One of the year’s biggest new albums so far, The 1975’s I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful But Unaware Of It, is not available on Spotify today – but is available on paid-for streaming services.
The move echoes the release of Coldplay’s A Head Full Of Dreams at the end of last year.
Like The 1975’s new LP, that album was held off Spotify but available on paid for services including Apple Music, Google Play Music and TIDAL.
And like the Coldplay record, The 1975 album is destined to land on Spotify after a small window: the DSP says it will be available on its platform in a fortnight.
Interestingly, Apple Music paid for a 1975 exclusive this week – a live concert recorded on top of a Los Angeles rooftop, which premiered on Beats 1 yesterday (Feb 25).
This event was a big deal for Apple, heavily promoted with a video containing Spotify’s least favourite words right now: ‘New Album & Watch The Exclusive Performance… Only on Apple Music.’
The 1975 currently have over 6 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
This year has seen high-profile exclusive streaming releases from both Rihanna and Kanye West.
Rihanna’s Anti was a windowed TIDAL exclusive but eventually landed on Spotify and Apple Music.
Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo remains – officially speaking – only available on TIDAL.
However, TLOP has been hugely popular on piracy sites, being downloaded more than 500,000 times in its opening 24 hours.
The 1975 record is released on the band’s own label but licensed to Universal.
The Manchester band are managed by Jamie Oborne at Dirty Hit.Music Business Worldwide
