Not all albums available

[sjp1966]

 I've already read the post at I want an artist/ song on Spotify. and I understand what they are saying. But something I am not understanding fully is when you have the artist already on Spotify, but not all of their albums. I understnad maybe not having every mix of every record, but regular, mainstream albums by an artist.

For example Blu Mar Ten, Spotify lists Famous Last Words, Love is the Devil, Natural History, Black Water and Producer 03

Discogs (see picture), actually doesnt have Producer 03 as one of their albums (it shows it as a compilation), but it does have "The Six Million Names of God" which spotify doesnt have, and of course the album that I am looking for.

So I guess my question is why do they have all their albums bar that one? I notice it is their first album so could it be that? I notice it is on the same label as Black Water which is on spotify so it cannot be a label thing?

Can anyone shed any light please

[Soundofus · Accepted solution]

Hello @sjp1966 and welcome to the community,

Availability of music on Spotify, is up to the artists(or representatives) and/or their labels.

Unfortunately, sometimes, by decision of the artist and/or the label, some albums are not available, or are partially available on some countries (in case of licensing problems).

It can happen also that a debut album can be removed and replaced later on by a reissue extended version.

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

[sjp1966]

Hi. Thanks for the quick reply. So essentially a kicensing thing. That is a shame. I suppose that raises another question and that is this.

Can albums be taken away? Using Blu Mar Ten still as an example. Spotify has Black Water to play. Could I one day log in to find that that album is no longer available to play?

[Soundofus]

@sjp1966

Unfortunately, whatever the reason, that can happen but always following a decision of the artists and/or their labels.

If it's a licensing problem, this can be, most of times, solved  and the album coming back with a more or less long delay.

[sjp1966]

Thanks again. OK not ideal but fair enough, I wont be getting rid of my
current collection then, i wouldnt be a happy bunny if that happened and I
had got rid of my CDs

[Soundofus]

@sjp1966

Believe me and my "old" experience 🙂

Never get rid of anything you like in your music collection. It's a crime 😄

Personally even if I have a huge library on Spotify since 2009, I still listen vinyl albums from my teenage years 🙂

[sjp1966]

Nods. My current way of doing thing is twofold, I buy music from a website called bandcamp and I download in FLAC and MP320. Mp3 for my iTouch/Android phone and FLAC for playing through the surround sound. This is backed up in three different places.

I also buy CDs, which I rip to the same formats above and I keep the CDs and artwork but bin the jewel case (I do keep any cardboard/special packaging though) and those physical discs are my backup.

My daughter has a paid for Spotify account and ive had a free one for years but do not generally use it. I was toying with getting rid of all I had to go totally with Spotify but now you have said that I agree. Spotify will be great for finding new bands (what I like isn’t really mainstream) but I think that even if I have the music on spotify, if I really like an album, ill still buy it.