Over the last few years, Taylor Swift's had more than a few beefs. But the biggest of her feuds? Spotify, and Katy Perry. And on Thursday night, the Cersei Lannister of Top 40 pop used one to go after the other.
Taylor Swift's music is back on Spotify, ending an almost three-year absence—and her timing couldn't be better. Perry's new album dropped on midnight, but most of the headlines around the music industry are about the Swift-Spotify detente.
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Both feuds started in late 2014, right around the release of (what would go on to be) Swift's Grammy-dominated album, 1989. Spotify, meanwhile, was cementing a reputation as public enemy no. 1 in the music industry, and Swift was leading the charge against the streaming platform's free tier, which they argued devalued the work of all music.
In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Swift wrote: "Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. [...] Music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is."
Swift prevented her new album from being streamed on Spotify. Spotify fired back in public. Swift pulled her entire catalogue.
Meanwhile, Swift and Perry, once friendly, were starting to admit to a growing mutual distaste that reportedly started over touring backup dancers. Then Swift coyly let the public know her song "Bad Blood" was about another woman in the music industry.
Perry fired back.
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There's been a variety of things since then that have kept the dispute going. But nothing compares to Swift's return to Spotify on Perry's big day.
Swift's decision to squash her beef with Spotify didn't come about only because of her desire to take a shot at Perry. The company spent the last few years cozying up to the music industry, and adding paid subscribers (i.e. a bigger pool of profits for artists and labels). Streaming, once muttered in the same breath as piracy in the music industry, is now the fastest growing part of its income.
Which is great and all, but Spotify still hadn't addressed Swift's main—and very legitimate—concern: Swift's music is clearly most valuable when first released, when demand will be greatest. As such, she didn't want to be forced to stream her new albums for free, as Spotify required.
That all changed in March, when Spotify finally relented. New albums could hit Spotify, and be streamed by paying subscribers, but not by Spotify's freeloaders. It sounds like a small change, but it was a major sticking point for Spotify and Swift.
With the door open to Swift's return, the megastar suddenly had a big card to play. When would her music return? It would inevitably be an event. Swift's understanding of value doesn't stop at her music, and she clearly understood that her return could be used to her advantage.
Gotta hand it to Swift: That's some next-level shade. And as for Spotify? They now sit at the center of an ongoing battle between two of the biggest pop stars in the world, weaponized by both in their quest for global pop dominance.
There are far worse places to be.
Topics Music
