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Taylor Swift now streaming freely, Spotify to champion songwriters

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 9 June 2017

So, Taylor ‘fuck off Spotify with your free fucking streams, I fucking hate you’ Swift is now streaming her tunes on Spotify. Glorious!

And yes, that includes Spotify free. Swifty isn’t such a luddite that she objected to all things streaming from the off, her past position was that premium streaming was good, but people shouldn’t be able to access her musical goodness without handing over some dosh.

But seemingly she’s now decided she’s got enough of that dosh stuff, as Spotify announced yesterday “we can confirm that Taylor Swift’s entire back catalogue is now available on Spotify for her millions of fans to enjoy”. Good times.

And I think that’s the last of Spotify’s high profile ‘featured artist feuds’ now at an end. Better do something about all those moaning songwriters then. What with song rights generating much smaller royalties than recording rights, and “think of all the t-shirts you’ll sell” never going down well with people who write songs for other artists.

“Songwriters are the guiding force behind the music industry”, Spotify said yesterday. Writers and producers you don’t necessarily see on stage “are the voices behind some of our favourite hits” it went on, “and to celebrate the songwriting community and their accomplishments, Spotify is launching Secret Genius, a global initiative that will highlight the contribution songwriters and producers make to the music industry and artists’ careers”.

Hurrah! That’ll do it. No songwriter will ever moan again. Official. Look out for Secret Genius workshops, awards, podcasts, curated playlists and an ambassador programme.

And now here’s Spotify’s Troy Carter with some words: “Songwriters and producers are the backbone of the industry and we want to help celebrate these incredibly talented people. The goal of Secret Genius is to give credit where credit is due by shining a light on these amazing creators”.