Coldplay, Adele Refuse To Stream

There seems to be a sudden backlash from established artists like Coldplay, Adele and Tom Waits against the whole idea of streaming their music. In fact, these artists and others have decided not to stream their latest albums on Spotify or any other streaming music subscription service.

Can you blame them? With the revenue anywhere from as little as a tenth to three tenths of a cent per stream, why bother? It's almost like legal pirating with an income that small. The irony is that these artists now want you to buy their downloads (where they make anywhere from 12 to 20 cents), where not that long ago that revenue stream was considered just as tiny when compared to good old fashioned CDs. Boy, times have changed.

While this might be a worthwhile strategy for Adele (who's sold more that 10 million copies of her album 21) and Coldplay (with their latest album, Mylo Xyloto, already at #1), who already have established fan bases, a new or up-and-coming artist still has to bite the bullet and make sure that every streaming service has their product.

Remember that in Music 3.0, your music is your marketing and the only way to develop your audience is to make sure that it's everywhere. Any time you hold back product from a potential distribution channel only makes it that much harder for people to find you.

Still, it will be interesting to see if the trend of established artists holding back songs from digital streaming continues.

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