Billy Bragg Calls Out Taylor Swift On Spotify Snub

Acclaimed English musician Billy Bragg has called out international pop sensation Taylor Swift on her recent decsion to pull her music from streaming giant Spotify, questioning her decision to team-up with YouTube's new streaming service Music Key.

In a lengthy post on his Facebook overnight, Bragg claimed Swift had contradicted herself by signing the deal with Google and YouTube and should stop selling her Spotify snub as "some sort of altruistic gesture in solidarity with struggling music makers."

"Given that this year is the first to fail to produce a new million selling album, I can understand Taylor Swift wanting to maximise her opportunities with the new record – and it worked: she shifted 1.28m copies of 1989 in the first week of sale," his post read.

"But she should just be honest with her fans and say "sorry, but Sergey Brin gave me a huge amount of money to be the headline name on the marquee for the launch of You Tube Music Key and so I’ve sold my soul to Google"."

Bragg said instead of working with YouTube, Swift should be removing her material from the Internet giant, "not cosying up to it".

You can read Bragg's full post here.

Google-owned YouTube officially announced the launch of Music Key just over a week after Swift pulled the plug on her music streaming on Spotify.

Her latest album 1989 is out now.

UPDATE [4:30PM]: NME have reported that Swift spokesperson has denied the singer has had "absolutely no discussion or agreement of any kind with Google's new music streaming service."

Bragg has tweeted a response to the denial, asking "Really?" and linked to an article on Wired titled YouTube's New Subscription Music Service Plays Anything — Even Taylor Swift.