Taylor Swift, long recognized as one of the great streaming service holdouts, will allow her music back onto all major streaming services when the clock strikes midnight, East Coast Time, on Thursday (June 8) . The news was announced via an Instagram message on the site TaylorNation.
“In celebration of 1989 selling over 10 million albums worldwide and the RIAA’s 100 million song certification announcement, Taylor wants to thank her fans by making her entire back catalog available to all streaming services tonight at midnight.”
A source close to the situation confirmed the authenticity of the message to Variety.
Swift famously removed her music from all streaming services shortly before the release of her 2014 album “1989,” decrying the services’ royalty payments. In 2015, she called out Apple Music for failing to pay royalties on streaming during free trial periods for the service. “I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company,” Swift wrote of the decision.
She later relented with Apple Music after a Fathers’ Day 2015 conversation with Apple SVP Eddy Cue. “When I woke up this morning and saw what Taylor had written, it really solidified that we needed a change,” Apple senior vice president of internet services and software Eddy Cue told Billboard at the time. “And so that’s why we decide we will now pay artists during the trial period.”
Swift’s decision on Thursday applies to all streaming services.
