Nicki Minaj says Spotify retaliated against her for Apple Music show
Popular artist Nicki Minaj last Thursday debuted a new show called "Queen Radio" on Apple Music's Beats 1 station, in conjunction with the release of her new album, "Queen," on August 10. Now, the artist is accusing Spotify of retaliating against her for the Apple deal by not promoting her music aggressively.
Minaj went on to blame Spotify, at least in part, for the album coming in second on the Billboard charts to Travis Scott's "Astroworld." The accusations from Minaj came in a series of tweets Sunday night.
Spotify put drake's face on every playlist but told me they'd have to teach me a lesson for playing my music 10 mins early on #QueenRadio. Even tho they've been giving away my music for free for years & I am one of the top Spotify artists of all time.
-- QUEEN (@NICKIMINAJ)
Spotify had to teach me a lesson but rewarded the man who has had an Apple radio show the longest; inadvertently helping the Apple platform the most. Oh I can't wait for #QueenRadio on Tuesday. They took away my promotion they had promised for the 1st cpl days b/c of this. #Queen
-- QUEEN (@NICKIMINAJ)
My music went up on Apple so I played it. I assumed it was on Spotify & Tidal at the same time. Spotify said that Apple tweeted fans advising #Queen was up & therefore they had to teach me a lesson. But PRAISE BE TO GOD!!!!!!
-- QUEEN (@NICKIMINAJ)
My label didn't want to defend me for fear of Spotify trying to teach Ariana a "lesson" too! https://t.co/1dAdbcbWVd
-- QUEEN (@NICKIMINAJ)
Do you know how many people subscribe to my Spotify page?????
-- QUEEN (@NICKIMINAJ)
Beats 1 recently hosted a promotion for the album, which got the hashtag #NickiDay trending worldwide on April 13.
Nicki Minaj's Queen Radio show returns Tuesday on Beats 1.
Not the first time
This is only the latest skirmish involving Apple Music, Spotify, and the way exclusives with major artists remain a weapon in their battle with each other. In June, Drake's new album "Scorpion" had almost 25 percent more streams on Apple Music than on Spotify.Spotify has been accused of retaliating against artists with Apple Music exclusives before.
In August 2016, artists said they were told that Spotify would "bury" their music in its search rankings if they did Apple Music or Tidal exclusives, once the music arrived on Spotify. Spotify strongly denied the report at the time.
Spotify went on to start offering its own exclusives with artists the following year.
Comments
If Spotify had to pay normal rates for free tier streams, they’d be out of business already.
Maybe folks just like Drake's music more than hers.
Her faux-tantrum worked tho. It's got attention for her album.
Seems like a dumb move on Spotify's part to do something that they must have known would end up on twitter.
Not the first time
This is only the latest skirmish involving Apple Music, Spotify, and the way exclusives with major artists remain a weapon in their battle with each other. In June, Drake's new album "Scorpion" had almost 25 percent more streams on Apple Music than on Spotify.Spotify has been accused of retaliating against artists with Apple Music exclusives before.
In August 2016, artists said they were told that Spotify would "bury" their music in its search rankings if they did Apple Music or Tidal exclusives, once the music arrived on Spotify. Spotify strongly denied the report at the time.
Spotify went on to start offering its own exclusives with artists the following year.
So you didn't read the article?
The issue here is about Spotify bullying artists and labels into trying to get them to fall in-line and make new releases exclusive to their service upon initial launch in order to unfairly shut out other steaming services, such as Apple Music and Tidal. Nicki is not the first artist to make claims of these behaviours from Spotify, and she probably won't be the last.
Personally, had AM not come along, I'd have NEVER brought myself to subscribing to Spotify or Tidal, both (as far as I'm concerned) are vial companies who don't treat artists fairly, and, like Google, don't actually offer a product or service; its customers are the product and they monetize them every chance they get.
There have been several examples over the years of Spotify software breaching privacy of the consumer for their own monetization benefits:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-21/youve-been-warned-spotify-wants-spy-you-every-way-imaginable
https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/jp48a7/spotify-is-spying-on-your-facebook-photos-contacts-and-gps-location
There are many more examples of this behaviour, just do a few quick DDG searches and you'll find them; yes I referred to DuckDuckGo
So as far as I'm concerned, I hope more artists / record labels rebel against Spotify, and go with the platform that won't play a game of strong arming artists into potentially detrimental actions against their careers.
But after reading these details wow, makes Spotty look like scumbags. But are we surprised?
I think she mentioned their bias against her here:
"Spotify had to teach me a lesson but rewarded the man who has had an Apple radio show the longest; inadvertently helping the Apple platform the most. Oh I can't wait for #QueenRadio on Tuesday. They took away my promotion they had promised for the 1st cpl days b/c of this. #Queen
This post is actually very interesting!!:
"Spotify put drake's face on every playlist but told me they'd have to teach me a lesson for playing my music 10 mins early on #QueenRadio. Even tho they've been giving away my music for free for years & I am one of the top Spotify artists of all time.
Hmmm....Maybe their profits are so thin they aren't paying top artists. Very interesting and brings more questions.
I would like to think we are all intellectuals that enjoy Apple’s products and attitudes. I will talk tech all day, but I will not be negative or judgmental about someone.
I believe we’re better than this, or at least capable of better.