Britney Spears' album 'Glory' debuts, but not as Apple Music exclusive
Britney Spears debuted her ninth studio effort, "Glory," on Friday as a non-exclusive streaming release despite reports, and a highly suggestive tweet from Spears herself, that it would land only on Apple Music.
Earlier this month, Spears announced a start to "Glory" preorders in a tweet referencing the album's release date and a shoutout to Apple Music, seemingly indicating Apple's streaming service scored yet another exclusive.
"#Glory. My new album & the beginning of a new era. Available 8/26 on @AppleMusic. Pre-order tonight at midnight ET," Spears said on Aug. 3. The pop star did not namecheck other services, nor did her label RCA Records, owned by industry major Sony Music Entertainment.
"Glory" launched on Friday via Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music and other streaming outlets.
Spears' release comes amidst a brewing storm of discontent within the music industry. Last week, Frank Ocean emerged from a four-year hiatus with the release of not one, but two new albums. A visual album called "Endless" went live last Thursday, followed by the 17-track album "Blonde" on Saturday. Both are Apple Music exclusives.
Through a bit of cagey maneuvering, Ocean maximized his take of the hotly anticipated albums by releasing "Blonde" under his own label Boys Don't Cry. The more difficult to monetize visual album, which at the time was thought to be an accompaniment to a forthcoming full release, was issued to fill a contractual obligation to Def Jam and its parent company Universal Music Group.
The move drew the ire of UMG CEO Lucian Grainge, who after hearing word of Ocean's gambit sent an email to his underlings calling for an end to all future exclusives. A pending album from Lady Gaga is said to be the first casualty of Grainge's memo.
Whether Sony is following in the footsteps of UMG is unclear, but Billboard on Thursday received word from Sony that Spears' "Glory" would not, in fact, be an exclusive release. In fact, sources at Spotify said the streaming market leader was partnering with Spears' camp to feature the album across its platform.
Exclusives have become a hot commodity among streaming music providers. Priority access to hit albums draws subscribers, but the benefit for artists and labels is questionable at best. Executives not in favor of the practice contend exclusives segment an artist's fan base and promote piracy. Supporting the latter argument is a report from Music Business World, citing statistics from data analytics specialist MUSO, claiming Ocean's "Blonde" has been pirated more than 750,000 times since its release.
In any case, when Spears took to Twitter to promote the release of "Glory" on Friday, @AppleMusic was nowhere to be found. She did, however, take time to craft posts for Amazon Music, the iTunes Music Store and Spotify, the latter of which currently sits as her top pinned tweet.
Earlier this month, Spears announced a start to "Glory" preorders in a tweet referencing the album's release date and a shoutout to Apple Music, seemingly indicating Apple's streaming service scored yet another exclusive.
"#Glory. My new album & the beginning of a new era. Available 8/26 on @AppleMusic. Pre-order tonight at midnight ET," Spears said on Aug. 3. The pop star did not namecheck other services, nor did her label RCA Records, owned by industry major Sony Music Entertainment.
"Glory" launched on Friday via Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music and other streaming outlets.
Spears' release comes amidst a brewing storm of discontent within the music industry. Last week, Frank Ocean emerged from a four-year hiatus with the release of not one, but two new albums. A visual album called "Endless" went live last Thursday, followed by the 17-track album "Blonde" on Saturday. Both are Apple Music exclusives.
Through a bit of cagey maneuvering, Ocean maximized his take of the hotly anticipated albums by releasing "Blonde" under his own label Boys Don't Cry. The more difficult to monetize visual album, which at the time was thought to be an accompaniment to a forthcoming full release, was issued to fill a contractual obligation to Def Jam and its parent company Universal Music Group.
The move drew the ire of UMG CEO Lucian Grainge, who after hearing word of Ocean's gambit sent an email to his underlings calling for an end to all future exclusives. A pending album from Lady Gaga is said to be the first casualty of Grainge's memo.
Whether Sony is following in the footsteps of UMG is unclear, but Billboard on Thursday received word from Sony that Spears' "Glory" would not, in fact, be an exclusive release. In fact, sources at Spotify said the streaming market leader was partnering with Spears' camp to feature the album across its platform.
