The Flashbulb / Benn Jordan - Discography

Are you a Patreon member? If so, you may already have access to all of this! https://www.patreon.com/bennjordan
(look in "Collections -> Discography" or tags).
Not a Patreon member? It's as cheap as $1/mo and is an excellent deal for a variety of reasons, primarily the Discord community and songwriting challenges.

Last Friday (Feb 10th, 2024), I randomly pulled out my phone in the studio to reference one of my soundtracks for a composing collaboration. "Huh. My phone is bugging out", I complained.

Then I noticed dozens of notifications: various listeners letting me know their feelings regarding my removal of all of my music. "What....the...fu????"
And just like that, poof. I was erased from Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Deezer, YouTube Music, and virtually everywhere music is sold or streamed. I logged into Tunecore (my primary digital distributor since 2007), and without warning or any communication, they removed a total of 23 albums.

You've heard these stories before. It's usually something that happens to newer artists with distros like Distrokid or CDBaby, and naturally there is very little support to deal with making things right again. But this is different:

I've had over $500,000 in sales on Tunecore over a nearly 17 year relationship. Music is my source of personal income, as my YouTube channel and other projects operate as a non-profit organization (that does not pay me a salary). That's gone all of a sudden.

And aside from my relationships and records, think of my listeners. "The Flashbulb" has about 1.9 million individual listeners on Spotify in the last year alone. There are over 300,000 playlists made in 2023 that now have unplayable tracks in them. The scope of this is actually insane.

So why? What happened? WHY can't you listen to my music anymore?

Spotify has accused me of "streaming fraud" and reported it to Tunecore.
Tunecore, whom I've paid thousands and thousands of dollars to represent my best interests, conducted an "internal investigation" and found "evidence" (none that they could show or explain to me, or anyone, naturally).
So instead of contacting me, withholding funds until things are sorted out, or suspending a suspected Spotify release, they chose a different option:

PERMANENTLY REMOVING MY ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY FROM EVERY SINGLE PLATFORM I PAID THEM TO PUBLISH ON SINCE 2007.

All of this took place:
- 1 day after giving a tip to short $SPOT
- 12 days after giving NAMM speech about Spotify's effect on music
- 3 months after exposing Spotify's involvement in money laundering
- 1 year after a video about Spotify's unsustainability

I have no idea if this was malicious or not, but the argument can certainly be made. It's not like it's good news if it isn't malicious, as that would make this the most incompetent series of events in the modern music industry.

I know, this sounds hyperbolic! Don't take my word for it. https://twitter.com/bennjordan/status/1756870458358546722

The CEO reached out too, albeit not being particularly helpful or bothering to apologize, at least she didn't accuse me of fraud. https://twitter.com/AndreeaGleeson/status/1756765985581814197

So, as of midnight on Feb 12th, 2024, that's where we're at, and that's why I've uploaded my entire discography here. Listen up!

Pay what you want. Seriously.
If you're broke, pay the minimum and enjoy the music.
If you're generous, this will certainly help me out as I've just had a significant portion of my income cut off and may be entering an expensive legal battle.

But the primary reason this is here is so you can access my music for as little expense as possible. After all, you likely already pay a subscription service for it, and Spotify/Tunecore intentionally removed your access to it.