Why many famous songs and albums are not on Spotify

Founded back in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden, Spotify is nowadays the most popular music streaming platform in the world. They simply have more than 600 million monthly active users. After the 90s, file sharing started to kill the record sales of artists and making new albums was no longer lucrative. But during the last decade, the streaming platforms like Spotify at least were what made people stop downloading songs illegally and gave the artists back some kind of revenue.

Almost every artist is on Spotify nowadays but sometimes not all their discography is available. But why many famous songs and albums are not on Spotify?

Why many famous songs and albums are not on Spotify

Well, even though it seems that everything we want to hear on Spotify, the avid fans of a few artists can realize that many great albums or singles are not on the platform. It’s fantastic that we now can carry our entire musical taste in our pockets anywhere we go. We are one click away from the perfect soundtrack to an specific moment of our lives, but some things in the music industry haven’t changed. We are talking about contracts and agreements between artists, copyright owners and record labels.

As the platform says on their frequently asked questions of their website, they wanted to have all the music in the world in there. However that varies over time and between countries. Because the terms depend on the deal they had with the ones who have the rights to those albums and songs.

“We do not have all the world’s music and podcasts on Spotify. What we do have varies over time and between countries. Everything depends on permissions from the rights holders,” the platform said.

Examples of Rock albums which are not on the platform

One of those most recent examples is the final Van Halen album “A Different Kind of Truth” released in 2012. That record was available on Spotify, however, the contract came to an end and the group failed to get to a deal again, so it was removed not only from Spotify, but from all streaming platforms.

The same happens with Judas Priest, which doesn’t own the rights to their first two albums: “Rocka Rolla” (1974) and “Sad Wings of Destiny” (1976). So the fans can’t hear some classic songs of the band like “Rocka Rolla”, “The Ripper” and “Victim of Changes” on the platform.

So although we now have in our hands almost all the music we might want, we have to remember that some things never change. But most of the time it’s the right thing which is happening, since we always need to support the artists in their choices regarding the rights to their songs.