WATCH: The Black Keys explain their decision not to stream El Camino online

The Black Keys have been all over the news lately (including
CHARTattack) regarding their new album El
Camino, new singles, music videos, live performances and their thoughts on “selling
out”. In the midst of all this, the indie-rock duo have decided not to share El Camino with live streaming services
such as Spotify, Rdio and MOG. This is big news for a band who is currently
climbing the ranks of popular music in North America as well as internationally.

VH1 recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dan
Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys and had a discussion with them about
this online streaming decision.

“[Streaming
services] are becoming more popular, but it still isn’t at a point where you’re
able to replace royalties from record sales with the royalties from streams…For
a band that makes a living selling music, it’s not at a point where it’s
feasible for us.” He went on to explain that he endorses services like Pandora,
where fans are able to sample and discover new music on a song-by-song basis,
but commented that the Spotifys of the world are “set up to be a little more
fair for the labels than for the artists” – Patrick Carney

As music
technology and online streaming services reinvent themselves daily, many new or
up and coming artists seem to be forced to adapt with whatever the norm of getting music to the
listener’s ears is. It’s refreshing to see a band such as The Black Keys take a
stance on this and only time will tell whether or not this decision hinders or
helps the promotion of El Camino.

Check
out the entire VH1 interview with The Black Keys below:

http://www.vh1.com/video/interview/718882/the-black-keys-discuss-spotify.jhtml

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