In the past, if you wanted to listen to a Taylor Swift song, you were basically limited to opening up an Apple Music account, own physical copies of Taylor’s albums or PAY for digital copies in full.
And as a struggling millenial trying to survive paying bills, I’m not about to pay for anything else. So I’ve always resorted to watching her music videos on YouTube in a different tab like “Yeah, totally paid for this song”.
But if you wanted to listen to any of her songs like “Red” or “22” on another streaming platform, you’d find yourself out of luck. Taylor pulled her songs from platforms like Spotify after writing an open letter to Apple Music about its policy for paying artists fairly.
“These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child,” she wrote when Apple Music wouldn’t pay artists for streams accrued during a user’s three-month free trial. “These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer, and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.”
Apple quickly changed policies after that, making way for commercials like Taylor’s impression of Drake while at the gym, and Drake’s returning of the favor. And within 2 years, Taylor’s entire discography is officially back!
Her official fan account tweeted the announcement, saying that it was in honor of 1989 selling over 10 million albums, and Taylor’s songs hitting the 100 million songs mark from the RIAA.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/kcpY03qHLp
— Taylor Nation (@taylornation13) June 8, 2017
Such a sweetheart.
[Source]