Taking a cue from Adele, Coldplay will not be releasing their upcoming album, A Head Full of Dreams, on Spotify. The album, which is out next Friday (Dec. 11), will only be available to fans on Apple Music and Amazon Prime music, which is a streaming service specific to Prime members.
It isn't altogether surprising that Coldplay is taking this route, having recently released the an audio only video for the single, "Adventure of a Lifetime," early last month (Nov. 5) which has already amassed 11.9 million views. The official music video was just released on Nov. 29 and has already accumulated 3.2 million views.
This is not spur of the moment as Coldplay has played around with strategies for their releases for a long time. In 2008, they teased their album, Viva La Vida or Death To All His Friends, with a free download of "Violet Hill." The band also gave a free performance at Madison Square Garden.
Viva La Vida went on to sell 721,000 copies in its first week on the Nielson scale according to Billboard. Their next album, Mylo Zyloto, was also kept from Spotify for about three months, but to make sure that it received attention, they released an audio only video for "Paradise," which they've now done again with "Adventure of a Lifetime."
A Head Full of Dreams is a highly anticipated album that features a lot of celebrity contributors including Beyonce, her daughter Blue Ivy, rising star Tove Lo and even an Obama cameo. Coldplay reportedly has included a clip of the president singing "Amazing Grace" at the funeral of Charleston a shooting victim earlier this year as an interlude between songs.
