Spotify has said it hopes to stream Radiohead’s new album, A Moon Shaped Pool, as soon as it can. A Moon Shaped Pool, the Oxford band’s ninth album, was released on Sunday 8 May and is currently available through Apple Music and Tidal.
Should it eventually appear on Spotify, it would mark a turning point in the relationship between the group and the service. Radiohead singer Thom Yorke has long been a vocal critic of Spotify, branding it “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse”.
He added: “I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what’s happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen.”
In 2013, Yorke and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich removed their music from the service, with Godrich claiming: “The reason is that new artists get paid fuck all with this model. It’s an equation that just doesn’t work.” Yorke added: “Make no mistake, new artists you discover on #Spotify will not get paid. Meanwhile, shareholders will shortly be rolling in it.”
Since then, however, the relationship seems to have improved. Both of Radiohead’s teaser tracks for the album were available to hear on Spotify. A Spotify rep told Billboard: “Radiohead’s new singles Burn the Witch and Daydreaming are already available on Spotify, and we look forward to making the rest of A Moon Shaped Pool available on Spotify as soon as we can.”
