Taylor Swift’s Label Explains Why She Was Removed From Spotify Without Warning

Being America’s musical sweetheart doesn’t come cheap, but Taylor Swift and/or those close to her don’t believe that Spotify will do anything to help them make the money they need. Industry sources tell Rolling Stone that last week, her label, Big Machine Records decided to pull the singer’s music from the streaming service without negotiation in order to obtain what label head Scott Borchetta described as, “a pop on their sales.”

Said removal came as an abrupt surprise to Spotify, because Billboard is projecting that Swift’s 1989 album is expected to sell to sell 1 million units in its first week, despite the fact that Swift was already listed on an impressive 19 million play lists.

Rolling Stone’s source goes on to explain: “There are reasons why you can sell 1 million units, but it’s got nothing to do with not providing that album to Spotify. Every 15-year -old knows where to get that record, and it’s not iTunes.”

Borchetta’s statement and its motivations are reminiscent of a Swift’s own similar statement from earlier this year when she said, “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.”

Naturally, Spotify respectfully disagrees with Swift and Big Machine. The company released a statement on Monday saying, “We love Taylor Swift, and our more than 40 million users love her even more – nearly 16 million of them have played her songs in the last 30 days, and she’s on over 19 million playlists.”

“We hope she’ll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone. We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy. That’s why we pay nearly 70% of our revenue back to the music community.”

Time will tell which end of the debate is right, but Ms Swift won’t be hurting for fans while she waits for the results. Studies show that although our country’s political parties seem to disagree about everything else, reps from both major parties agree that they love Taylor Swift.  Said adoration is satirically optimized best by a recent SNL digital short made in her honor, Check it out below.  If that’s not enough for you, check out the brand new single from her 1989 album, called “Blank Space”. True to fo

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