A few weeks ago, I decided to sign up for a Premium subscription from Spotify, the online music streaming platform. Tired of the ungodly, homicide-inducing “O, O, O, O’Reilly Auto Parts” commercials and the frustrating ‘skip’ limit, I figured there wasn’t a better time to sign up than the beginning of summer, when I’d certainly have more down time to actually enjoy the music. Its definitely been one of my better decisions, allowing me to discover new tunes as well as stream all of the music that I’d normally listen to from my personal collection. However, after a week or two, I realized this wouldn’t - and wasn’t - always the case.
A couple weeks ago Drake released “Views”, arguably the most anticipated album of the first half of 2016. As a fan of October's Very Own, I couldn’t wait to listen to his first full-length, successive studio album in three years. On the day of its release I logged into Spotify, clicked “what’s new”, and began to scroll for what seemed like an eternity. After heading on over to Google to investigate, I found an article from Forbes stating that “Views” would be streaming exclusively on Apple Music for at least a week.
I have an Apple ID, so I fired up Apple Music (Apple's version of Spotify) and joined with a three-month trial and began jamming to Drizzy. But after a week of listening to it (and being disappointed by the album) I couldn’t find any reason to keep using Apple Music when I had already been using Spotify for years.
Last night at around 11 p.m. (05/12/16) Chance The Rapper released his widely anticipated third mixtape, “Coloring Book.” Since the Chicago rapper has released his last two projects for free, I was ready to download it from Datpiff, the popular free mixtape site, and jam some more. But before any free variants of the album are released, it will remain an “Apple Music Exclusive”. So, again, I opened Apple Music and begrudgingly pressed ‘play’.
And perhaps most notably, earlier this year saw the release of Kanye’s most recent masterpiece, "The Life Of Pablo”, as an exclusive to Tidal, Jay-Z's overpriced 'premium, hi-fi' streaming service. Also, speaking of Yeezy, 2014 saw his best pal Taylor Swift pull nearly her entire catalog from Spotify over royalty disputes. Now her music is exclusive to Apple Music.
At the end of all of this, I have two different music streaming subscriptions along with two cloud-based music libraries, all fighting for my time and money. But as a genuine fan of music, this is absolutely ridiculous.
Why should the music industry be so drastically divided forcing fans and customers alike to either choose sides and live with the content you have available, or pay for multiple services all doing the same damn thing - just to get an ‘exclusive’ album for a week? This 'exclusiveness' or lack-thereof won't benefit the industry in the long run, either, as more and more customers will opt for the 'freemium' version of Spotify, Pandora, etc. and will accept most of the music they want without having to spend a dime.
Yes, artists are only paid pennies on the dollar for every one stream of a song on any of these services - which is one problem. And yes, music piracy is always going to be another problem regardless. But there is no way that I will continue to subscribe to multiple services that are providing the same content just for a chance at listening to some new, uber popular album that will be everywhere in a matter of days. In the mind of a millennial, this is not only unfair to the customer but it also encourages music piracy.
Now, if this was a case like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video which both have a selection of in-house content that could sway a shopper, this would be a different story. For example, if each service began acting as a music label, signing different artists and holding the rights to a legitimately different catalog of music. I really, really hope that the music industry doesn’t come to that.
Seeing as the recording industry is primarily focused on recycling the same type of songs, and ‘remastering’ every damn song under the sun, I don’t see this happening just yet. But this lack of innovation also poses a major problem, as Ben Popper of The Verge states that services like "Spotify and Pandora know they have to grow beyond their current business model or perish".
So here I am wishing for some sort of unified streaming industry devoted to providing the best experience to fans while also being able to make a profit, rather than extorting customers every time some new song or album is going to be an ‘exclusive’. But for the time being, I will sit and enjoy what both Apple Music and Spotify have to offer: Practically the exact same thing. When the next exclusive drops, I’ll be there to listen.
But in a couple months when my three-month trial ends, I definitely won’t be there to subscribe.