In case you're living under a rock (or in my case, living in China and a bit far removed from western pop culture news), Taylor Swift released her fifth album this week,
1989. However, the album isn't on Spotify; in fact, she pulled her entire catalog from the streaming service except for one song. She explained:
"In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently."
Even so, her album is setting records, her decision to keep her music off Spotify is being intensely debated, and basically, you can't escape Taylor Swift in the media.
As a free Spotify user, I'm torn. I don't actually listen to Taylor Swift, and, wanting to know what the hype was about, I checked out the first single off 1989, "Shake It Off." (I keep thinking it should be "Take It Off," but then I remember that was from The Donnas.) Because I can't listen to it on Spotify, I decided to turn to Vevo and watch her music video, which I happily discovered was directed by Mark Romanek:
Even so, her album is setting records, her decision to keep her music off Spotify is being intensely debated, and basically, you can't escape Taylor Swift in the media.
As a free Spotify user, I'm torn. I don't actually listen to Taylor Swift, and, wanting to know what the hype was about, I checked out the first single off 1989, "Shake It Off." (I keep thinking it should be "Take It Off," but then I remember that was from The Donnas.) Because I can't listen to it on Spotify, I decided to turn to Vevo and watch her music video, which I happily discovered was directed by Mark Romanek:
