It’s a dumb decision when bands/artists withhold their new album/music from Spotify. Case in point is Bon Jovi and their new album, “This House Is Not For Sale”.
Four days have passed since the album was released and it’s still not on Spotify, however it is all over the pirate sites, on YouTube and I am sure CD manufacturing plants in China are doing up forgeries, ready to sell the damn thing on Amazon or some other site.
Are first week sales so important that it’s become the reason why artists do albums in the first place?
It sure is the main reason why labels exist. Spotify pays the artist per listen while the pirate sites pay nothing. So where does the artist need to be?
Does it ever occur to artists and their label that fans have chosen a paid streaming subscription over purchasing a CD or an LP or an mp3?
The profit and loss statements of the labels show streaming as a big source of revenue, yet, streamers are still victimised as artists and their labels play lip service to the sales charts. The action is in streaming, where we can see if anybody is listening. And if your album is not on there, how can people listen.
Click on the Global top 50 and there is no Bon Jovi there. But they have four songs from the new album out on Spotify as part of their pre-release promotions.
How is it going so wrong?
“What About Now” was a flop and “Burning Bridges” was exactly that. But Jovi’s career was made on the back of a hit, not on an album. It’s all about listens and our on demand culture has a new hero called “Data”. Data tells the people if something will be successful. The data doesn’t lie and it can’t be manipulated. Labels can influence radio with their marketing budgets and the PR companies can write the stories for the media to report, but all of those games mean nothing when it comes to what people are listening to or not.
“This House Is Not For Sale” song is not bad. There is quality there, but not enough. “Born Again Tomorrow” and “Knockout” are also not bad while “Labour Of Love” is poor.
However, Bon Jovi can still sell tickets.
Will there be instant sell outs like in the past?
It’s a question of how many hard-core fans want to pay the big dollars to see the band up close and how many fans on the periphery get caught up in the excitement of the rock and roll show coming to town or in the ticket discounts period.
destroyerofharmony 
I jumped off this ship after These Days! As far as the the whole streaming thing goes. I’m the only one in my family without an iPhone. My wife and 3 daughters all do. I just have two iPods (one is 120 Gb’s the other is 32 Gb’s) I’m still old school that I purchase full albums from iTunes as they are cheap…..everything that I review I own …course that’s my deal hahaha….but I see why Suits would use a stream network to generate profit as you say in regards to Bon Jovi it’s the song not so much the albums that sells!
Speaking of selling….my sister caught him a while back in Winnipeg (Jovi played a stadium about 30,000 or so) she paid big bucks for her tix as the show got closer tix were being slashed as to fill the place…Kid Rock opened I believe….
The last time and only time I seen him live was the Jersey tour August of 89! Great arena show. I couldn’t help think that Alec Jon Such was the luckiest Dude in the world! Hahahaha….
I jumped off em as well after that album but Bounce got me interested again as it was heavy for a Bon Jovi album.
For me, it’s CDs and streaming, never got into the MP3 purchases.
For concerts I took the wife and the kids to his Because We Can tour. $250 a ticket. It was an outdoor gig, so I would say 50,000 plus would have been there.
Before that 2013 concert it was the Keep The Faith tour I last saw them. Saw em play Dry County which was pretty cool.