Garth Brooks wants off YouTube. Taylor Swift took her music off Spotify. And U2 gave away its new album, all within a span of a few weeks.
Garth, Taylor and the guys in U2 all have more than enough wealth to keep them and their descendents going for generations. They have Michael-Jackson-before-Neverland money. They can buy virtually anything in the world, except for health and relationships, and some would argue those are available to them as well.
U2’s latest album downloaded automatically to iPhones and was available for free to millions of others. We didn’t pay for it, Apple did. I don’t know who would complain about getting the new songs from one of the world’s hottest bands for free, without lifting a finger, but many did. I didn’t hear anyone complain that paying U2 is one of the reasons why Apple’s iPhones are so expensive. I guess a fan is a fan.
Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks are both upset about money. Brooks is freshly back from a hiatus to raise his daughters and pissed off that his product is widely available all over YouTube. That, as you know, is the case for virtually every artist and it creates an appetite for their music and live performances, but Garth is greedy. Always has been. He met with the people at YouTube and pleaded to be taken offline but they shrugged and said, can’t do it man. Garth was madder than 20 gallons of poo in a 10 gallon hat.
Taylor Swift’s self-removal from Spotify was also a business decision. She knew there was more dough to be made elsewhere. Spotify is a legal music-sharing service done with cooperation of record labels. The company claims she stood to make six million from downloads of her new album. That’s peanuts to a gal like Taylor.
These artists are certainly entitled to do what they want with their art. You don’t get to a certain point and then say, hey man, take it, it’s free. But when they nickel and dime over how many mega-millions they might make, it’s just gross.