After a near three-week Apple Music exclusive, Frank Ocean’s Blonde (‘Blond’) arrived on Spotify on Friday (September 9).
However, it’s nowhere to be seen on the streaming platform’s New Releases deck, nor its essential ‘New Music Friday’ playlist.
[Eagle-eyed observers have noted it’s not a complete blackout from Spotify: Ocean’s Pink + White from Blonde appears on ‘Are & Be’, Spotify’s leading R&B playlist. The company also tweeted that the record was now available on its service.]
The album was originally released on August 20th as an Apple exclusive via Ocean’s own label Boys Don’t Cry.
It was the first new music to arrive after Ocean fulfilled his contractual obligations to former label UMG by releasing his visual album Endless just a day earlier.
That didn’t go unnoticed by Universal Music boss Lucian Grainge, who subsequently banned all exclusive deals with streaming services going forward.
Since then, Spotify has been accused of punishing artists who agree exclusive deals with Apple by excluding tracks from its highly influential playlists and burying search results.
The service hit back, calling this claim “unequivocally false”.
However, research suggests that some Apple-exclusive artists are being blackballed on its top playlists.
Katy Perry’s comeback single Rise was the most obvious example.
Frank Ocean is currently the 262nd most-listened to Spotify in the world, with 4.3m monthly listeners.
Music Business Worldwide
