Taylor Swift is undeniably one of the music industry's biggest commercial success in recent memory, but her latest move could have hugely negative repercussions on how we access our most-beloved musicians.
A brief recap: Swift's 2008 LP Fearless was the best-selling album of 2009, and her LPs Red (2012) and her latest 1989 are respectively the 18th and 19th albums in history to surpass a million copies sold in their opening weeks. Now, Taylor Swift is sparking a different kind of discussion, as the critically-acclaimed 1989, released on October 27th (read NBN’s review here), will not be available to stream on Spotify. Nor will the rest of her discography.
Due to this move, which one author called "ground-shaking," Swift has established herself as a corporate artist of a different level than her peers. With her break demonstrating that big artists can leave the current model and still have record-breaking sales, many are wondering whether this could spell the end of free streaming as a viable way to listen to your favorite artists. And with Spotify being the most common streaming service used by college-aged students, it's looking like we might be hearing a whole lot less of the country-turned-pop star.
Is it about time, though, that Northwestern students, and more broadly, all college students reconsider the way they consume music, especially in relation to the compensation of the artists themselves? This isn’t exactly a new question; album sales have been declining every year since time immemorial, and the accepted mode of earnings for musicians is revenue earned from live performances. Streaming has been the latest alternative for purchasing albums directly, but it seems this model might be on its way out. At least, according to the analysts. Students seemed unfazed by the decision.
“I exclusively use Spotify,” said McCormick Senior Alex Van Atta. “I think the majority of my friends use Spotify. If I had to assign a percentage to it, I’d probably say like, 80-85 percent of my friends. I definitely disagree with [Swift’s decision to leave Spotify]. Artists have seen revenue from my listening, whereas they never would have seen revenue from me because I never would have bought their album in the first place.”
Taylor Swift’s move might be working for less savvy listeners who want to switch to a premium streaming service for her music, but with Spotify’s $5-per-month price for students, that might not be enough incentive for the college demographic. There’s also the issue of how students use Spotify. Do we listen artist by artist? Or do mostly stick by the playlist function? In 2013, Spotify user data showed that almost 60 percent of Spotify users aged 20 and younger primarily use the playlist function.
“I don’t really listen to music from a particular artist straight-on,” said Michelle Kim, a Medill freshman. “I’m usually the type of person that types up a song because I want to listen to it, and then I go from there. I pick it based on my mood, it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m feeling this kind of artist, I’m gonna listen to all their songs.’ I’m not that type of person.”
Some have downplayed the impact of Swift’s decision to leave Spotify, instead pointing to her other strengths. One analyst for the New York Times described Swift as “the magic one” due to her ability to connect over social media and engender a sense of “feel[ing] connected to her.” But we must consider how embedded Spotify is across the country (the service recently released a survey of "The Top 40 Musical Schools" based on their data), and considering the diverse, frequently non-mainstream taste of campuses, it’s quite possible that T-Swift has only blocked off a major route of connection with college students.
“For people my age in general, how we get our music is based on how we feel, and then it goes onto different kinds of music from then on,” said Kim. “So I feel like it’s gonna take away from a huge group of people. Even if she kept [1989 and her discography] on Spotify, it would be the same base that would be going out to get her CD.”
On the other hand, while Spotify does pay out to artists per stream, many musicians feel they’re being paid pittances, but Van Atta believes that it’s the discoverability of the music that’s worth its weight in gold.
“I can see for an artist as popular as Taylor Swift, where she wouldn’t necessarily need the discoverability factor like some indie group or lesser-known artist, she probably won’t see too big of an impact from people ‘discovering’ her,” he said. “Either you know her and you like her, or you know her and you don’t. You’re not gonna be like ‘oh, I finally found this new artist!’”
For students, it seems like the trade-off between revenue for albums is significantly balanced by the exposure and the later payout from live shows, something Taylor Swift has vehemently disagreed with for the past year. In a recent interview with Time, Swift pointed out the following: ““I think there should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.”
That is completely understandable and has merit. However, the only reason why Swift might feel as validated as she does is precisely because she’s Taylor Swift. No other artists have followed suit yet, but leaving Spotify might do very little or nothing at all for album sales, period. Swift might have to stay satisfied knowing that she’s the only artist who’s been able to pull off a U.S. platinum album in 2014, and leave it at that. After all, as Kim points out, it might not be fashionable to buy a complete album anymore.
“No one’s really buying CDs anymore," she said. "I’m just that type of person who would never go out and buy a CD. I don’t even know where to put in a CD anymore.”
But with Taylor Swift’s latest album not on YouTube, not on Spotify and with CD sales rapidly dwindling, our collectively casual attitude towards her music may end up hurting both the majority of musicians and their audience. Until mainstream artists follow suit, which they very well might (Beyoncé’s 2013 album still isn’t on Spotify) it’s very difficult to tell how long students can hang onto the current streaming model before jumping ship for a premium program to get their catchy, mainstream pop fix. We may be fine with shaking Taylor off for now, but if a mass-exodus is on Spotify's hands, only time will tell if widespread changes are on the way.