Thom Yorke Is Streaming His Albums on Apple Music Despite Past Criticism of Spotify

First it was Taylor Swift, now it's Thom Yorke. Yorke -- who has been staunchly opposed to streaming services’ low royalty payments to burgeoning artists -- has apparently signed a licensing agreement with Apple Music.

Yorke’s solo albums, The Eraser and Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, along with the 2013 Atoms for Peace LP, Amok, have surfaced on the newly launched platform despite the fact Yorke previously took them down from Spotify, Rdio and Deezer. Likewise, Radiohead's In Rainbows have also appeared on Apple Music, as Consequence of Sound notes.

Back when Yorke yanked the albums from Spotify, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the streaming industry in no uncertain terms:

In an interview with Sopitas Musica, Yorke expanded on his criticism (translation courtesy of Stereogum):

I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what’s happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen. But it’s all about how we change the way we listen to music, it’s all about what happens next in terms of technology, in terms of how people talk to each other about music, and a lot of it could be really f---ing bad. I don’t subscribe to the whole thing that a lot of people do within the music industry that’s ‘well this is all we’ve got left. We’ll just have to do this.’ I just don’t agree."

He also suggested that artists will eventually have to take matters into their own hands:

When we did the ‘In Rainbows’ thing, what was most exciting was the idea you could have a direct connection between you as a musician and your audience. You cut all of it out, it’s just that and that. And then all these f---ers get in a way, like Spotify suddenly trying to become the gatekeepers to the whole process. We don’t need you to do it. No artists needs you to do it. We can build the s--- ourselves, so f--- off. But because they’re using old music, because they’re using the majors… the majors are all over it because they see a way of re-selling all their old stuff for free, make a fortune, and not die. That’s why to me, Spotify the whole thing, is such a massive battle, because it’s about the future of all music. It’s about whether we believe there’s a future in music, same with the film industry, same with books. To me this isn’t the mainstream, this is is like the last fart, the last desperate fart of a dying corpse. What happens next is the important part."

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