Windowing albums for two weeks off Spotify has become an irritating pattern for Daniel Ek this year – but Radiohead have tried his patience even more than that.
Radiohead’s ninth album A Moon Shaped Pool will arrive on Spotify on Friday, June 17th, five weeks and five days after its initial release on May 8th.
The record joins a slew of albums to have deferred from Spotify in favour of premium-only services like Apple Music and Tidal this year.
It took Spotify two weeks to convince The 1975, Coldplay and Gwen Stefani to put their new albums up – while Drake’s record-breaking Views remained an Apple Music exclusive, and therefore off Spotify, for the same fortnight window.
Rihanna’s Anti appeared after a week of its release following a one-day Tidal exclusive, and after arriving on Apple Music on January 29th.
Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo landed on Spotify and other services after just under seven weeks as a Tidal exclusive – while Beyonce’s Lemonade remains a Tidal streaming exclusive.
Thom Yorke has, in the past, had a tumultuous relationship with Spotify.
Back in July 2013, he pulled material including his solo work and Atoms For Peace recordings from the streaming service, complaining that “new artists get paid f*ck all with this model”.
Later that year he described the platform and its relationship with the music industry as: “The last desperate fart of a dying corpse.”
However, his stance appeared to have softened when two tracks from A Moon Shaped Pool, Burn the Witch and Daydreaming, appeared on the service earlier this year.
The XL-issued album was available to stream on Apple Music and Tidal on May 8th, as well as being offered as a download from £9, with a range of physical options headed up by a £60 special edition vinyl; which is also released on June 17th.
A Moon Shaped Pool hit No.1 in the UK on first-week combined sales of 50k, and No.3 on the Billboard 200 chart with 181k units (173k in sales).
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