Do The Beatles on Spotify Prove Taylor Swift Sucks?

In one word, maybe.

In two words, it's complicated.

I found out about the Beatles sudden arrival on Spotify last night thanks to my friend Keegan. Shout out to Keegan, because at first I didn't believe him and I had to log in myself. And lo and behold, there it was!

But probably not the only time you'll
see a screen grab from this group text.

But the Beatles' arrival on Spotify and several other popular streaming services begs the question: what makes Adele and Taylor Swift so special?

Now I don't want to go and troll the unquestionably two biggest stars in all of music right now. I'm not about that. And because they both demand such a large audience all on their own, doing so is probably a savvy business move. They don't owe Spotify a thing, and considering its reputation for screwing musicians over, they don't get a bad rap for not being on there.

There's also the fact that the Beatles themselves probably didn't have much say in the matter. Their music catalog has been out of their hands since the 1970s. You think Paul McCartney was pumping out above-average-but-still-clearly-worse Wings and solo records just for shits and gigs? The guy still needed to make money! And even though that last claim is fundamentally false because he's bloody rich, there's no denying that whoever's in control of the Beatles' music was holding off on this.

For many, the question may be why now? And other than it being a nice Christmas present, I don't really have an answer. Nor do I particularly care. But what I do wonder is if this change will have any impact on the decisions Adele and Taylor Swift made to withhold their most recent albums.

Of course, they do it under the somewhat moral pretense of trying to protect other artists who can be exploited by streaming services. And that's all well and good, but it's not actually going to push the needle in any way. Streaming music is the way of the future, and frankly it's already the way of the present. I have no idea how 1989 did so well, because I can't think of a single person I know who buys albums anymore except my brother. And I doubt he's pining to have Taylor Swift on vinyl.

The ones who really suffer here are the casual fans like me. The ones who want to give Taylor Swift and Adele a shot without making a big commitment. It's a matter of either having me listen to it once or not at all. And Swift and Adele have chosen the latter.

Now the Beatles? They had the right to hold out because they're THE FUCKING BEATLES. I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't make his sermons available for streaming either. They're the most successful pop group of all time, and even they've relented to the streaming goliath. And all I'm saying is, if they can do it, maybe it's time for T Swizzle to do the same.