Having been famously snubbed by Spotify after giving Apple Music a windowed exclusive last year, Katy Perry is currently enjoying the fruits that come from being fully supported by Daniel Ek’s streaming service.
Perry’s new song, Chained to the Rhythm feat. Skip Marley, was released on all digital music services on Friday (Feb 10) via UMG label Capitol.
The track appears on Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits playlist (999k listeners), New Music Friday UK, and her own Spotify-curated This Is: Katy Perry list, as well as featuring prominently on homepage banner ads.
Chained to the Rhythm is getting extra special attention from Spotify in the form targeted emails sent to Perry fans on day of release, as well as billboards in London and Los Angeles.
It’s currently No.6 on Spotify’s Global Top 50 chart with 18.5m plays to date.
Just hours after release, Chained to the Rhythm set a new record on Spotify as the best first day streaming of a single track by a female artist on the service with more than 3m streams.
Perry’s last single, Rise – her first for two years – was originally released worldwide as a windowed iTunes and Apple Music exclusive on July 15 last year.
It took another week to get to Spotify, peaked at No.11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and reached No.25 on the Official Singles Chart in mid-July. It peaked at No.93 on Spotify’s Global Chart.
The chart placing was especially disappointing considering that the song featured prominently during NBC’s US television coverage of the Olympics – one of the biggest syncs you could hope for in the market last summer with an average of 29.8 million viewers.
Spotify isn’t the only service backing Perry – and the singer’s Grammy performance at the weekend has certainly helped matters.
Sales of Chained to the Rhythm were up 45% after the show, with additional sales of 8.7k on Sunday (the Grammys saw an average of 26m people tuning in), according to BuzzAngle stats.
Still, the message is clear from Spotify to a music industry that’s currently being courted by Apple Music’s deep pockets: partner with us and we’ll break new music to a significant level worldwide.
Don’t partner with us, and you’ll badly miss that support.
Music Business Worldwide