Exclusives have become a hot commodity among streaming music providers. Priority access to hit albums draws subscribers, but the benefit for artists and labels is questionable at best. Executives not in favor of the practice contend exclusives segment an artist's fan base and promote piracy. Supporting the latter argument is a report from Music Business World, citing statistics from data analytics specialist MUSO, claiming Ocean's "Blonde" has been pirated more than 750,000 times since its release.
In any case, when Spears took to Twitter to promote the release of "Glory" on Friday, @AppleMusic was nowhere to be found. She did, however, take time to craft posts for Amazon Music, the iTunes Music Store and Spotify, the latter of which currently sits as her top pinned tweet.
Comments
I dont really ally have a problem with exclusives as long as they're not permanent. I think folk can wait a few weeks, but I don't see why they should have to sign up to loads of services to get all the music they want. it seems that in a rare outbreak of common sense, the music industry execs think this is a bad idea too: a short-term gain for them that results in long-term pain for their customers.
1. You have access to all the music.
2. Your wife and kids have access to all the music.
3. You can still buy songs and videos if you want to but why buy videos when you have Vevo for free.
4. Your whole family can create radio stations to discover new music.
5. Your whole family can listen to Beats Music stations 24 x 7,
Apple Music, it totally rocks!
People who grew up with Pokemon and Britney are now young adults with money to spend and (in some cases) not yet too much family financial obligation...thus with money to spend.
You're either not in the scene or the type of person who thinks if an artists hasn't put out a hit in the last year they're a "has been".
Britney will have hits and Pokemon has been popular since 1996. The biggest dip in Pokemania came during Ruby/Saphire and that was around 2003. Have you not seen Pokemon merchandise in toy stores?
I saw an elderly lady(maybe 70?) playing Pokemon Go and tons of kids play it too. I doubt they "grew up" with the game.
1. I have have access to all the music I want to listen to.
2. My wife and kids( aged 29, 31 and 32) have access to all the music in my collection
3. I can still buy music from itunes or amazon or wherever. Rough Trade Records, just off Portobello Road in London is a place I visit at least once a month. A great place to buy Vinyl from over the decades.
4. My whole family can create playlists
I have more than 600 albums in my collection going back to the late 1950's. I bought my first album in 1967 (Rolling Stones)
If any of the artists I like release new work then I'll probably hear it on the radio before buying it. Sadly, age has caught up with many of the artists I like to hear. eg David Bowie.
Oh, and I don't have to pay bandwith charges to listen to music I like.
While I accept that for some people services like Apple Music and Spotify work, they don't for many of us, especially old dinosaurs like me.
There are basically two types of music consumers today:
1. The CONVENIENCE market: want lots of content; quality is a second rate consideration, with streaming via compressed mp3 ... streaming replacing downloads. Lowest quality medium ever.
2. The QUALITY / COLLECTOR market: buy physical product: CDs, vinyl, or for absolute best quality, where quality matters in niche audiophile markets like classical and jazz, they buy hi-res SACD. Both vinyl and SACD are seeing their sales increase.
There's an article in Time Out on London Record stores at: http://www.timeout.com/london/music/londons-best-music-shops
Universal decided to act as fast as possible when it was approached by USDOJ lawyers about exclusives that were benefiting Apple Music and hurting Spotify. The other record labels will follow quickly to distance themselves from exclusives in an effort to not be perceived as colluding with Apple via Apple Music even though some or all of the record labels own a piece of... Wait for it... Spotify.
Even though Spotify is larger than Apple worldwide, the USDOJ will ignore the monopolistic practices Spotify has inacted against music artists who have made temporary exclusives with Apple Music or announced new music via Apple's Beats 1. As far as the USDOJ is concerned any entity that is an Apple competitor will be excused for breaking the law as long as the break makes business difficult for Apple. Apple is a dissident and threat to government overreach into private lives of innocent US citizens.
Apple can get around this retaliatory action by dealing with music artists who own their record companies for exclusives. Spotify can whine it can't compete as much as it wants, but the USDOJ cannot say Apple is colluding with Spotify-owned record labels against Spotify since Apple would be competing in the arena designed by Spotify and the USDOJ. Spotify investors will not continue to funnel $Billions into a losing situation no matter how stacked the situation is against Apple as long as Apple considers the music business a cornerstone piece of its DNA.
