Bob Dylan gone from Spotify
2009/08/05
Extra! There has been a small Spotify update. The first thing i noticed, however, was that 99 percent of all Bob Dylan tracks have been removed. Checking around the net it seems Dylan is gone from Last.fm, Deezer and we7 as well. This is bad news for all digital music. And also bad news for Dylan himself since I and many other Dylan fans now are going to get our Dylan fix from other sources… And no, I’m not planning on paying for all albums I’ve already bought once before.
Feel free to comment below.
January 30 2012 EDIT: He is back! Maybe 3 million subscribers had an impact?
Spotinews 
For some reason I hadn’t been getting particularly familiar with Dylan’s music until recently through Spotify. That is, of course, one of the greatest strengths of the service: easy and fast access to all those things you never got around to checking out before, and finding new interesting music — that is, new to you, regardless of the release date.
I just got to the point where I’d be interested in going through more of the albums… but not the point where I’d want to go and buy them right away.
Since I already paid for Spotify, I’m not particularly interested in paying for those albums right now — I just paid a week ago for continued service that gave me access to that music at the time. Maybe sometime later, but not for now, and it’s also the first time I start considering whether it’s worth it to pay for the service that can have albums that I just listened to disappear.
So because you can’t get it for free you are going to steal it? Dylan fan? So you don’t own a single album?
“So because you can’t get it for free you are going to steal it? Dylan fan? So you don’t own a single album?”
Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. I didn’t say that I’m going to steal anything. There’s also the option of not getting it in either way if I don’t feel like it. (I could also mention that I wasn’t exactly getting it for free even previously; if you actually read my message, you’d notice that I mentioned I just *paid* Spotify for another month a week ago, and supposedly Spotify pays something for the streaming.)
I’m not a fan, and am not nearly stupid enough to claim I am. As I said, until recently I hadn’t actually even got familiar with a lot of his music apart from some rather well-known songs. So, no, I don’t own a single album so far. Does that mean I shouldn’t want to explore it? Does that mean I can’t be a bit disappointed when someone happens to pull the plug when I had just got to the point where I found a lead for that exploration but wasn’t quite sure what I wanted yet? Or when I had just paid for another month? (I would have paid for it anyway, and this single if badly timed occasion probably won’t change that, but what if it keeps happening with other artists as well? That would significantly reduce the value of the service to me.)
I liked a lot of what I heard and was going through many of the albums for the second or third time or so; others I hadn’t listened to yet. I do buy CDs and I might get around to doing that some day. But right now I didn’t quite get to the point where I decided to buy yet. (I do buy CDs more or less randomly every now and then, but not an entire catalogue…)
This probably isn’t Spotify’s fault any more than having to play by the rules of the recording industry in general is their fault. Of course they don’t remove content out of their own initiative, and it’s only partially up to the way they handle the politics, royalties etc. Someone can of course decide to have their creation removed regardless of what Spotify does. Still, it affects the value I get as an end user of the service.
Humh, I guess you weren’t even replying to me in the end… Well, my answer might still apply. 🙂
He’s been gone from lastfm for quite a while now, still on napster it seems
The times they are a-changin’.
You better start streaming or you sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin´……
Removing Dylan’s tracks knocks the heart out of the Spotify site. Maybe Dylan has gone all paranoid about losing revenue (as if he needs to worry!) because when I saw him at the O2 a couple of months ago, he had insisted on the screens at either side of the stage remaining dark throughout, in case someone pirated the concert film. What a bozo.
Marissa Nadler is gone too.
Honestly, this doesn’t bother me that much. If the removal of one artist’s catalogue invalidates the purpose of Spotify for you, you need to listen to more artists. Just saying.
My comment was directed at people in general, not Joe or anyone else present 🙂
I’m going to be quite out of pocket when I’ve purchased all the albums I want.
Bye bye Spotify until Dylan comes back on. I’d buy the catalog boxset but it’s just way too expensive for me, so it’s back to pirated mp3s for me now. 😦
Hmmm, I’m not sure how Spotify works because it is n/a here in the USA. My concern is that I just released an album with 11 Dylan cover songs on it called If Not For You-A Tribute to Bob Dylan and if Dylan took his own songs off Spotify then his publishers [representing him] could ask me to take mine down which I really don’t want to do.
Seems like iTunes iCloud could end up being a lot like Spotify but I’m not sure and I’m not sure that it will be good for independent artists doing cover songs. It is becoming a risky business when you invest big bucks into producing and manufacturing an album and you don’t know what the future holds for it due to the changes taking place.
It’s a shame – was a great place for people (myself included) to pick up on rarer tracks and even as a great resource for his huge body of work.
Come back soon – I was only 25% of the way through Biograph!!
