[pembrook]

But if the majority of plays on Spotify are of the current hit pop songs at any given time, Spotify still has the power even if they don’t own the old songs.

Go look at the most played songs on Spotify of all time. It’s not the Beatles and Michael Jackson’s back catalog. We’re talking Chainsmokers and Imagine Dragons and Ed Sheeran.

[seanmcdirmid]

AmazonPrime’s most played list has more than a few oldies in it, especially around Christmas. The non-young crowd is also much less into new music and crave the older stuff actually. A streaming service can totally survive on those users alone, probably. If I could get it at some discount, I would totally pay for a streaming service that didn’t have any songs made within the last ten years. I could live on songs made in the 60s alone (and that’s way before my time).

[usrusr]

Most played in terms of number of plays, but probably far behind in terms of unique users who actively selected the song at least once?

The catalog deep dive is where streaming services offer unique value, putting a hit on repeat is what people could do just as well by buying the single/licence.