Taylor Swift Fans Rejoice At Her Return To Streaming Services – But Is It A Lot Of Shade Thrown At Katy Perry?

Taylor Swift fans have good news today. The music star has relented in her decision to withhold her music from streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pandora. As of 12:01 a.m. on Friday, June 9, 2017, her entire back catalogue will be available for users to stream. That’s all five albums, including 1989, which started Taylor Swift’s initial feud and withdrawal of her music from the services.

Swift and her representatives confirmed the news in both a publicly released statement and on social media on Thursday, June 8, 2017. The move is announced as a celebration of Taylor Swift getting another notch on her belt as the Record Industry Association of America announced that Taylor has moved 100 million song units. The RIAA tweeted the award on Thursday morning, with a red-tinted photo of the singer with the overlay saying, “Congratulations Taylor Officially 100 Million Song Certifications.”

Taylor Swift’s official Instagram account, TaylorNation, resent the image along with a caption that confirmed her rerelease of her entire back catalog to every streaming service.

“In celebration of 1989 selling over 10 Million Albums Worldwide and the RIAA’s 100 Million Song Certification announcement, Taylor wants to thank her fans by making her entire back catalog available to all streaming services tonight at midnight.”

Let’s be frank. This return of Taylor Swift to streaming media has a lot of people excited, and not just the shareholders of Spotify. Social media erupted when the news got out, with people planning to listen to Taylor and rock out. There’s even a move to get people to stream Taylor Swifty’s album, 1989, continuously to get the album climbing on the charts again.

ITS TIME TO STREAM GUYS #1989StreamingParty CAUSE TAYLOR SWIFT WHOLE DISCOGRAPHY IS ALREADY OUT ON SPOTIFTY! pic.twitter.com/ihM2vqclNB

— Taylor Swift Facts (@blessedswifty) June 9, 2017

The Timing of the Announcement, Tho…

People can’t help but wonder about the timing of her return to streaming music services however. Taylor Swift had to know that her music becoming available again on popular services like Spotify and Pandora would generate a lot of buzz and get people bingeing on her tunes. Coincidentally (or not), Katy Perry’s new album is also being released on Friday, June 9, 2017. The pair has been rumored to be feuding, and the move did not go unnoticed on social media. The reactions on Twitter were as pithy and amusing as you might expect.

I aspire to be as petty as taylor swift releasing her discography for streaming the weekend katy perry's album drops

— Dominic Riccitello (@DominicScott) June 9, 2017

The two singers have been officially on the outs since 2012, shortly after Katy Perry started dating John Meyer, whose relationship with Taylor was immortalized in the song “Dear John” off of her Speak Now album. Things definitely took a turn for the worse when Katy poached three of Taylor Swift’s backup dancers from her world tour promoting Red.

The three dancers – Lockhart Brownlie, Scott Myrick, and Leah Adler – were all performers for Katy on her California Dreams world tour. Katy reached out to them while Taylor was on tour and offered them a spot on her tour promoting Prism, but they would have to leave Taylor’s tour. Before it was over. All three agreed, and left Taylor Swift without three primary backup dancers.

Flash forward to 2014, and Taylor Swift was promoting 1984 and the single, “Bad Blood.” She told Rolling Stone that the song was about a beef she had with another well-known artist, and said that the two of them were really enemies.

“For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’ [Then] she did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight up enemies’. And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”

The two have been consistently trading barbs for a few years now, each trying to appear as though they aren’t, and putting their best faces forward while sending subtle messages through songs that many interpret as “diss-tracks.”

Still, Taylor is also rumored to be releasing a new single this summer with a new album to follow in the fall. If that’s true, then this move to release her back catalog could be her way of getting fans excited for her new music. Spotify has announced that they will be gating Taylor Swift’s new music in the future, with new releases not being available to free subscribers on Spotify. That settles her primary reason for not wanting to release her music on streaming services – that she doesn’t get any royalties from them. If so, then there could be a legitimate business reason for the timing of her catalog coming back to streaming services now.

What do you think Taylor Swift and Katy Perry fans? Is Taylor throwing serious shade at Katy by timing her back catalog release on the same day as Katy’s new album? Or was it all just coincidence?

[Featured Image by John Salangsang/AP Images]