BLINK 182 SINGER Tom DeLonge has compared streaming music to “killing elephants”, saying it is hurting the music industry.
Taylor Swift’s decision to pull her music from Spotify earlier this month has sparked a debate about the value streaming places on music as an art form.
During an acceptance speech at the American Music Awards on Sunday night, she further solidified her position, saying:
What you did by going out and investing in music and albums, you are saying that you believed in the same thing that I believe in. That music is valuable and music should be consumed in albums and albums should be consumed as art and appreciated.
Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has since defended the service, calling the ‘free music’ label a “myth” and revealing that $2 billion a year is paid out to labels, publishers, artists and songwriters.
Now Blink 182′s Tom DeLonge has added his two cents, saying streaming music is like “killing elephants for their tusks and carving ivory statues”.
He told the music website Faster Louder:
It’s cool to put [the ivory statue] on your shelf but if you really think about what you’re doing it sucks. Streaming music is doing the same thing to artists – might not be killing ‘em but it’s killing the industry… We’ve got to value out art, you know?
This, from the man who has written a song entitled F*ck A Dog. But we’ll say nothing.
