Robert Dinkins, Jr.
A&E Editor
The way music is released has changed drastically over the past 10 years. At first, people would flock to the record store to buy CDs, soon they started buying music digitally over iTunes and now music is usually available via streaming services such as TIDAL, Apple Music and Spotify. These companies offer great service and especially keep the consumer in mind.
For a price of $10 month, or $5 if you’re a college student, you can check out massive amounts of music from artists of every genre. As such, I’ve been a loyal customer of Spotify for the past four years, downloading albums, singles and playlists, listening to them at my pleasure.
This changed when Kanye West released his eighth studio album, The Life of Pablo. Normally, whenever a popular artist would release an album it would arrive on Spotify’s front page the day it is released. I thought the trend would stay the same, but with West, one should never assume anything. West decided to release his album strictly on TIDAL. Luckily, I was able to listen to it because I never had a trial date with TIDAL, but the same could not be said for other people.
Later in the year, Drake did the same with his album, VIEWS, by releasing it strictly on Apple Music. Plenty of other artists have followed suit with exclusive releases such as Chance the Rapper (Coloring Book), Frank Ocean (Blonde) and Travi$ Scott (Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight), all releasing their respective albums on Apple Music. Music streaming companies hope that by holding an artist’s album hostage, it will increase consumer revenue because more people will flock to the service.
I can confirm this is true at least for me because I paid Apple Music a total of $20 to listen to Blonde by Frank Ocean (If you haven’t heard it yet, you are not alive). At the same time, it causes a major inconvenience for customers and average people who wish to listen to any artist on any streaming service. I would like to point out however, that the artist is looking out for the person who matters most in these business transactions: themselves. Guess what? That’s ok.
In a world where artists do not receive a large share of their profits due to greedy managers, hungry music distributors and last, but definitely least, people who pirate music. By releasing their music exclusively, they are ensuring that they are maximizing their profit.
It has always baffled me how music streaming services split the money we give them to the respective artist. If I pay $10 a month what share does Beyoncé receive when I’m blasting “Drunk in Love” in the shower? How much money does Drake receive when I’m playing his music as I’m sliding into my crush’s DMs? How much money does 21 Savage receive when I’m rolling my windows down (pew pew pew pew)?
If someone could explain it to me, please do, but until then I will accept the fact that artists can not make the most money by solely relying on music streaming services to release their music. I must also say that all of the artists I mentioned doing exclusive releases have released their music in other forms after a time period. I can not begin to explain the amount of tears in my eyes when I saw Blonde was available on Spotify, Sept. 13 is a date I will never forget.
Yes, it sucks that we cannot hear our favorite artist music just because we are not affiliated with their respective music streaming service. But at least, we are able to hear it after a certain time. I am looking at you Lil Wayne: Tha Carter V was supposed to come out in 2013. Instead of criticizing artists for trying to maximize their profits, we should support them especially if they are blessing us with good music. We can do this by buying their albums, buying concert tickets and asking for the aux when you’re in the car with friends. Let’s all support our favorite artists.