The Verge:
The Weeknd’s latest project, My Dear Melancholy, pulled in over 26 million streams in its first 24 hours on Apple Music, with the lead song “Call Out My Name” pulling in 6 million of those streams, the company tells The Verge. That in itself isn’t a record, but Apple Music’s numbers did beat out the single’s performance on Spotify, which pulled in nearly 3.5 million streams in the same period — the largest debut of 2018 on the service — according to Republic Records.
So what? Apple Music beat out Spotify in this one instance. Why is that so odd?
Here’s why:
Spotify has over 120 million more users, had two exclusive music videos from the EP, and it was where The Weeknd pointed his fans to stream the album on social media.
In effect, the deck was stacked in favor of Spotify, well stacked. And yet, somehow, Apple Music pulled more streams.
And this isn’t an anomaly either: this is the third time Apple Music has outperformed Spotify on a major release in the past 13 months.
First-day streams of Drake’s More Life on Apple Music outpaced Spotify by a staggering 28.6 million, and the streaming service dominated first-week streams of Post Malone’s chart-topping single “Rockstar” in the US.
Some kind of secret sauce at Apple Music HQ. Very interesting.
To me this is very similar to what we see with paid app performance on the App Store vs Google Play (Android). Apple customers are generally far more engaged with their products and content than users of free or lower cost alternatives. This should mean something to investors as they consider the Spotify IPO. With these kinds of listening numbers consistently playing out on the biggest releases, which way are artists and record companies likely to lean in future negotiations?
So let me see if I understand.
Musicians not only get paid more per ‘stream’ on Apple Music compared to Spotify, but they also get paid more because AM subscribers just plain stream more, despite having fewer subscribers than Spotify. If I were The Weekend, I’d reconsider where I point listeners.
Proof that Apple customers are “consumers” in the most extreme sense.
The odd thing is, The Weeknd was part of the Apple Music launch and performed at the keynote. He was backed heavily by Apple when they launched AM as a new up-and-coming artist.
Interesting to see he went with Spotify for this new release. Yet still got more streams from AM.
Nothing to see here really, Spotify paid him a nice chunk of change for the exclusives and promos, similar to what Apple does with Drake. Unfortunately for Spotify, it didn’t quite pay off as they hoped.
Though a huge difference in usage in UK.
I’m in a couple of indie music Facebook groups. No one uses Apple Music or posts links to it. Always Spotify, as even if you’re skint you can still access links in the free version. If we posted links via Apple Music a very small proportion of people could use those links.