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.