TOOL HAMMERING OUT DIGITAL DEAL?

Tool, one of the last hold-outs from digital services, is in talks with Spotify and Apple to make its catalog available on streaming services, according to a report in Bloomberg.

Tool has been working on their first album in a decade, the release of which is expected to coincide with a North America tour that starts 5/24 in Fairfax, Va., and runs through mid-June.

The last Tool album, 10,000 Days, was released in 2006, pre-dating streaming services and at a time when digital sales represented only about 20% of the marketplace.

As the marketplace has shifted toward streaming, hard rock acts have not seen streams cannibalize sales. Pop acts are accustomed to seeing a ratio of close to 1,000:1 of streams vs. sales, yet rock acts such as Metallica, Black Sabbath and AC/DC have ratios in the 200:1 to 600:1 ratio ballpark.