I’ve been patting myself on the back for a good few years having managed to avoid sending a monthly check to Spotify, the Swedish corp that pays artists .003 cents per stream. Simply avoiding their premium subscription service seemed a cheaper, and less self-sabotaging way to express my dissatisfaction, than removing my own music from the service, which would deprive me of at least $20 in annual revenue. What validation it was to witness last week’s Spotify & Joe Rogan vs. Neil Young, Joni, etc. donnybrook; finally, it seems, we can all mostly agree that Spotify is lousy, though odd it took a whiff of Covid disinformation to get the story moved into the big media spotlight.
At any rate, seems like a fortuitous time to announce that the new Murphy Beds (Eamon O’Leary and Jefferson Hamer) record “Easy Way Down” is finally out on the streamers. We did a pre-order of physical CDs back in September, followed by a bandcamp only release (which is still by far the best way to listen to and purchase the album, at least for us). Well, here it is then. Easiest way down to consume music by the schleppful. Might I recommend the better paid, high-resolution streams on Tidal?