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CMU Beef Of The Week #321: Spotify v Apple Music (Round 2)

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 2 September 2016

We already know that there’s no love lost between Spotify and Apple Music. Last month they both appeared in this column arguing over whether or not the ‘Apple Tax’ was harming the wider streaming industry. Although they’ve both been far less vocal on rumours that Spotify is downgrading artists who do exclusivity deals with Apple Music.

We do know that Spotify’s stance on exclusives is that, overall, they’re bad for everyone. Just last week, the streaming service’s Global Head Of Creator Services, former artist manager Troy Carter, told Billboard: “Exclusives are bad for artists, bad for consumers and bad for the whole industry”. Which they are. Instead, Carter promised “Spotify inclusives”, whatever the fuck that means. But does it mean boycotting those who do exclusives elsewhere?

Although it didn’t come up with any specific examples, Bloomberg claimed last week that Spotify had been burying artists who take the Apple and Tidal dollar when their music finally makes it to the rival platform. And this isn’t a recent thing either. Sources said that Spotify had been downgrading such artists in search results, and passing them over for inclusion on popular playlists, for much of the last year – though it has happened increasingly frequently in recent months.

Spotify told Recode that such claims were “unequivocally false”, though if it were the case, it might have contributed to Universal’s much discussed sudden distaste for exclusivity deals – beyond feelings of dismay and confusion at being screwed over by one of its own artists, which is not how it’s supposed to work at all.

Though there are plenty of case studies to show that artists who do exclusives with rival platforms are doing just fine on Spotify thank you very much. Drake became the most streamed artist on Spotify ever during the week his ‘Views’ album was only available on Apple Music – thanks to three singles from it that were already streaming on other services. Kanye West and Rihanna also seem to have done alright, despite initially holding their latest records back from everywhere but Tidal.

Indeed, most of the artists doing exclusivity deals tend to be those it’s hard to ignore, and whom Spotify would want to shout about once they got their latest recordings – which would seem in-keeping with Spotify’s standard “we’re working on it and hope to have it soon” message that appears on big new releases not yet available to the service.

However, MBW did some digging and did seem to find an example of malice in the case of Katy Perry’s latest single. It may not have been downgraded in search, says the website, but Spotify certainly didn’t bend over backwards to put the track into any prominent playlists after she gave it to Apple Music, and Apple Music only, for its first week out in the world. And despite the record being used as the theme song for NBC’s Olympics coverage, its chart performance worldwide was pretty lacklustre.

Though there are other possible explanations for its poor performance, of course. For one, there’s the fact it’s arguably Perry’s weakest single to date. It’s also something of a stop-gap single, which reportedly won’t appear on her next album, and so didn’t receive the promotional push it might have. And that big Olympian sync opportunity coincides with slumping ratings for conventional TV coverage of the big sporting event Stateside.

But say Team Spotify are punishing certain artists for aligning themselves with rival streaming services – which, in the case of Perry and her playlist placements, there is still evidence to suggest it might have been – can you blame them? After all, it wouldn’t be an especially new phenomenon, it not being unknown for traditional retailers and radio stations to downgrade artists who cosy up too much with their competitors.

Actually, more interesting here perhaps is the fact that, if there is a Spotify promo boycott, and if did have a negative impact on a track’s performance, well, that would be proof of the streaming platform’s power in driving streams, and therefore revenues, for artists and tracks, even with big name acts, which is perhaps a little depressing.

Streaming was meant to enable an exciting new era where everyone was releasing music on a level playing field, with equal access to a potential audience who were already past the pay booth. Though, of course, that was never going to happen.

We always knew mainstream listeners would be led, to an extent, by programmers and publicity, even if we didn’t know for certain that the streaming services themselves would become a crucial part of the programming process and the publicity machine.

And if Spotify does have that power, well, let Frank and Kanye and Drake and Katy be added to a blacklist I say, if it makes more room for newer or lesser known talent to get themselves a listing on those all-powerful playlists. Unless, of course, the lack of Frank and Kanye and Drake and Katy just means everyone stops tuning into those playlists. Because that happens doesn’t it? People you see, that’s the problem. Really we need a streaming service that doesn’t need any people on it to succeed.

Whatever. Personally I hope Spotify is blacklisting the exclusivity deal making acts. Partly because it might keep Universal in line when the major inevitably starts to wobble on its no-exclusives policy. But more importantly, and most importantly, it means there’s an actual beef for me to make beef of the week. I mean I wouldn’t want to write 932 words about a total non-story, would I?