The most popular musician in America, Dolly Parton, will be hosting the ACM Awards on March 7, a fact which Parton said on social media she is “thrilled to announce.”
The announcement isn’t directly related to the giant protest underway against streaming music giant Spotify, which has seen big name musicians like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell remove their music over charges that podcaster Joe Rogan spreads irresponsible misinformation on the platform.
But anyone closely following this streaming battle (and the companies’ related stock prices) will know that Amazon, a Spotify rival, scores big when national treasure Dolly Parton mentions that the ACM Awards will “for the first time ever will livestream on @PrimeVideo 🦋” That’s Amazon Prime Video, of course.
PrimeVideo isn’t the same as Amazon Music, which is a more direct competitor to Spotify, but a positive mention of Amazon’s streaming service by superstar Dolly Parton is a win for Jeff Bezos‘s massive media ambitions. Especially at this moment.
Will Parton join Young, Mitchell, India Arie and others in leaving Spotify? There’s no indication that she will — or even that she can. Rosanne Cash recently told CNN that it’s not possible for every artist to leave Spotify even if they want to — financial reasons and rights issues (control over their music) can keep an artist from joining the protest.
Meanwhile, Dolly’s new song (below) says warmly that “Nashville is the place to be” — after all, it’s a comfortable place in the physical world of “faded jeans,” not the tricky digital world where music distribution has become so easy for fans, yet often messy for artists.
And on social, Dolly asks her fans to “pre-order” Run Rose Run, her album for the book with James Patterson! And while there if you want to stream Dolly’s music there’s a link for that too. On that list of streaming options, Apple Music is first, then Spotify, then Amazon.
