When we gave up relying on our iTunes accounts being hooked to our parents’ credit cards, the occasional Apple gift card or the super ~legal~ music downloads, a new face emerged to save us all. Spotify arrived and answered all our prayers, and we pretended that Pandora did not essentially give us the same thing. We could now search and listen to virtually any and every song we could ever imagine, and for $9.99/month it did not seem so bad.
Our generation never asked for much, and it seemed that we were rewarded by the music gods for handling our first world probs so well. Spotify became our saving grace for road trip playlists, TH party mixes, and for blasting those 2000s throwbacks when we needed to Hollaback.
Recent leaked information, however, leads us to believe that we will enjoy these pleasures no more come April. The people at Spotify have decided that with Apple Music and Tidal joining their game, they are no longer the different one in the crowd. It appears that they have made the decision to go back to the old ways and start charging per song, since the current way is too mainstream.
But what does this mean for us? How are we going to budget our Blues buckets and weekends at the Ticker in addition to paying for individual songs? Representatives from Spotify declined to release the real reason as to why, but rumors have it that the decision to increase their employee’s salaries on top of cutting their work week to just four days has called for the need for increased income for the company. Others are saying that in order to help her man, Beyoncé is demanding Spotify take a step down from being the go-to platform for listeners. Jay Z is celebrating this news, seeing as his first attempt to draw more listeners to Tidal by only making Lemonade available there did not work.
So get ready, Saints. Either dust out those old, super ~legal~ downloading skills, or suck it up and convert to Apple Music or Tidal. Hey, maybe in these changing times CDs will make a comeback and you can pass them around at parties. Anything appears possible in this crazy new world we are in. One can only hope that Spotify will come to their senses and realize what they are taking away from this deserving generation.