Sam Smith's "In the Lonely Hour"

[evcheng30]

I'm a little (scratch that), very disappointed that Sam Smith's new album was not immediately added to Spotify. I'm sure it might come later, but I thought that they would add it right as it came out.

[ivanskigib]

I'm very disappointed too. Paying for the service and not being able to listen to many new albums, especially this one. 

[timsteele985]

I'm slighty gutted his album isn't on Spotify either. I imagine it's something to do with his record label because it's their decision whether to have their music on Spotify or not. It might be on in the future though 🙂

[twcudney]

Yeah, I was very upset with this too. I've been waiting for this album for a long time, and to see it not on Spotify when I logged on today really sucked. I hope it comes through to Spotify in the next week or two.

[bethrushing]

I am so with you guys...  I was REALLY hoping this album would be posted up first thing yesterday and am very disappointed it wasn't.  Hopefully soon!

[chihuahuazero]

What's even mystifying is that Sam Smith's label didn't even put up the singles beyond "Money On My Mind" and "Lay Me Down". At least with Coldplay and The Black Keys, those two uploaded their latest album's singles, but "Stay with Me" is absent from US Spotify.

I question Sam Smith label's choices here. They don't have much ground to make a ideological argument against Spotify, since Coldplay and The Black Keys are two established bands that can live off their fanbases. Their albums went to #1.  Smith, on the other hand, is an up-and-coming artist being compared to Adele. And his album won't beat Lana Del Rey on the Billboard charts next week.

Maybe someone should do a study on Spotify and see how Spotify affects album sales. My guess is that they improve them, since a listener gains confidence in purchasing it.

[Ke7in10454]

This is not good...I don't want to go to iTunes to get my fix on this album. Sadly, I just might have to, Sam Smith is simply too much of a vocal genius to not hear. To me he's the male equivalent of Adele. 

[Bombsaway00]

I am more than dissapointed. If you pay for the service, you would expect that such an anticipated album would be on spotify the day it came out. Furthermore, this is not the first album that wasn't available immediately. I suspect (like Rhianna's last album, which my girlfriend was waiting for) it won't be available for weeks, after I've been forced to buy it on itunes.

[cpg716]

Blame the record labels. It is NOT Spotify that decided which Album to carry. They want EVERY album they can get. Some labels with albums they think can move well the first few weeks are holding off, since they only get pennies per stream on Spotify. The music landscape is still evolving, and streaming services like Spotify are growing. With more customers, labels and artists will make MORE money off these services. Right now.. it is NOT much.

[ajdman89]

Really Spotify...? His album dropped on the 17th and it's the 21st now. If Target already has the album, I'm pretty sure you guys would have it out by now too... I'll give you guys a week. If you still don't have it by then, I'm going back to Google Play Music All Access (already had the album available as well).

[cpg716]

Spotify is NOT the one who decides what albums they have. It is the Artist and Label. Comparing it to Target also makes no sense. Physical copy sales having NOTHING to do with streaming. Many lables and artists wait to put album on streaming services cause they make less money with it. They are paid pennies on the streaming of songs. Until MORE people subscribe to streaming services.. this will continue to happen. 

[ajdman89]

Ok, fine let me compare it to another subscription service then. Google Play All Access has it available and I'm pretty sure Spotify's been around longer than it. I don't pay for subscription services just to have to wait a couple of days or weeks for newly released albums. If you can't satisfy your customers, you will definitely lose them. Trust me, there are many alternatives out there in the market.

[cpg716]

But you missed the point.. Spotify IS NOT THE ONE who makes the choice. Google All Access has very FEW customers(so the lose of sales is minimal). Spotify is the #1 streaming service. So the artists and labels make the decision NOT to put the album on Spotify on release because they would lose the MOST sales by offering it to Spotify subscribers.   Spotify would LOVE to have EVERY SINGLE album on release date.  

[ajdman89]

So you're saying that a competitor with less customers should have it because the artists will lose less? I'm not so sure that All Access has very few customers, especially with their quality of service and not to mention Chromecast support. Like I said before, the album was released on June 17 and it is the 21st now. Besides, don't you think that by making it available on Spotify will increase their sales since more people that don't know about the artist will be encouraged to either buy or stream the album? 

[cpg716]

Yes. And because its Google and becuase it owns YouTube (which artiest make money off)..  So often albums do appear on All Acess and not on Spotify. 

Spotify is FAR and away the #1 Streaming service. Google All Access in not even in the top 3..     Again Spotify is not the one making the decisions. It is the LABEL or Artisit that does it. 

Sam Smith does not have a "people don't know artist" problem..  His album is set to debut at #2 (maybe #1 if he beats Lana Del Rey) and sell about 150k copies its first week. The label feels its better to make the majority of first few weeks of sales from actualy CD's and pay by ablum services like iTunes, Amazon, etc.  Until more people stream (even Spotify doesn't have huge numbers of users who pay) and labels/artists get more money out of it you will see this.   Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and other big artists hold their albums from Spotify for weeks to months at a time. 

[user-removed]

I also think some users are confusing things with the google play service. Items you have to pay for i.e  individual artist releases are available by streaming, which is totally different then having a large catalogue of material available that can be streamed for a set amount per month. It is one of those confusing marketing ploys google is known for. Hey I can stream this music I bought anywhere, yeah only if you pay the $11.99 per release price first. I got a sneaky feeling iTunes will pull the same marketing music ploy by individual release pricing schemes to be able to stream most music on their service, only if they can get beats straightened out. Heck it would be just as smart to purchase what you wish to from say amazon.com you at least get the hard copy sent to you when ordering a new release, and most of the time the customer also gets the digital content download included in the release price, you get two for one. Those services like goole play, iTunes, and amazon are going to be a mix of what is availble for streaming without additional purchases and also made up of those releases you will have to pay a single release fee each time artists hold out from the streaming services in order to have it available to stream through their services. They are basically giving you the chance to pay over double in most cases to stream the music you want, once a montly fee to stream what is there for streaming already, and then paying individual release prices for the artist holdouts who do not trust the streaming method to be paid correctly.

I wait already in most cases six months to see new movies on my cable service, I can wait six months for those artists to finally agree to put something up for streaming, and if they don't well too bad there are thousands of artists here at spotify already to check out. I can wait, I am patient and the artist, labels, and digital services that play these silly games instead of making the music available through a monthly on demand service fee are going to continue seeing that material pirated over and over and over again.

[MarkTheBuckeye]

I share your disappopintment, but I am also a bit puzzled by this album's availability.  Just last week, I was able to find and play Sam's latest album through the Spotify desktop client, but now it is not available.  I wonder if there was some dispute over availability by region, because I saw that his single of Stay With Me is available to other countries (or at least not USA).

[Jglick79]

Spotify has really disappointed me recently!  No Sam Smith, no Coldplay, no Black Keys, so what do you have?  Why am I paying for this service anymore?

[Joe]

Why are you disappointed with Spotify when it is the labels who hold back releases? Be disappointed with the labels.

[beachdude42]

I find it mind-boggling that the record label didn't even release "Stay with Me" as a single... I wanted to check it out to see what everyone was raving about and now I have to check it out on YouTube, and still can't listen to the whole album. This whole withholding strategy is just punishing premium users like us who want to check out new music, and now can't.