There have been many forms of criticism of the power of the major music streaming providers in recent weeks and months, from Neil Young's departure from Spotify to the 30-second songs by the British band The Pocket Gods.
Some chafed at the questionable curating of the platform programs, others at the phenomenally low earnings for clicks on their songs.
It was obvious that other artists would deal with their relationship to the platforms and derive creative, but also radical decisions from them.
And it was particularly obvious that the rapper Kanye West, who after a name change only calls himself Ye (from Yeezus, a mixture of Kanye and Jesus), would also come up with an idea to promote his own projects.
Time to take control
West has announced that it will not release its new album "Donda 2" through conventional channels.
"'Donda 2' will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player.
Not at Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Youtube," he wrote on Instagram.
"It's time to free music from this oppressive system," proclaimed West.
Time to take control and build something of your own.
The Stem Player was already set up.
When his tenth album "Donda" was released, West brought a kind of tiny recording studio onto the American market, with which music can be broken down into its individual parts.
The speed of the songs can be selected, they can be played backwards or in loops or in individual voices and instruments, and it is precisely this playfulness that is the attraction of the whole project.
West announced at the end of January that "Donda 2", named after his late mother, should be released on February 22nd.
That doesn't mean anything, though, as "Donda" has been postponed many times at the last minute, much to the label's chagrin.
Back then, it only took a few hours for the album to hit number one in more than a hundred countries.
In any case, with "Donda 2" Spotify does not have to worry that the entire streaming service will collapse, as was the case with "Donda".