If you were thinking of spending the night in cooking and cracking out some Taylor Swift tunes on Spotify, you might want to try something else. A nice relaxing shower, perhaps, or a date with Netflix. Because if you try to find Tay Tay on Spotify, you’re in for a very nasty shock.
Yep, the star has decided to strip all of her songs from the music streaming service. The only one that’s left is Safe and Sound from The Hunger Games soundtrack, which, let’s face it, pales into insignificance when compared with 22.
Unsurprisingly, Spotify isn’t that chuffed by the decision. “We hope she’ll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone,” it said in a blog post.
The company went on to tragically point out that 16 million of its users have played Taylor Swift music in the last 30 days and that she appears on 19 million playlists.
Of course Taylor’s not just doing it to be spiteful. She’s made her thoughts on music sharing clear in the past, saying: “It’s my opinion that music should not be free.”
“Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently,” she wrote in The Wall Street Journal this year.
Still, accessing her music isn't this much of a challenge for everyone. While co-hosting with Ryan Seacrest on* heat radio*, Taylor pointed out how she gives her celeb pals exclusive access to her songs. “And then Karlie [Kloss] … we took a road trip to Big Sur and I played her pretty much the entire album. Lena Dunham has heard it beginning to end. She heard the stuff I was writing for two years.”
If we were famous we wouldn't be feeling this pain.
Spotify has taken on the demeanour of a clingy ex in trying to get Taylor back, creating a playlist to honour the absent star called What to Play While Taylor’s Away, which includes hits by Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran and One Direction.
But if that doesn’t hit the spot, we’re all going to have to remember how to use iTunes again.