Peter Kafka, writing for Recode, reports that Spotify denies that they are demoting songs in search that have been exclusives on other streaming platforms:

Spotify doesn’t like it when big-name acts take their music to Apple or Tidal first.

But it’s not punishing them when they do, by making their stuff harder to find in the music service’s search results, the company says.

That accusation, sourced to anonymous sources in a Bloomberg report out today, is “unequivocally false,” says a Spotify rep.

Good.

Ben Sisario, writing for The New York Times, details a new policy from Spotify where they give less promotion to albums on their service if they’ve been exclusives on other platforms first:

Executives at two major record labels said that in recent weeks Spotify, which has resisted exclusives, had told them that it had instituted a policy that music that had benefited from such deals on other services would not receive the same level of promotion once it arrived on Spotify; such music may not be as prominently featured or included in as many playlists, said these executives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss private negotiations. Spotify declined to comment.

It seems to be getting harder for Spotify to justify any claims that they’re artist friendly. Artists that are doing exclusives with other platforms are doing so because of the massive promotion, and in some cases monetary advantages, of locking in these deals. They’re doing what’s best for them in a world where rates-per-stream are awful (and Spotify wants them to drop even more) and this windowing strategy1 allows them to maximize their income for a small moment in time, and then push the album out broadly everywhere else and gain exposure as they tour. If the reports are true, Spotify’s trying to make that secondary broad push just a little more difficult, and therefore make the windowing strategy less attractive. I’m not a fan.

Spotify has announced the new “release radar” that will give you a personalized weekly playlist of songs from new, and recently released, albums. The Verge goes into more detail:

Discover Weekly focuses on a window of the last six months or so to decipher your taste and make suggestions. Release Radar can’t replicate that approach, because your favorite band may not release an album more than once every two years. Instead it takes stock of your entire listening history, then narrows the range of possible suggestions down to tracks that have been released in the last two to three weeks.

I’m still, mostly, an album-only listener, but I really like this approach to trying to get people to check out new music and tackling the problem of so many people not being aware that new music is out from artists they love. Hell, I follow this stuff for a living and even I would like a personalized page each Friday that shows me all the albums out today from artists already in my collection, and then below that gives me four recommended albums I should check out and what song to start with.

Matthias Verbergt, writing for The Wall Street Journal:

Swedish music-streaming company Spotify AB on Wednesday launched programmatic ad buying for all its markets, allowing advertisers to target its 70 million nonpaying users by age, gender, genres and playlists in real time […] such as listeners who are commuting, working out, dining, dating, partying or relaxing.

Nothing says “great date night” like an advertiser breaking into your playlist to sell you something.

Rich McCormick, writing for The Verge, on Spotify’s two new radio shows:

Swedish streaming service Spotify is launching two new radio shows today, both of which feature musicians talking about the kind of music that they like listening to while they’re making their art. The first, AM/PM, will feature artists like electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre and Terry Hall of ska icons The Specials talking about the music they listen to in the mornings before work, and in the evenings after a day spent creating. The second, Secret Genius, speaks to the songwriters and producers behind major songs, and features the actually-pretty-well-known James Blake, among others.

Colin Stutz, writing for Billboard, on the removal of lyrics from Spotify:

In a statement Spotify said, “We can confirm our partnership with Musixmatch is ending. It was a great partnership and there is mutual respect between both companies as our business strategies move us each in different directions.”

Musixmatch, meanwhile, has a bit more to say about the split, suggesting it did not come amicably.

Ben Popper, writing for The Verge, looks at just how big of a hit Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist has been:

According to the stats Spotify released, more than half of Discover Weekly users listen to 10 tracks a week and save at least one of those songs to their favorites. The company is trying to highlight the boost in listening this feature has given to small- and medium-sized artists, and noted it will be sharing data from Discover Weekly with bands to try and help them connect with their newest fans.

Peter Kafka, writing for Re/Code, on how Spotify lost a lot of money last year, but revenue grew:

Filings show that Spotify, based in Sweden and the U.K., generated revenue of $2.12 billion last year, up about 80 percent from the $1.18 billion it brought in the prior year (all prices in the story converted from euros to dollars at the exchange rate from December 31, 2015). Losses, meanwhile, hit $188.7 million — but that number was only up 6.7 percent from the previous year’s total of $176.9 million.

It looks like their paid subscribers hit 28 million.

Glenn Peoples, writing for TechCrunch, on Spotify’s aquistion of CrowdAlbum:

Spotify announced Wednesday it has acquired CrowdAlbum, a service that creates albums of events based on the location and time of photos and videos people share on social media sites. It can index content for any kind of event — sports, Earth Day festivals, political rallies — but mostly aggregates photos from music concerts and festivals.

Josh Constine, writing for TechCrunch, looks at Spotify’s latest move of raising $1 billion in convertible debt to fight Apple Music.

What the debt does provide Spotify is opportunities to make acquisitions. With SoundCloud and Pandora in the dumps, Spotify could potentially make a play to bring more independent music or radio listeners into its music empire.]

Why would Spotify agree to these aggressive terms? Because it’s competing with the most well funded company in history: Apple.