If you haven’t heard by now that Taylor Swift’s entire back catalog is now available on all streaming services (including Spotify, Pandora, and Google Play) then you must be living under a rock. The move was made on June 8 in celebration of 1989 selling over 10 million albums worldwide and hitting the RIAA’s 100 million song certification milestone.
But since November of 2014, Swift wasn’t available on any streaming service besides her service of choice, Apple Music. “We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy,” said Swift’s label Big Machine Records.
We don’t know what exactly changed Swift’s mind, but streaming has changed drastically since Swift’s move in 2014. Perhaps Swift moving back to streaming services like Spotify means that Spotify is actually generating more money, and is paying artists more fairly than in 2014.
Whatever the reason, we know Swit will come out and say why she made the move eventually. Until then, it’s important to understand just how much the pop star has made since making the move. Let’s be honest, it’s a lot. According to Nielson Music, on-demand audio streams of Swift’s music generated a total of 51.3 million in the U.S. last week. This means sales are up 608 percent from the 7.3 million streams she accumulated the week prior.
According to Billboard, this means that Swift has made #310,000 in revenue in the first week of availability, and since then, it has only gone up. Since releasing her entire back catalog, Swift has a total of $418,000, which is reason enough to bring the music back to streaming services.
Not only has Swift generated incredible sales, the move has also bumped all of her albums back to the top of the Billboard charts. Of her five albums, four have made it back into the Billboard 200. Most of these albums are from years ago, but it doesn’t surprise us. Swift has a way of still dominating the charts without having any new music. It’s what she does, and we’re okay with it.
It’s a Taylor Swift world, and we’re just living in it.