Disappearing Artist

[eastender42]

Wondering why one day there are several albums from an artist, then suddenly they are gone.

[eastender42]

Hello there and welcome to the community,

Availability of music on Spotify is up to the artists (or representatives) and / or their labels. Music missing can be a decision of one of them.

Music missing can also be related to a licensing problem. Licensing rules are not the same from a country to another. That can lead to have albums available in some countries and not in some others. Usually when a licensing problem is solved the music can be added or come back if it has been removed.

Spotify wants all the music in the world to stream and works hard daily to try to convince artists and labels to let all their catalog in streaming.

[oldschoolsquare]

It's down to the record companies basically. 

[Th0b0r]

It's been happening too much lately, now it's a chore syncing my iPhone because everytime I will lose songs that I had on offline mode because it's been pulled. It's like I sync it to get some songs but have to lose some songs in exchange.

Frankly this doesn't cut it anymore.

[devilman]

It's odd that one of the albums I've been listening to a lot lately (Gillian Welch's 'Time - The Revelator'') has now gone, despite other albums by the same artist being available. It now shows as being unavailable to the UK, even though it's on the same label as her other albums it seems.

[David · Accepted solution]

We have an FAQ post regarding some disappearing artists right here. Hopefully, that music will be back on Spotify soon.

[rom2u]

Being a subscriber in France, i had made play list for each decade of every ECM recording.

Recently, I found out that more than 50% of those records have disappeared.

What happened ?

Is this a contract issue with Universal Music ?

[meahtenoha]

Hey Rom2u - I've just popped your post into this larger thread about disappearing artists.

Have a look at the FAQ Dave has posted above--thanks!

[rimbaud76]

I'm finding it amusing that no one from Spotify seems to know anything regarding licensing issues with specific artists and can only point you to the generic explanation from their FAQ.  We get it, Spotify, but if you're going to be successful with this business venture of yours, music just can't disappear as fequently as it does. 

[Sam]

Rimbaud76 - In most of our launch countries now, we have around 16 million songs. I hope you understand that it's pretty hard to stay on top of the news regarding every artist.

[rimbaud76]

If you are employed by Spotify, you can't tell me that you don't have access to a daily list of which artists/albums have been pulled (and for what reason) and which have been added.  Just be honest with the people that use your service...

[spag]

Dear David, Spotify developers,

I understand that sometimes you need to pull out some music from the database because of changed contract terms with the labels.

However. My (Spotify Premium) playlist is not only a playlist but also an inventory of my favorite music. Just because a song becomes unavailable, it is still my favorite and in that case I might want to be reminded to get that song from other (maybe even legal) sources. I would like these songs to remain in my playlist, even though they can't be played anymore. (An example of this feature would be unavailable songs listed in grey in the Top Lists.)

The fact that songs can just disappear without notice seriously limits the utility of Spotify and questions my commitment to stay an otherwise very satisfied Premium subscriber.

I hope it is possible to implement this feature in short term--or otherwise provide me a way to automatically back up my song lists as text.

[spag]

Never mind... it is beyond me if this is a new feature or overlooked by me till now but there is a preference item "Hide unplayable tracks" and that solves this issue.

[konrad1]

Hey Spotify,

please bring back the tracks from Dj Shadow, nearly all songs and his profile are gone.

-A short message to the user would be nice a la' : The Artist XY is now unavailable at spotify...

Thanks

[brinleygrace04]

Yeah. I hate how Taylor swift removed all of her songs just so she could get people to buy it instead of listening for free. it's stupid

[Grenvthewise]

Yep, seems totally random, and really annoying. How about doing better deals with the artists and charging a little more for the service?

[Soundofus]

Hello there and welcome to the community,

Availability of music on Spotify is up to the artists (or representatives) and / or their labels. Music missing can be a decision of one of them.

Music missing can also be related to a licensing problem. Licensing rules are not the same from a country to another. That can lead to have albums available in some countries and not in some others. Usually when a licensing problem is solved the music can be added or come back if it has been removed.

Spotify wants all the music in the world to stream and works hard daily to try to convince artists and labels to let all their catalog in streaming.

[captbobalou]

The "artists disappeared" FAQ no longer exists. Does this mean that artists will randomly disappear, without notification?

[osornios · Accepted solution]

@captbobalou

The availability of music on Spotify is up to the artists and their music label.

If the music is gone, the artist or their music label has likely decided to remove it from Spotify, and usually they don't notify users.

Sometimes the music is only available in certain countries, while access is blocked to others.

Sometimes the album or song will be unavailable temporary, and come back again later.

More info here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Content-Questions/I-want-an-artist-song-on-Spotify/td-p/1136005

[sunilmud]

HI David - FWIW - when I click on your FAQ link I get re-directed here: https://support.spotify.com/us/

Is this intentional?

Thanks!

[AKendrew]

I agree, the FAQ page is absolutely useless in regards to this issue