Some of the big US technology companies will be allowed to buy foreign based Spotify due to reduced competition and concentration of market share in the United States. Yes, I mentioned an Apple competitor would be excused from breaking the law, but this does not mean a free pass would be given by the USDOJ to become a monopoly. The USDOJ must continue to try giving a public face that it is truly looking out for the well being of US citizens even though it is working 24x7x365 to strip those citizens of every constitutional right they have... only for national security purposes. So Amazon and Google will not be authorized to buy Spotify. Facebook, Microsoft and even foreign entity Samsung would be allowed to buy Spotify. Of course, Facebook would be the only company with a snowball's chance in hell to make the buyout last more than two years before being shutdown and written off. I won't exclude a deep pocketed Chinese company from being allowed to buy Spotify.
Another way Apple could get around the USDOJ witch hunt is to make Apple Music a subsidiary. The subsidiary could be funded enough money to have an equal evaluation as Spotify then commanded to think differently to obliterate its competitors via above board competition.
This was fun!
1) Rotary Dial Phone? Nope my main phone is an iPhone 6. I do have FTTP broadband to my home.
2) Car with manual transmission? Nope. I drive a Hybrid with Automatic. Cars with Automatic Transmissions are very much in the minority where I live (not N. America).
3) Play music on a Turntable? Yes including Vinyl that I bought recently. Didn't you know that Vinyl is making a comback? I have more than 200 LP's some dating back to 1963. The TT is a Transcriptors Saturn with a Shure Pickup.
4) 40yr old Stereo Amp? -Yes it is a 40w/channel Class A amp I built when I was an apprentice. Do you think that a class A amp dinosaur technology? I beg to differ.
5) Speakers? A pair of Quad Electostatics nothing wrong with them at all.
I also have a PV Panel on my House that generates almost a much Electricity as I consume.
I am proud to be a Dinosaur (mostly because of my age) but I am most certainly not a Luddite. Luddites eschew advances in technology. I certainly don't but not everything that is made or sold today is an advance over what was available in the past.
As someone who buys a lot of music (over 3000 albums in the collection, 90%+ legally purchased by me), paying $10/month to basically listen to anything I want, as many times as I want, before buying is pretty cool. And, having grown up in the mixed tape era, I love being able to share albums and playlists with friends.
What I don't love about music services is that they are, essentially, a return to DRM and that was my main reason for not supporting them in the first place. But things change, right? And sometimes the new way adds value, even if it's not perfect. So now I use Apple Music for quick access to anything I want to hear, but I've stopped buying from iTunes because of the audio quality and have gone back to either buying CDs and ripping lossless files or purchasing lossless music online from shops like bleep.com.
Re-sale value? Are you serious? A few years ago, after ripping my entire music collection (at the time over 2200 albums and singles, many old out-of-print punk releases and European imports) to lossless, I decided to sell the lot at Amoeba in the Bay Area. I figured I'd get at least $1/CD. I walked out with a little over $600. Ouch.
I think a third type of music consumer is emerging, a hybrid of the two types you describe. This consumer wants to buy high quality recordings (in whatever format) of the music he or she really loves, but also uses a service to discover new music. Even though I'm now an Apple Music subscriber, I still buy a lot of music. Apple Music is my on-demand jukebox. Listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. It's very convenient. I used to buy a fair number of albums that I loved for a moment or two. Apple Music has eliminated these kinds of purchases for me. But I still buy albums when I really love them and Apple Music lets me try them out.
At least you got $600; with downloads, you'd get 0. Anyway, check out what second-hand CDs are going for on Amazon ... you may be quite surprised. The $1 days are over for anything that has gone out of print ... and sometimes the second-hand prices are way higher than new, especially if it has any rarity (e.g. classical, jazz, world music - items that started off with low print runs to start with).
I think your description of the HYBRID consumer (as a mix of the main types) is spot on accurate, with streaming becomes a super search tool for discovery, and you still own your own music by buying what you really want to keep.
6. You can save all songs offline just like buying them in any idevices. The differences are, apart from monthly subs, all of them are totally FREE including the latest top charted album.