The link will allow musicians to list products in their Shopify stores on their Spotify profiles. (The Logic)

Talking point: With per-play rates in the penny fractions, artists in the streaming era have become increasingly dependent on income from live shows, in the form of tickets, as well as the T-shirts, posters and other paraphernalia sold onsite. The pandemic halted tours, leading the music industry to turn up the volume on direct-to-consumer merchandise sales and live broadcasts. Artists like Harry Styles and Charli XCX have tied new apparel to COVID-19 album drops. Shopify’s nominatively inevitable Spotify integration builds on the e-commerce platform’s popularity among influencers and creators—or their teams—looking to sell products to fans. In September 2020, Shopify hired Jon Wexler for a new program focused on such merchants; he previously ran Adidas’s Yeezy collaboration with Kanye West (who has 47.3 million monthly Spotify listeners). TikTok similarly made itself shoppable via Shopify integration in August.