Delayed update, as there has been some activity, mostly bad, but some good. I've been a little busy and should have done this update sooner.
"The Doctor" by The Doobie Brothers (#9) became available several weeks ago, and appears to be stable. Annoyingly, however, it is sourcing from a compilation (the release of which probably made it available) and not directly from the Cycles album. This EVEN THOUGH the rest of the album is available and was available during the absence of "The Doctor." Come on, Mr. Ek and acolytes, fix this sourcing issue. Obviously the original album, with its art, is better than a compilation, especially if the rest of the album is available. But at least the song can be played again.
I had my suspicions that some of those releases from "Enterprise Music" (an outfit connected to Rdeg, which is mildly dubious in its own right) were going to have issues. Not all of them have been removed, but those that have are tragedies. The worst is Charlie Dore's "Pilot of the Airwaves" at #13. It was so nice to have the original version of this song in its original key available for a while, even though the sound quality left something to be desired. My guess is that we won't see this again anytime soon, if ever. Why? I am betting that Ms. Dore is turning a profit from the hideous (seriously, abominably awful) re-recording that is all over the place. The thing is a whole-step or a third lower, sluggish to the max, and just a drag compared to the bright original. Whoever owns the rights, why not get the original up and remove this piece of garbage? Surely there's more money to be made streaming and downloading the original. The entire parent album had been available from Enterprise, and the whole thing is gone, so maybe it doesn't have everything to do with the re-recording, but still...
Down at #29, in a true tragedy for me since I love the song, "Holiday" from The Other Ones has been removed, along with its parent album. It appears to still be available in Europe, can anyone confirm? The group only had the one hit in the U.S., so maybe making that hit available here isn't a priority, but Alf and Janey Klimek appear to still be active. No way to appeal to them to make this truly awesome song available again? I do think that the song and album, when they were available, were connected to Rdeg, though. It disappeared around the same time as the Charlie Dore album.
At #32, "I Couldn't Say No" by Robert Ellis Orrall and Carlene Carter had been available on a compilation from--yes, Rdeg. It disappeared at the same time as the two above.
A couple of the rare Enterprise/Rdeg songs and albums are still available. But consider them unstable. I don't want to draw attention to them, so won't mention them.
Sometimes, a truly obscure song that was not even in the Spotify database will surprisingly show up. We have an example here in "The Clapping Song" by Pia Zadora at #36. A polarizing figure when she was famous, Zadora's song is almost a novelty. But it was a Top 40 song in 1983, and it's available now (legit release from Curb Records).
Drawing attention to the most glaring omissions at this point...the biggest one is STILL Irene Cara's What a Feelin' album. Mr. Ek, what is the issue here? This album was long available and it contains four Top 40 hits. One of those is Top 20, another is Top 10, and one was a massive #1 hit for 6 weeks. It is licensed to Canadian label Unidisc and is available on iTunes and other download stores. Its absence is criminal, especially with no explanation. Make it happen!
I have noticed the absence of Mick Jagger's solo albums come up on a couple of discussion boards, but we still have no explanation or timetable for their return. Keith Richards just signed a new deal with BMG for his solo catalog, so something might be up with Mick's solo work. It would be nice to know.
Barry Gibb's Now Voyager album, from which the #37 song "Shine, Shine" stems, remains unavailable. I inquired with the curator of the Gibb Collective website, who actually made contact with Barry's agent, and they don't seem to know why it is unavailable (sigh). It has something to do with Barry being signed to Sony as a solo artist but to UMG/Capitol as a Bee Gee. It had been licensed to Warner, along with the Bee Gees catalog, before that catalog moved over to UMG/Capitol. So somebody connected to Mr. Gibb knows that the album and its Top 40 hit are now unavailable. The question is whether anyone cares enough to do anything about it.
Rant agaist Spotify. I've been sarcastic about this, but now I'm going to be serious. The decision to remove the database matching feature for unavailable local files was a horrendous one, and I can't believe somebody at Spotify was ignorant enough to make the decision to end it. And I can't believe that Daniel Ek, who seems to care about his customers, wouldn't have fired this nameless underling immediately for making such a horrific move, and restored the feature. That, and the sourcing issue mentioned above really need to be fixed. Allow songs to display the source that users play, or add to playlists from, not some other arbitrary source. Seems logical and simple, but apparently not. The Doobie Brothers song listed above is a great example of this.
Staff / Moderator/ 2 years ago in Social & Random