I would pay cash money to read the details of this deal.
I can’t believe Spotify offered Led Zeppelin (or Pink Floyd for that matter) the same deal they give the rest of the known world for the right to offer their catalog for streaming. But is that what they are doing? There seems to be two ways to embrace Spotify for the biggest bands in the world.
At the moment you can stream just about everything Pink Floyd have ever released though the Led Zep availability is still in its infancy, only the first four albums are up and, oddly enough, with “Immigrant Song”, “Since I’ve Been Loving You”, “Black Dog”, “Immigrant Song”, “Stairway To Heaven”, and “Misty Mountain Hop” missing.
“Misty Mountain Hop”?
If Led Zeppelin want to make their music available for streaming on Spotify, they should view it as an archive where their entire catalog is available in one place for fans and for historians to delve into their career in one place. This is a problem that also inflicts Van Morrison, who has some music up on Spotify but it is so spotty it isn’t very useful. None of his 1990s and 00s material is up there.
The Stones have included every album except for the most recent Greatest Hits and Live At Hyde Park, both US and UK versions, McCartney has a weird lot, all the newest stuff but no Chaos And Creation In The Backyard and no Flowers In The Dirt. It is like for some of these guys they miss one of the best reasons for getting their music up there. John Lennon has just about nothing at all up and if anybody should have their music available on Spotify this is that.
In the end, Spotify is a better form of reference than ITunes because Spotify gets you instant access and Itunes doesn’t. Not only is it easier to navigate it is also put together more sharply. Looking through artists repertoire what becomes clear is that the 50s artists need it because their music is all over the place -Spotify did a great job on George Jones recently, and the 60s artists need it because their musical histories are just there, they tell a story and it is great to be able to just listen to the Stones entire album collection at one sitting. The Pink Floyd collection is a must hear.