Despite the impressive size of Spotify’s music catalogue there are, inevitably, some annoying omissions. Famously, there is no Beatles or AC/DC due to those artists’ reluctance to join the digital revolution. The likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are similarly absent without leave, and we’re fed only scraps of Bob Dylan and Oasis. We’ve got used to this, and we’ve learned to accept it. But the lack of availability of an increasing number of new and recent releases is more worrying, and Spotify’s official blog and support forum have been filled with queries and complaints.

The number one Spotify-related question we’ve been asked over the past few weeks has been, “When will Vampire Weekend’s new album be available?” Contra was released on 11 January, but has yet to appear on Spotify. The answer, happily for fans of preppy afro-pop, is that it is scheduled to be available for streaming from next week. It seems that the record label, XL Recordings, specifically delayed the album’s Spotify release. The obvious thinking would be that this was an effort to boost sales over the initial few weeks of release. However, XL made the album available to stream in full via the band’s official website. So it is possible to listen to the full album without buying it – just not on Spotify.

It’s likely that some Spotify users will have been unable to wait for the album’s delayed streaming release and will have instead bought the download or CD, but then fans of the band were likely to do that anyway. However, it’s also likely that other Spotify users won’t have sampled the album on Spotify, and therefore won’t have gone on to buy it. Making an album available for streaming via a band’s website is all well and good, but only existing fans visit bands’ websites. XL’s tactic may have prevented Spotify users from trying and buying Contra.

Another high-profile release that has caused consternation among Spotify users is The Betrayed by Lostprophets. The release was actually promoted in a post on the official Spotify blog on 18 January, and the album was available to listen to. For a couple of days. Then, for some reason, The Betrayed was removed from the UK catalogue. It seems that the album is released by Sony in most Spotify territories, but by Warner Music in the UK. And Warner has specifically asked Spotify to remove it from the catalogue. Again, this is preventing potential purchasers from sampling the album.

In general, Spotify is actually pretty good for recent releases. Of the ten albums currently in the iTunes top ten, only Lostprophets and Hope For Haiti are unavailable on Spotify, and it’s understandable that the charity album would not be available to stream. (Vampire Weekend are no longer in the top ten.) A comparison of the top ten tracks, however, is less impressive, with bestselling iTunes tracks from the Glee Cast, Lyaz, Sidney Samson and Example all unavailable on Spotify. On the positive side, Spotify Premium users do occasionally get access to albums ahead of their official release date, such as, this week, Ke$ha’s Animal.

The real problem for Spotify is that a lack of availability of even one key release can make the difference between a music fan signing up for the premium service or sticking to downloads and CDs. If a hotly-anticipated album doesn’t become available, there’s every chance they’ll take their £9.99 that they might have spent on a Spotify Premium subscription and use it to buy the individual album. Great news for the record company (in the short term, anyway) but bad news for a service so keen to increase its subscription base in the UK.

Another problem regarding new releases on Spotify is a lack of notification when new music is added to the catalogue. Until a couple of months ago, Spotify regularly issued Google spreadsheets containing information about all new additions. Unfortunately, due to a change in the way music is added to the service, this has been discontinued. The information contained in the spreadsheets was also used by recommendation services such as Spotify.fm and Last.fm + Spotify, plus a whole host of other websites and blogs. The result is that it’s very difficult to find out what’s new on Spotify.

Until a solution can be found, Pansentient League is hosting a New On Spotify tool, that produces a list of new additions to the Spotify catalogue from the previous week. The tool is limited by Spotify’s API, and it won’t solve the problem for recommendation services, but it’s a useful fix.

Ultimately, Spotify and the labels need to think carefully about how new releases are made available on the service. Users want new releases available on the day of release, suitably presented and easy to find – just like they are on iTunes. Until that happens, Spotify will remain flawed, and its usefulness to the labels will remain limited.