Daily London
Exclusive: Carly McNamara thought it was a glitch when she opened Spotify and saw track nine from one of her favourite albums had vanished.
Shock turned to sadness when she learned the song – Human Too by The 1975 – had been wiped from streaming services entirely.
And the culprit was none other than the band’s frontman, Matt Healy.
While his decision left some fans inconsolable, it also made any physical copies of the album in their possession a whole lot more valuable.
“If you’ve got a CD and you press play on it, it’s not going to get affected by The 1975 deciding they don’t like that song,” University of Wollongong researcher and music psychologist Dr Tim Byron told 9news.com.au.
“Artists can recall the ones from the shop, but they can’t recall it from the cupboard where you keep your vinyl and CDs.”
That’s valuable in an age where artists can and will remove music they no longer want on streaming services without warning.
Healy said on Reddit that he wiped Human Too so the album it was originally included on, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, would be “more how I want it to be”.
“Previous physical release obviously remain the same,” he conceded.
“I doubt the same will happen with any other records as I am pretty happy with them outside of What should I say from Notes On A Conditional Form.”
Healy said that track may also be removed from streaming in future, making fans like McNamara nervous.
She’s been a fan of The 1975 for over a decade and is used to the eccentric frontman’s “random nature” but losing Human Too was an unexpected tragedy.
”I was really saddened,” she told 9news.com.au.
“I love that track and not being able to listen to it as easily was something I wasn’t prepared for.”
McNamara has spent hundreds on The 1975’s albums, concert tickets and merch.
Now she fears more of the songs she’s been singing since she was 14 could disappear from streaming services without a trace.
”I do worry, definitely,” she said.
“They’ve done it once, why not again?
But The 1975 aren’t the first to chop and change their music on streaming platforms.
In 2022, Beyoncé removed a track from her album Renaissance and replaced it with a new version after controversy over an interpolation in the original.
That same year, Neil Young pulled his music off Spotify in protest over Joe Rogan’s podcast (he has since returned).
Back in 2016, Kanye West made multiple changes to his album Life of Pablo after it hit streaming services.
Monash University lecturer Dr Ben Morgan said the only reason we haven’t seen more artists doing it is because society is still holding on to an outdated idea of how music should be consumed.
“From a technological standpoint, there’s no reason why people can’t just continue to make things better,” he told 9news.com.au.
“But in the case of popular music, there’s a whole lot of reluctance to see artists doing things that they’re ‘not supposed to’ because it’s too commercial or not authentic.”
Morgan suspects that will change as technology advances and streaming services continue to dominate the music industry.
Record labels may even come to encourage artists to reupload improved or ‘optimised’ versions of old tracks to make more money.
Or remove music that doesn’t perform well.
Being able to edit or remove music from streaming also gives artists the chance to distance themselves from work they no longer resonate with.
”I could imagine if I put out music 10 years ago that now I think is terrible, that I would potentially want to just take it down,” Byron said.
“Or if you’re an artist and you discover that you’ve collaborated with someone who turns out to be a despicable person.
“Lady Gaga would be within her rights to take down the version of the song that she did with R Kelly [Do What U Want, released in 2013].”
Either way, we can expect to see more artists following in The 1975 and Beyoncé’s footsteps.
And that could make physical media, like the dusty old CDs many Australians have sitting around their homes, a lot more valuable.
McNamara was smart to invest in The 1975 CDs and vinyl.
Having physical copies of the albums she loves means she can still listen to Human Too and any other tracks that The 1975 might cut in future.
And should she ever decide to part with those albums, they could fetch a good price.
“This has really reminded me of the value of physical media and taking things offline.”
