

Spotify Adds Led Zeppelin as It Focuses on Mobile Business - digital55
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/business/media/spotify-said-to-secure-exclusive-deal-with-led-zeppelin.html?hp&_r=0

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ScottWhigham
Wow. This is both great and sucky. Remember when you'd have to save up, buy
the album, listen to it for a whole year, and then listen to the next one?
That time was important - it allowed you to grow musically so that you were,
indeed, ready for the next album. Now imagine being 13 years old and hearing
Kashmir (1975) and then Whole Lotta Love (1969) as your first intro. Those are
great, great songs. But really - you needed to hear Whole Lotta Love and
understand where that came from - that bluesy roots really coming through.
Kashmir is "Led Zeppelin at it's original peak" IMO - it's as unique as any
Top 50 song every made IMO. If you started with Whole Lotta Love, you aren't
ready for Kashmir!!!! You need time to let that shit soak and for your brain
to grow haha. Oh sure, "It's got a killer hook/riff" but you don't get it. Not
at 13. You like it for superficial reasons. Later on - 1-5 years go by - and
you'll really dig it for what it is and what it represents.

Get off my lawn!

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mrcsparker
My favorite part of Spotify is the "Related Artists" link. I can click on it
and see that Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Pink Floyd, and Queens of
the Stone Age are somehow related to Led Zeppelin. This starts me on a very
cool journey to discover music I might not have heard.

It is like Wikipedia - click on an artist, then a related artist, then an
artist related to that ... Great for road trips and long coding sessions. I
can get a sampling of a little bit of music history without having to go to a
record store and search through bins of records. Don't get me wrong - the
record store was great, but this is better.

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slouch
last.fm has provided a related artist feature for longer than spotify has
existed!

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muttnik
The last.fm spotify app also has a "recommended" tab, which has given me some
pretty good recommendations.

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viraptor
Even with spotify access, I really don't like the way those deals are going.
Soon we'll need spotify for LZ, itunes for TB, let's say Google music for
ACDC, etc. In reality this means only one thing: instead of paying for access,
people will choose one or two providers and just torrent the unavailable
albums. This is not beneficial to any of the groups involved (unless the
streaming providers count on people paying for multiple subscriptions).

How many years will have to pass before publishers / authors really get what
people expect and are willing to pay for?

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sanskritabelt
How many people are interested in streaming Led Zeppelin and don't already own
a big chunk of the collection.

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timje1
Spotify premium subscriber here. What I've heard of LZ is good, but I don't
think I've heard anything other than best-of albums. I'd love the chance to
listen to their back catalogue.

I gave away / lost / threw away all of my CDs over the last few years. I don't
own a stereo, so they just took up space. I think that the artists that refuse
to appear on Spotify are very short sighted, they may as well be invisible to
a whole generation.

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fr0sty
Spotify Premium user here too. To my knowledge the two albums available today
(and not before today, as far as I can tell) are the only tracks available
that are by Led Zeppelin and not a tribute/cover band.

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ssharp
Terrible news for Led Zepagain and Lez Zeppelin.

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scarecrowbob
I dunno if you're being flip, but Lez Zeppelin is a pretty good group in its
own right and not trying to simply place cover songs of originals....

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myronbolitar
I think we'll see more battles in the coming years between Apple and Spotify
over exclusive rights for the music of artists that aren't on either service.

Sidenote: I'm curious how iTunes Radio has done since they released it. I
haven't heard from anyone who prefers that over Pandora or Spotify's offering.
It'd be a large acquisition by their (or anyone's) standards, and I know I'm
not saying anything revolutionary here, but there have to be discussions that
have happened/will continue to happen about Apple buying Spotify.

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pit
Re: Sidenote:

I tried out iTunes Radio last night, thinking "this'll be cool!" About two
songs into it, they played an ad for Macy's. I'll stick with Rdio, thanks.

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myronbolitar
Sounds about right. I gave it a try because of their Beatles catalogue, but
went back to Spotify after a few sessions.

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thebiglebrewski
How does this work if Spotify supposedly pays all artists in the same way?

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earbitscom
Who said they pay them the same way? Spotify has never said that and it is
most certainly not true. They carefully worded that they pay roughly 70% to
rights holders, and that it is their percentage of the total streams, times
their rate. They did not ever say everyone gets the same rate. They just tried
to imply it so that artists would stop bitching.

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mseebach
The rate is what the rights holder pays to the artist. The rights holders all
get paid on the same formula.

[http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-
explained/#royalties-i...](http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-
explained/#royalties-in-detail)

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mtarnovan
"Users can't pick the exact song they want to play right away, and will have
to shuffle through their playlists. "This is the way the next generation will
build their music library," said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. "It's not about
purchasing one song or other. it's about adding it to a collection."

Oh yeah. So that's a feature now...

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thoughtpalette
I've been waiting for Spotify to get Led Zeppelin in their catalog since I
signed up when it launched in the US (Summer 2011). No Quarter is one of my
favorite songs and I would love to play it on speaker at home digitally.

Tool would be the next one I'm hoping for, until then... grooveshark for them.

Edit: Looks like only two albums for now =\

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melatoned
This is huge news for 17 year old me.

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spenrose
I wonder if Led Zeppelin's "deal" with Youtube will survive:

[http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=led%20zeppelin&s...](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=led%20zeppelin&sm=3)

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daniel-cussen
Albums I and II are already available on Spotify--I just checked.
Interestingly, their Spotify popularity is currently zero, probably because
they just got added.

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codex
This is a shame. Spotify's Ogg Vorbis streaming is the poorest quality of all
streaming services. I wish they'd switch to a real codec.

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wiresurfer
Wait, we don't have spottily here in india. So its back to the LPs. Or maybe
the mp3.

