Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and his frequent collaborator, producer Nigel Godrich, took to Twitter over the weekend to blast the music streaming service Spotify. Yorke later pulled albums from the service, although Radiohead albums are still available.

According to The Guardian, Godrich went first, slamming Spotify’s treatment of new artists.

“The numbers don't even add up for Spotify yet. But it's not about that. It's about establishing the model which will be extremely valuable,” Godrich tweeted. “Meanwhile small labels and new artists can't even keep their lights on. It's just not right.”

Godrich continued, explaining that it works well for artists’ back catalogues, but it “cannot work as a way of supporting new artists' work. He explained, “Spotify and the like either have to address that fact and change the model for new releases or else all new music producers should be bold and vote with their feet. [Streaming services] have no power without new music.”

Yorke retweeted many of Godrich’s messages and then started his own rant. “Make no mistake new artists you discover on #Spotify will no[t] get paid. Meanwhile shareholders will shortly [begin] rolling in it. Simples,” the Radiohead frontman wrote.

The BBC notes that Spotify has claimed that it paid out $500 million to rights holders since it launched in 2008 and is expecting to pay another $500 million this year alone. “We're 100 percent committed to making Spotify the most artist-friendly music service possible, and are constantly talking to artists and managers about how Spotify can help build their careers,” Spotify said in a statement.

Nevertheless, artists have complained that streaming tracks online isn’t paying the bills like downloads and physical CDs do. Godrich pointed out that it just doesn’t pay for new artists, who need funds in order to produce new music.

“Making new recorded music needs funding. Some records can be made in a laptop, but some need musician[s] and skilled technicians,” Godrich wrote. “Pink Floyd's catalogue has already generated billions of dollars for someone (not necessarily the band) so now putting it on a streaming site makes total sense. But if people had been listening to Spotify instead of buying records in 1973 I doubt very much if Dark Side [of the Moon] would have been made. It would just be too expensive.”

Pink Floyd’s music just went up on Spotify, even though they have also taken aim at a streaming service, criticizing Pandora for royalties.

image: Wikimedia Commons