Century Media labels return to Spotify
Century Media Records has announced its return to Spotify along with associated labels InsideOut Music, Superball Music and People Like You Records.
Century Media announced its decision to pull its repertoire from the streaming music service in August last year “in an attempt to protect the interests of their artists.
“While everyone at the label group believes in the ever changing possibilities of new technology,” said Century in a statement at the time, “[it] is also of the opinion that Spotify in its present shape and form isn’t the way forward.”
The group now says, however, that “after the initial decision to pull the Century Media catalog from Spotify, label execs were impressed by the resulting debate, especially the messages and comments by the thousands of fans who weighed in on the issue.
“Fan sentiment and continued discussions with Spotify have resulted in the label reversing its initial decision.
Century’s European general manager Antje Lange said: “Spotify offers great tools to discover new artists. We feel that this is essential for our promising newcomers. In that respect, Spotify gives those artists a very good forum.
The group’s president of North America Don Robertson added: “We respect that music fans wanted to have instant access to our catalog via Spotify, but we also have to consider the rights of our artists.
“After practicing some due diligence, we’re moving ahead confident that both the artist and the fan are being fairly served by this developing platform.”
Artists on the Century metal focused roster include Paradise Lost, 3 Inches Of Blood, Firewind, Fozzy and Dark Tranquility.
“Spotify’s global growth provides a powerful platform for artists to connect directly with our hugely passionate audience,” said Spotify’s head of content Steve Savoca. “The return of Century Media’s fantastic catalog is cranking metal music to our ears.”
Source: Music Week