COLDPLAY SNUBS SPOTIFY, PUSHES TIDAL

Coldplay has followed in the footsteps of Taylor Swift and Adele and snubbed Spotify in favor of premium-only platforms. The Parlophone band’s new album, A Head Full of Dreams, is out today and only available on Apple Music, MTV Trax, O2 Tracks and, yes, Tidal.

NME today (now a free music magazine) is enclosed in a wraparound advert featuring Coldplay and Tidal and offering readers a complementary three-month trial of Jay Z's service.

The rollout includes a massive takeover of the iTunes Store, including the entire slowcase. The album is now #2 at iTunes.

A message on Spotify next to the unavailable album read: “The artist or their representative have decided not to release this album on Spotify just yet. We’re working on it, and hope we can change their minds soon,”

The Spotify holdout should come as no surprise; Coldplay’s last two albums, Ghost Stories (2014) and Mylo Xyloto (2011), weren’t available to stream on Spotify straight away, but did turn up later on. Ghost Stories was initially an iTunes exclusive, available to stream in full seven days before its release in May. It didn’t turn up on streaming services until September. For Mylo Xyloto, iTunes users could listen to one song from the album every day the week before release. It appeared on streaming services four months later.

Smart marketing move or risky omission? We'll report back when the midweek numbers drop on Monday.