Don’t Try and Listen to Coldplay’s ‘Mylo Xyloto’ on Spotify Because It Won’t Be There

Streaming music might be all the rage these days, but don't look for the new Coldplay album on Spotify, or your favorite all-you-can-listen service. If you want to hear the band's new music, you'll have to download it -- or buy a good old-fashioned CD.

Joining a small-but-growing cadre of artists who have expressed dissatisfaction at the lack of control and dwindling royalty rates in the digital marketplace, Coldplay have decided to keep 'Mylo Xyloto' off streaming sites such as Rhapsody, MOG, and the increasingly popular Spotify. And it doesn't seem to have hurt sales, either -- current estimates indicate a first-week haul of nearly 500,000 units for the album.

Still, avoiding the streaming market represents a calculated risk. As the Hollywood Reporter notes, Rhapsody has roughly 800,000 subscribers, while Spotify claims to have a base of more than 2 million paying customers -- all of whom are already shelling out for monthly access to a giant library of songs, and could decide just to ignore anything that isn't available. But not being on Spotify seems to have paid off in this case, and could simply be a function of Coldplay's position as one of the biggest bands in the industry.

To his credit, Rhapsody president Jon Irwin understands where Coldplay is coming from. In a recent Billboard editorial, he wrote that he respects the band's decision and admitted that streaming royalty rates "seem awfully small." Still, as he noted in a later interview, "Those plays for that artist, they're going to get compensated by it. That goes on forever, and it doesn't end with the sale of an MP3."

In a press release, Spotify reiterated its belief that its service has "convinced millions of consumers to pay for music again" -- including the reputed $150 million it's paid out to artists and publishers over its brief three-year lifespan.