Vanity Fair has a new interview with Taylor Swift, and the publication previewed it today.
Let’s just say Taylor Swift is still a little pissed at Spotify, or as she calls it, a “start-up with no cash flow.”
Here’s what Swift had to say when discussing her now-famous letter to Apple:
“Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about. And I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the start-up with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine.”
Ouch.
Back in June, Taylor Swift admonished Apple for its plan to not pay artists, producers, or writers during the three-month free trial period that all new subscribers got when the service launched.
“I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation,” she wrote.
And days later, Apple capitulated.
Last year, Taylor Swift yanked all her music from Spotify, saying it fails to fairly compensate.
“[M]usic is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment. And I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music. And I just don’t agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free,” she said.
Apparently, Swift is pleased with the way Apple handled things and thinks “no cash flow” Spotify needs to work on its public relations.
In the interview, which you can find here, Swift explained the impetus behind her letter to Apple.
“I wrote the letter at around four A.M.,” Swift says. “The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term ‘zero percent compensation to rights holders.’ Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter.”
Image via GabboT, Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}