Los Angeles rock band Tool has finally relented on their sharp criticism of music streaming services.
In a surprise post on Instagram, the band calmly told their 155,000+ followers,
“This Friday, Aug 2nd, the Tool catalog goes up on all digital and streaming formats. High five. #tool2019.”
The group quickly followed up, dropping the official date of their upcoming album, which follows a 13-year hiatus.
“Fear Inoculum, Aug 30th, 2019 Album Art, Lead Track, and Pre-Order info TBA. Thank you for your patience.”
The band’s last album, 10,000 Days, was released in May of 2006.
Like many major legacy bands, Tool had refused to sell their music digitally. Other groups who long slammed the music streaming model included The Beatles, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Metallica. All eventually relented to the streaming model.
Criticism largely came from music streaming platforms’ increasingly low artist payouts. Last summer, for example, David Crosby shared how much he received per-stream.
In a tweet dubbed “Real Numbers,” Crosby reported earning $0.019 per stream from Napster. TIDAL paid the former Byrds member $0.0125, while he received $0.00735 on Apple Music. Google Play Music pays around $0.00676 per stream, while Deezer pays Crosby $0.0064.
Despite multiple licensing deals with major labels, YouTube still has the worst payouts – $0.00069 per stream.
As our ongoing royalty payouts table reveals, Spotify, Amazon, and Pandora again ranked as the lowest-paying services for musicians. They paid Crosby $0.00437, $0.00402, and $0.00133 per play, respectively.
He finished his post, slamming all streaming services.
“Get your song played a million times and get less than $5. Seems fair.”
Holding out against the digital format in general, Tool hadn’t made their music available on popular storefronts. This includes Amazon’s MP3 Store and iTunes, among others. Fans could only purchase physical CDs of the group’s music.
Danny Carey, the group’s drummer, previously said Tool would finally drop on music streaming platforms in 2018. He also promised the group would drop the album at around the same time.
“Yes. I’m saying definitely. We’ll probably have it done in the first half [of the year] if things go as planned. There’s setup times and manufacturing – I can never predict all that, it seems like it’s constantly evolving. [What time of year it will be out] I can’t tell you.”