Radiohead front man Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich took to Twitter yesterday to rail against Spotify and announce that they would be removing some of their music from the popular a la carte music streaming service as part of a "small meaningless rebellion."
The duo announced that they would remove their collaborative super group Atoms for Peace's album AMOK, in addition to Yorke's 2006 solo release The Eraser and Godrich side project Ultraista's self-titled 2012 release. All of Radiohead's albums that were previously on Spotify remain on the service.
Godrich used fits of tweet to detail that the duo was departing from the service because the current model isn't serving new artists. Specifically, he says "new artists get paid f**k all with this model. It's an equation that just doesn't work," and "Meanwhile small labels and new artists can't even keep their lights on. It's just not right".
The new economics
Spotify generates revenue via a multi-tiered subscription plan. Users can access the service for free, but are subject to visual ads on the desktop app and audio ads in-between tracks. However, users also have the option subscribe to the "unlimited" ad-free plan for $5/month on a PC or a $10/month "premium" plan that allows users to access ad-free music on any device supported by the service. The company reportedly now has nearly 25 million active users, six million of whom are paid subscribers.
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