Spotify Newsletter #133

Your Weekly Dose of Spotify News

Oct 28

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Busy week! Lots of Spotify news!

→ In case you hadn’t already heard the news zipping around the globe ….. Taylor Swift's 10th album "Midnights" has broken the Spotify record for the most-streamed album in a single day.

Beyond humming along to ‘Shake It Off,’ I’m not exactly hip to all things TS. But congrats to Taylor.

→ Knives are out for Kanye West. The media+corporate onslaught has been fast and fierce. As West’s business dealings quickly unraveled it wasn’t long before some maladjusted folks started to wonder if perhaps his music should be removed from polite society and blasted into orbit.

Just the suggestion makes me ill. There’s plenty of people across the creative spectrum saying and doing all types of awful things — and I’d never opt to ban his or her work from being seen or heard.

If you think Kanye West is horrid, don’t listen to his music. But this quick-draw mentality by the usual suspects to outright banish someone to business/creative hell for all eternity is bad bad bad news. I have a feeling if Kanye were a bit more pro-this person, pro-that person, there would be outrage, yes, but not at the DEFCON 2 level we are seeing here. Just a feeling.

Thankfully cooler heads prevailed at Spotify. CEO Daniel Ek said they will not be pulling the rapper's music unless his label requests it.

Someone even spent time posting about how to block Kanye’s music on Spotify.

Really? Is there someone out there who will be sent into a panic room at the sight of a Kanye West song in their music feed? It’s shameful to even write such a thing. It’s embarrassing to think of someone who might get triggered because of a song by someone they don’t like.

Cue up the asteroid, please.

Condemn! Condemn! Condemn until your voice is shot. But please - let’s not spin off the axis of sanity.

→ Rev up your favorite tunes because you only have a few more days before yearly tracking for Spotify Wrapped ends. I think I’ll dial up the Style Council right now to pad the stats! The Big Wrapped Data Machine is revving its engines, preparing to deliver us the wonderful opportunity to reflect happily with a personalized journey through our year in music.

★In the SPOTlight★

🔥 Spotify Is Considering Raising U.S. Subscription Prices, CEO Daniel Ek Says, Following Apple and YouTube

Raising the subscription price in the U.S., the world’s largest music market by far, “is one of the things we would like to do and it’s something we will [discuss] with our label partners. I feel good about this upcoming year, and what it means about pricing for our service,” Ek said, without providing further details.

🔥 Spotify Reaches 456 Million Total Monthly Users in Q3, up 20% Year Over Year and Topping Expectations

Paid subscribers reach 195 million for the quarter, 1 million ahead of streamer's guidance; stock falls on higher-than-expected loss.

🔥 Taylor Swift 'Midnights' Album Already Breaks Spotify Record

Swift's new album is now the most streamed in a single day in the history of the streaming music service.

🔥 Spotify Chief Criticizes Kanye “Ye” West’s “Awful” Antisemitic Comments, But Music Won’t Be Removed

On Tuesday, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek addressed the issue in an interview with Reuters, making clear that Ye’s comments were “awful” but his music did not violate the streamer’s anti-hate policies. Ek added it was up to Ye’s label, Universal Music Group’s Def Jam imprint, to pull his music if they felt compelled to.

🔥 Spotify For Artists adds videos, merch & fundraising to Wrapped campaigns

Spotify is offering expanded free tools to help artists make the most of their annual year-end Wrapped campaigns.
Spotify calls wrapped “the biggest fan moment of the year,” reaching hundreds of millions of fans, and it has become the perfect time for artists to reinforce and thank fans for their support.