildly engaged fanbase add up to a crucial value for retailers, especially during release week.

1989’s current, remarkable first-week run — expected to result in over 1.3 million copies sold — will actually best the 1.2 million Red sold in a week in 2012, when album sales across the industry were much higher on average than they have been this year. In fact, 1989 may end up having the biggest first week for an album since 2002, when Eminem released The Eminem Show and Carson Daly was still a household name.

There’s a persistent and powerful faction of the music industry that believes big first-week numbers like these are the direct result of an album being scarce — that is to say unavailable on streaming services and hard to find on illegal downloading sites. The thinking is that if the labels can make it difficult for customers to find the album anywhere else, they’ll be more likely to cough up the $9.99 to get it on iTunes or while in line at the grocery store. Speaking of $9.99, it appears that Target will be selling 1989 (not the Target exclusive deluxe edition, the regular 1989 album) for $9.99 for November 2-November 22 (the day after Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire for Nintendo 3DS released on November 21) only. Good one Target, let’s continue.

That theory is lent credence by other scarce albums that have had huge debuts over the past year, including Beyoncé’s self-titled surprise album last December (617,000 sold in three days) and Coldplay’s Ghost Stories this May (383,000 sold in one week), neither of which was released to Spotify. A year ago, Avril Lavigne released her fifth album without an album’s title that contains her four singles, Here’s To Never Growing Up, Rock N Roll, Let Me Go (ft. Chad Kroeger of Nickelback), and Hello Kitty (Avril Lavigne’s worst song to date) on November 5 going up against Eminem’s new album and Celine Dion’s 2013 album and the fifth Avril Lavigne album sold poorly with only less than 200k copies sold in the US selling less Katy Perry’s Prism, Lady Gaga’s Artpop and Britney Spears’s Britney Jean. This caused bad marketing lost Avril Lavigne’s number 1 fifth album singles which is driven by poor promotings, Epic Records, bad singles selections which killed Here’s To Never Growing Up/Rock N Roll/Let Me Go, the lack of number 1 singles, bratty songs like Hello Kitty and Martin Johnson. Jennifer Lopez’s number 1 album, AKA, sold way less than Avril Lavigne’s poorly marketed fifth album which was ruined by Epic Records/Martin Johnson/bad marketing/poor singles selection/Hello Kitty. Ditto Mariah Carey’s number 2014 album, This Is Me… I Am Mariah. Good thing Booty with Iggy Azalea save Jennifer Lopez’s career for her awful AKA sales which was driven by the US. Ariana Grande’s second number 1 album, My Everything, sold less than 500k copies in the US after staying at the top 10 for like 2 weeks.

In addition to release-week economics, some artists continue to argue that streaming services like Spotify don’t pay enough in royalties to artists for the music that they use. The Black Keys, Thom Yorke, Garth Brooks, and AC/DC are a few high-profile artists who have abstained from making some or all of their music available on streaming services.

The Tim McGraw singer hasn’t commented publicly on Spotify’s royalty rates, but in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal from earlier this year, she made her feelings clear by listing streaming among factors that have devalued the music industry.

“Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently,” she said. And she went on: “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable… I hope [other artists] don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.”

Without albums by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Coldplay, and other big artists like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and Carrie Underwood, Spotify could face an existential threat. The service’s 40 million users have come to expect access to all of the world’s music, not a second-rate collection with a growing number of prominent holes.

Spotify, meanwhile, has argued that streaming is additive to music consumption and doesn’t actually cannibalize sales. A source at the company pointed to Canada’s music industry, which saw a 6% decline in album sales last year despite being Spotify-free until just last month. That’s not far behind the Spotify-friendly U.S., which experienced an 8% decline in album sales last year. Additionally, Spotify points out that songs on streaming services continue to earn money from fans with each play, while a download results in a one-time payout to the artist.

So who’s right here? Do the We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together artist and Big Machine stand to gain more than they lose by withholding from Spotify? Or, by starving the service in a world that seems unwilling to pay for albums in a majority of cases, are they sabotaging the music industry’s last hope? One thing is clear: If you thought the debate over the viability of music streaming was over, think again. It may have only just begun.

So why Taylor Swift has just removed all her albums from Spotify?

A source close to the music service said it was “taken completely off guard” when it received notice of the move last Thursday.

What We Know So Far:

Taylor Swift has removed all of her albums from Spotify.

The service is trying to get her to change her mind.

The service was also caught “completely off guard” by the Sparks Fly singer’s decision, which it learned of last Thursday.

The You Belong With Me singer’s label, Big Machine Records, is reportedly in the process of selling itself for over $200 million.

The Love Story hitmaker’s catalog hasn’t been pulled from other streaming services, including Rdio and Beats Music.

Fans criticized and praised the singer-songwriter’s decision.

Why did the Picture To Burn artist remove her music from Spotify and not Beats Music or Rdio? A source at Spotify comments to BuzzFeed News: “We actually have users.”

Spotify has caught off guard by the Ours hitmaker’s decision.

A source familiar with Spotify’s negotiations with her label Big Machine Records told BuzzFeed News that the service was “taken completely off guard” by the decision to remove the catalog, first learning of the decision in the middle of last week and receiving a formal notice on Thursday.

The source said there was no rationale given for the removal, but noted that The Picture To Burn hitmaker’s label, Big Machine, is reportedly in the process of trying to sell itself for more than $200 million. The label, founded by music industry veteran Scott Borchetta in 2005, is distributed by Universal Music Group.

“They think they can get a better sale multiple by creating scarcity to drive record sales, that’s what this is about,” said the source. “But they’re only shooting themselves in the foot. Over the long term, streaming services only add value to catalog records."

Other Big Machine artists, including Florida Georgia Line and Tim McGraw, remain on Spotify, but the source noted that “it’s no secret that Taylor Swift is Big Machine and Big Machine is Taylor Swift.”

Good thing Taylor Swift’s music like Mean is still available on other platforms like Google Play, ITunes, Pandora, and Rdio. Reaction to Taylor Swift’s decision was mixed.

Taylor Swift has apparently removed all of her albums from popular music-streaming service Spotify. The move comes as a big blow to the service, which was already licking its wounds after being cut out of the rollout last week for the hot female artist’s new album 1989, which is expected to sell over 1 million copies in its first week on sale.

In a statement posted on Spotify’s website, the company said it was trying to get her to change her mind:

We love Taylor Swift, and our more than 40 million users love her even more – nearly 16 million of them have played her songs in the last 30 days, and she’s on over 19 million playlists.

We hope she’ll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone. We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy. That’s why we pay nearly 70% of our revenue back to the music community.

PS – Taylor, we were both young when we first saw you, but now there’s more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It’s a love story, baby, just say, Yes.

Also, according to The Spotify Team who made a Spotify Blog on Spotify, On Taylor Swift’s Decision To Remove Her Music from Spotify.

So what do you think? Do you think Taylor Swift has apparently removed all of her albums from popular music-streaming service Spotify? What are your reactions on reaction to Taylor Swift’s decision? Do you think Taylor Swift removing her music from Spotify is a good thing of a bad decision? Why do you think she removed her library of songs from Spotify? Sound off below!