Time to update that header image joebuck? 😉
Oh btw, wee mention here:
http://pansentient.com/2009/08/my-top-5-most-visited-spotify-sites/
Thanks Afront for all your excellent work!
And yes, maybe I have to create a new header image…
Couldn’t resist:
http://pansentient.com/2009/08/ode-to-bob-dylans-music-label/
This is the worst news I’ve had for a while (which if you think about it, is something to be cheerful about in itself). But seriously, I’m gutted about this. I’m a huge Dylan fan – my precious playlist is in tatters.
Bob’s a fool if he thinks that de-Spotifying is going to make the slightest difference to his record sales. Those days are long gone Bob. Charge what u like for concert tix, but times have already changed, and you better get streaming or you will sink like a stone, as a previous correspondent said . Me, I’m off to Grooveshark to see what Bob stuff is up there…
Hello. Thank you for this great info! Keep up the good job!
It’s not good news for people that own his lps but not cds. I have everything but bootlegs on lp and was enjoying being able to listen to it on my computer too. Shame.
Didn’t understood the last part :s could you explain better please?
I hope Spotify can get Dylan back onstream, for his sake and ours. Millions of young people all over the world depend on sites like Spotify for listening posts, to see what’s available, and to buy dowlnoads or hard copies of what they like. Dylan fans over a certain age have already bought the lps, Cds and tapes, and use Spotify as a conveninet medium to play stuff from their computers: these people, economically, are largely irrelevant. Dylan runs the risk of being seen as one of the out-of-touch old farts he made his name lampooning in the first place. And don’t forget here was a man who sacked an excellent drummer because Van Morrison – who ought to get the Nobel Prize for being an irrascible, manipulative old fart – told him he wasn’t any good; so he’s likely to act impuslively on an ill-thought out whim, often to his own detriment. Spotify will loose important cred points if they don’t get him back.
I made a playlist of what remains in various compilations after the Dylan holocaust. The grand total is 39 tracks, it’s not much but it’ll have to do until the albums come back. http://open.spotify.com/user/goldfire86/playlist/0Zx2MT4ku6QyP4P1xe2yNL
I’m desapointed. I discovered Spotify last week and one of my first playlist was ‘Bob Dylan’…
The best I can do is to become a premium member to support Spotify and his business model. If we are enough, perhaps artists will be convince there is a new way to sell music…
back to the hard drive mp3/ogg playlists again. I have bought several cd’s just because I’ve discovered them in spotify, I hoped this service to reach agreements with more labels, but if Dylan or others are removed is likely it will lack an important % of users and potential !! buyers !! (who other than the interested in music will buy music?)
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I should think that Bob Dylan with his achievements would not have fear and greed at his heart – this would fly in the face of half his lyrics – I imagine this will be a decision made by the record label/management who are ruled by these things,unfortunately the artist is ‘only a pawn in the game’.
I have listened to a lot of his catalogue and have to admit i’m getting ‘into’ his music – it is for me at this point that i like to start making my collection.
This is a spotify strength – it gets you into older artists because you know you can get truly into them because – mostly – you’ve got their entire catalogue at hand. You feel like you have got in from the start – something that is usually only available when you hear a new artist.
A shame they can’t see this, but greed and fear are the 2 strongest human negatives and responsible for alot more pain in the world than just not being on spotify.
Still, glad he was available for a while as it got me there, will probably buy ‘Blood on the Tracks’ at weekend – would i be buying it if he was still on spotify? – not yet, but would be on my christmas list. Would I be buying it if i had joined spotify after he was taken off? – Bob who?
I’m disappointed with Dylan. I think he’s just become one of those little fascist he critizes…
Its particularly annoying because it had EVERYTHING on there, now there is fuck all. A lot of those albums you cant get in the shops
I agree. Some very rare stuff indeed… Hopefully he comes back in the future.
I re-discovered Bob through Spotify. His new stuff – Modern Times and Together Through Life. And so I bought the albums to support him.
But since I got Spotify premium it has become pretty much my only music player for my phone (HTC Magic – Android 😀 ) and my computer. So any artists not on Spotify lose out. I’m soon gonna forget about them (bye-bye Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd). And now Bob Dylan has added his name to that list. Damn him. Even though I bought his albums I’m hardly ever gonna listen to them now.
I like this site BTW, intelligent comments. 🙂
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You can still listen to dylan radio dot com to get exposure to his music. http://www.dylanradio.com
I’m sure it’s not the same but it’s something.
Most of Dylan’s entire catalog was made available on eMusic recently for half of what it sold for on iTunes.
But eMusic may not be available outside the USA, I don’t know?
Dylan’s back on Spotify 🙂 no joke! Type his name now!
Yes, I wrote a short edit to that post two months ago. 🙂