Music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora among others have rapidly grown throughout the 21st century. There's literally millions of songs available at the tip of your finger, just waiting for you to discover them. This is an exciting feeling and active hobby for the younger generations.
However, like every industry, there is competition. Within the past year, Spotify has been accused of "punishing" artists for exclusively releasing music with other competing services like Apple Music.
According to The New York Times, Spotify executives released a statement saying that all artists who exclusively put their content on Apple Music will not be on Spotify's feature playlists and their content will be displayed less prominently. The streaming service has also been known to "bury" artists songs in search rankings, making it harder for them to receive the same kind of promotion they did on other services first.
Music geniuses like Beyonce, Drake, Kanye West and more were exclusively debuting their albums first with specific music streaming services. This has affected the 30 million paying subscribers of Spotify. Even record labels aren't too fond of exclusive deals, considering they don't produce long-term sales.
Last week, Frank Ocean's highly anticipated album "Blonde" released exclusively on Apple Music first, as well as his visual album "Endless." This release is not only attracting more subscribers to Apple Music, it is reviving the on-going tension between the music streaming services.
However, labels may be changing the industry and their outlook on exclusives.
Lucian Grainge, Chairman of Universal Music Group — which is one of the top music labels — called executives to put an end to long-term exclusive deals with a specific and sole service. Nothing is set in stone yet, but negotiations are in the works for Universal.
So, will this feud between Apple Music and Spotify ever come to an end? And if so, will ending exclusive deals be the solution?