Now, I’ve never claimed to have much of a nose for tuna. However, this past Sunday I couldn’t help but pick up on a distinct, musky essence closely resembling that of The Chicken of the Sea.
Yep. Something smelled fishy.
I was just kickin’ it, minding my own business, when I mindlessly pulled up Twitter on my phone, only to see the following tweet at the top of my feed:
Naturally, I was intrigued. Why was T-Sweezy so happy? What did she need “words of support” for? Who the heck was “they?”
Thanks to a little Google magic, I was able to discern the following in less than a minute:
-Apple Music was planning on not compensating artists with any royalties during a three-month free trial of its new streaming service.
-Taylor Swift didn’t like that. Taylor Swift wrote an incisive, but unnervingly polite opinion piece on her Tumblr calling out Apple for not being fair to artists.
-That opinion piece went viral.
-Apple Music’s head honcho, Eddy Cue, promptly changed their compensation policy and tweeted back (paraphrased), “Tay. Girl. Chilllllll. We GOOD.”
-Taylor Swift once again is positioned as not only a chief proponent of People for the Ethical Treatment of Recording Artists (PETRA), but a mega-influential pop star than can fundamentally alter the business plans of one of the most profitable companies in the history of ever.
-All of this had transpired over the course of a few hours. On a Sunday.
This of course wasn’t the first time that Ms. Swift had made headlines for criticizing the sometimes-predatory inclinations of streaming industry titans. In fact, Swift is perhaps the most recognizable and popular artist to pull their entire catalogue from Spotify, which has emerged as a pioneer in the world of streaming.
And while Swift was enjoying near-Khaleesi adoration for her brave choice to stand up to a Goliath international corporation, that fishy smell persisted. That nagging suspicion materialized into a rather simple and concise hunch: This whole thing was a perfectly executed publicity stunt.
Humor me for a second.
When Taylor Swift first pulled her catalogue from Spotify in protest of what she deemed an unfair royalty policy, the streaming giant was dealt perhaps its most critical blow in terms of publicity. Swift fans are fiercely loyal to Queen T, and even non-fans can appreciate the business savvy of a recording artist who goes from playing cutesy country songs about Tim McGraw, to dominating the world as the pop artist of the moment and perhaps of our generation.
One of the biggest complaints about streaming is that it’s bad for artists. We’ve talked about that on this site before, and semi-debunked a few of those arguments. So what better marketing pitch could a new streaming service have than, “We’re endorsed by one of the biggest sticklers opposing streaming.” Yes, David Byrne, Thom Yorke and countless other accomplished artists have spoken out against streaming services, with Spotify being the most visible target. However, there hadn’t been a star with the current mainstream credibility and following of Swift, until she raised her voice.
Jay-Z’s Tidal tried to capitalize on this notion earlier this year with a glitzy, star-studded release and the simple mantra that Tidal was by artists, for artists. Tidal never caught on with consumers though. This was partly because nobody could really quantify how it was better for artists and partly because the marketing scheme basically amounted to “check out all these superstar millionaires who should be making more money.”
For Apple to get an endorsement for free from Taylor Swift was the best possible thing that could happen to the new streaming service. For the issue to be so blatantly screwy (really, you’re giving away artists’ music for FREE? And you expect no backlash?) and then so quickly and easily resolved just seems too perfect.
It’s a win/win/win if you think about it: Taylor Swift gets heralded as a crusader for musicians, Apple gets heralded as an organization that actually listens to the needs of artists and Spotify gets massive shade for not bowing to Swift’s will earlier. And in the Age of Viral, all she needed was a Tumblr to get the job done.
Now this isn’t a full-on expose. We have no hacked email communications nor shady black and white photographs of Swift and Cue meeting while wearing dubious sunglasses to exchange manila envelopes of cold, hard cash in a Cupertino parking garage. There honestly is a huge chance that this was all just a happy coincidence.
Right?
But…
What if it wasn’t?
