With streaming “exclusives” dying and the physical market for music (sans vinyl holdouts) drying up quickly, artists are pretty limited in how they can their music to fans.
So it’s still a surprise that in 2019, there are major recording artists who have held out from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, etc. When Prince’s estate finally released his music online, that left avant garde rockers Tool as the biggest holdout.
No more. On the eve of releasing its first new album since 2005, Tool is finally releasing music to streaming services starting on August 2nd. Announced via an Instagram post from the band, the group joins The Beatles, Metallica, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin as latecomers to the streaming world, as The Verge notes.
Tool’s always been a different creature, but the band’s lack of a streaming presence could be an issue (and Tool singer Maynard James Keenan’s other bands A Perfect Circle and Puscifer have been readily available on Spotify and its competitors … to be fair, the frontman might not be to blame). Eventually, even the diehard fans will leave if they only have hard-to-get physical releases or semi-legal/illegal streams from YouTube.
A good reason for bands to stream music? Admittedly, it’s not for the music, which seems to go almost entirely to the labels. It’s about legacy — and creating interest for touring, merch, licensing and other areas where there’s actual $ for artists to make.
When NPR was investigating the lack of Bob Seger records on streaming services in 2017 (a problem since rectified), they noted that up to 70 percent of plays on streaming services when to back catalog. Older music on streaming services is a way to keep old fans active while engaging new listeners. “Generally speaking, if your first fan and your last fan are the same, then you have failed to grow your artist’s audience,” said Bruce Resnikoff, CEO of UMe, in the NPR report.
So who are the remaining streaming holdouts? With a few exceptions and excluding streaming exclusives (like Jay Z with TIDAL), that’d be Garth Brooks, Aaliyah, De La Soul, Spaceman 3, Suede and a few others. Hopefully, they won’t be forgotten.
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