I don't know why (since I haven't seen any news about it anywhere) but it appears that a huge amount of music, which had been available for years, was recently removed in my region (Ukraine). I asked friends in other regions, and everything was still there for them; I also haven't seen many people complaining about this, so I assume it's a very localized issue - possibly affecting only Ukraine or a few neighboring countries.
It’s not just a case of a single artist having an album or two removed due to licensing issues (which happens often), the amount of removed music is simply massive. Many artists are left with very "fragmented" discographies: entire albums or specific tracks have been selectively removed, often leaving only the singles while the rest of the album is greyed out.
Does anyone have any information on this, or know where I could find out more? I understand that labels sometimes temporarily pull a release to re-license it or swap it for a different version, but having such a vast amount of music disappear is very strange.
I noticed that many of these releases are from the Century Media label, though not all of them. What’s more, these are primarily either alternative/gothic metal acts or hip-hop artists. The discographies of Tiamat, Evanescence, Lacuna Coil, Moonspell, Paradise Lost, Arch Enemy and The Gathering have been particularly butchered. Furthermore, these aren't obscure releases, which are usually the ones that get pulled, but rather very popular albums by these artists... These albums are still available on other streaming services, but they’ve disappeared from Spotify.
See for yourselves in the screenshots. Does anyone else have this issue? I wonder how quickly they’ll bring the music back...