yeah but it is unclear whether Lotus was really ever supposed to be just an instrumental or if the leaker just had a track lacking vocals like with Rough Love. Personally think the instrumental by itself is a bit empty and too long/repetitive to be intended as just an instrumental, as pretty as it is

It makes sense to me that it's currently on Tidal but not monetized which means they can put it up with no samples cleared. A delay this long without it being on other streaming services for any other reason doesnt really make sense to me. AWT went on spotify on apple after a few days.

I could see this being how it was intended at some point tbf. Doesnt sound out of place to me. Think it acc prefer this without vocals. A nice calming end tot he album

I'm still not sure about the legality of it all to be honest, since rightsholders can argue Tidal does profit from the album being on the platform to get subscribers, and so indirectly profit from their copyrighted material... I think for the King Crimson or Serge Gainsbourg tracks they prolly made a deal which gives 100% royalties to them in exchange for them being able to host the tracks, not sure how this'd work otherwise

Datpiff profited from advertisements on their website (iirc)

Can you upload a song to spotify and not monetize it?

Remember they could have cleared the samples years ago and those agreements could still be in place. Also with the songs still being up on tidal it's probably legal. When theres a legal case the songs would usually be removed until the disputes are sorted. The album release was high profile enough for legal cases to have been started ASAP

I’m hoping the same. Mach Hommy’s last album dropped in August and is still Tidal exclusive 2 months later though.

HOV putting niggas in slavery contracts.

Loool nah I'm joking but for mach hommy to do that makes sense. He will legit make more money from the tidal exclusive deal then he would from streams on all platforms. I think that album is a permanent tidal exclusive so it's a bit different

Spotify I'm not sure. Nostalgia, ULTRA. never dropped on streaming and Frank even got sued over American Wedding anyway. It took ages for Chance to put his mixtapes on streaming. Not sure about the legalities of mixtapes in 2020 how that might've changed over time, but it definitely needs some kind of clearing I think.

Even if they already had cleared things for this (even though Jay tried to block it from releasing?) it'll remain weird to me that they were able to clear all those legalities over a Sunday night

They could have been cleared years ago though and they were checking they were still good to go

Very interesting though for sure. I've always assumed and I could be completely wrong that you can upload to spotify and not monetize and your good to go. I think this because theres some established independent UK artists with samples I know they couldnt afford that are on spotify. The artists are big enough for this not to go unnoticed. And then if you want to monetize you have to clear the samples and this is what chance and frank were doing.

This was just a guess though

idk why he didnt finish and release this, would have been great. and AWT would have been better received as a follow up to it as opposed to being his first album

His own words are that he felt the pressure that's why

This album is such a good listen man we're so blessed to have this even in this unfinished state and in this amazing year for music I think this might be my AOTY tbh. Possibly the most listened to project oty for me already

yea this album is great. definitely better than AWT in my opinion, especially if he finished it

Why not just drop the finish version

Maybe because it’s unfinished and the audio quality is ass is he really not gonna finish and master this damn thing?!

Sure, a “finished version” would be dope.

But whatever version we got is f***in amazing.

We got the album from a hack, so now we're expecting a finished album like this? Lmao

Fantano rated this a 4 so I can’t listen no more 🥺

No, you’d expect the label to actually finish it now it’s out there. As it is I won’t be returning to it. Finished it’d be a really great album

Doesn't work like that though. We got a hacked version of an abandoned album that didn't come out for a reason

Which his label has released on their streaming service and which jay himself said it’d be hitting all platforms, with that in mind how wouldn’t we expect a finished or at other very least mixed and mastered version?! As it is it’s boarderline unlistenable even though it’s obviously a quality album sonics aside

Agree to disagree then. Jay says things; not sure why anyone would take it as gospel. And it's on Tidal because it helps drive subscriptions.