A new Beyonce track has appeared on Spotify and Apple Music — the first music to appear on rival services following the singer’s exclusive deal with Tidal for latest album Lemonade.
Daddy Lessons appears on Lemonade, but the country-fied version that hit streaming services on November 20th is a re-record featuring Dixie Chicks, who’ve been performing a cover of the track while on tour.
The re-record keeps to Beyonce’s presumed contractual deal with Tidal as the original Lemonade remains a complete Tidal streaming exclusive, while giving her the chance for a potential crossover radio and chart hit.
(Or even a crossover streaming hit: Spotify’s own Country Gold playlist currently has more than 560,000 followers.)
Beyonce’s comeback track Formation, not deemed an ‘official single’ at the time, is the highest track to chart from Lemonade in the US to date, hitting No.10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No.31 on the Official Singles Chart in the UK.
It’s no secret how influential Spotify has become when it comes to having chart hits.
Major Lazer, Drake and Justin Bieber have enjoyed the fruits of support from Daniel Ek’s service this year.
Despite an Apple exclusive deal for its accompanying album, Views, Drake’s One Dance became the most popular song of all time on Spotify, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 for ten weeks and spent 15 consecutive weeks at No.1 in the UK.
Cold Water by Major Lazer feat. Bieber debuted at No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped charts around the world. In the UK, it spent five weeks at No.1, and has over 530m Spotify streams to date.
Justin Bieber also broke records with three consecutive No.1 solo singles in the US and UK in What Do You Mean, Sorry and Love Yourself, with a cumulative Spotify stream tally to date of over 2.3bn.
Katy Perry, meanwhile, learned a harsh lesson after releasing her first single for two years in July, Rise, as a worldwide windowed iTunes and Apple Music exclusive, arriving on Spotify a week later.
It hit No.11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has fallen away ever since, and only reached No.25 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart.
Thanks to its Apple exclusive deal, the track was blackballed on Spotify’s biggest playlists and charted on Spotify’s Global 200 in early August at No.176.
Back to Beyonce. Daddy Lessons has now been on Spotify for nine days, and has yet to be playlisted… anywhere.
It’s been serviced to UK radio but has yet to receive support from BBC or Global.
Despite its limited availability on streaming services, Lemonade was the biggest revenue-generating album worldwide in Sony’s first fiscal quarter of FY2016.
Music Business Worldwide
