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Taylor Swift Breaks Up With Spotify

 & Angela Moscaritolo Managing Editor, Consumer Electronics

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Looking to jam out to Taylor Swift's latest album, 1989, or any of her older tunes? Don't bother trying Spotify.

The world's top music-streaming service and the world's biggest pop star have called it quits. Swift's entire music catalog has been removed from Spotify.

Swift has yet to acknowledge the move, but Spotify on Monday confirmed the break-up, and begged the pop star for a second chance, even creating a special playlist for Swift. In a blog post, Spotify said its users are huge Taylor Swift fans; nearly 16 million of them have played her songs in the last 30 days and she's on more than 19 million playlists.

"We hope she'll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone," Spotify wrote. "We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy."

The move comes after Swift in July penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journalarguing that "piracy, file sharing, and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently."

"It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is," Swift wrote.

Meanwhile, Spotify said it already pays nearly 70 percent of its revenue back to the music community.

"PS Taylor, we were both young when we first saw you, but now there's more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It's a love story, baby, just say, Yes," Spotify wrote.

Interestingly, Swift hasn't pulled her music from every streaming service. It's still available on Rdio, Pandora, and Deezer.

It does not appear that her presence on streaming services has hurt album sales. 1989 arrived on Oct. 27 and will probably sell about 1.3 million copies in its opening week, according to Billboard. That would top the 1.2 million in sales for her previous album, Red.

When Red debuted in 2012, meanwhile, it was not immediately available on streaming services, arriving on Rdio in 2013, for example.

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About Our Expert

Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo

Managing Editor, Consumer Electronics

My Experience

I'm PCMag's managing editor for consumer electronics, overseeing an experienced team of analysts covering smart home, home entertainment, wearables, fitness and health tech, and various other product categories. I have been with PCMag for more than 10 years, and in that time have written more than 6,000 articles and reviews for the site. I previously served as an analyst focused on smart home and wearable devices, and before that I was a reporter covering consumer tech news. I'm also a yoga instructor, and have been actively teaching group and private classes for nearly a decade. 

Prior to joining PCMag, I was a reporter for SC Magazine, focusing on hackers and computer security. I earned a BS in journalism from West Virginia University, and started my career writing for newspapers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The Technology I Use

My little Florida beach bungalow is brimming with smart home tech. I have a smart speaker or display in every room, allowing me to control other connected devices by voice. The Nest Hub on my bedside table lets me set wake-up alarms, control my smart light bulbs, and set the temperature on my smart thermostat. I use the Amazon Echo Show 8 on my kitchen counter to browse recipes, reorder protein powder, check the weather, and watch the news while I do dishes. 

Because I suffer from allergies, air purifiers are essential. My favorite model is the Dyson Purifier Cool TP07, which doubles as a fan and continuously sends indoor pollution data to its companion mobile app. 

My pitbull Bradley sheds, so a good robot vacuum is a must. I currently use a premium Ecovacs Deebot that can both vacuum and mop, empty its own dustbin, and wash its own mop cloth. 

For fitness, I like to mix up my routine with cycling, indoor rowing, running, and strength training in addition to yoga. I take classes on the Tonal 2 smart strength training machine, I row indoors on an Aviron machine, and track my beach runs with an Apple Watch while listening to music on my Apple AirPods Pro. On the weekends, I love riding e-bikes like the rugged, beach-friendly Aventon Aventure for fun and fitness.

My job involves a lot of virtual meetings, so a quality webcam, microphone, and ring light are important. I use the Jabra PanaCast 20 webcam, the Elgato Wave: 3 microphone, and a Yesker tripod ring light. 

As for my preferred phone platform, I'm an iPhone person, but I've also extensively used Android for product testing.

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