How Streaming has Changed the Music Industry

Since the 2000s, music has come a long way from old jukeboxes and vinyl records. During the 20th century, music could only be listened to on the radio, which only played a select number of songs, or purchased in the form of records, cassette tapes, and later on, CDs. The introduction of streaming services in the early 2000s changed the music industry and how music was spread and listened to. While CDs and vinyls made buying albums extremely expensive, paying for a service like Apple Music or Spotify allowed music enjoyers to have access to thousands of artists and unlimited listening hours for a cheaper cost.

In hindsight, the evolution of technology made music infinitely more accessible. As long as there was internet connection, anyone could play or download music from any artist without any extra costs and discover new artists from all around the world. By releasing their music on a streaming platform, new and upcoming musicians could spread their music to a large audience without relying on a music label. While traditional album sales decreased due to streaming services, artists were provided with different ways to earn money on streaming services such as album royalties and algorithm-driven exposure. Streaming platforms can also provide artists with more information about the demographics, location, and age of listeners, which can help them plan tours and promotions to refine their marketing strategies. 

Although technology and streaming have made creating music more convenient for musicians, they have fundamentally changed music culture. Since album sales have declined, the album culture, or the traditional concept of an album, has also declined. Concept albums center around a general theme or message, where the song order matters, and all songs should be listened to understand hidden themes or messages. When my parents listened to music growing up, they cherished every song on an album, since records and CDs were expensive and they wanted value from their purchase. However, streaming services make it easy to skip songs that are not initially interesting to the listener, leading to a weaker understanding of concept albums. This trend has led artists to make albums a conglomeration of unrelated singles rather than a relation of songs around a concept, leading to a weaker sense of art as a form of expression. 

Streaming services have also changed the way we react to new music. As aforementioned, streaming services make skipping music an option, which allows us to initially skip songs that we perceive as “bad” or uninteresting according to our tastes. Since we have access to such a large database of music, we tend to prioritize music that is initially engaging while disregarding songs that are more niche or harder to listen to. As a result, streaming additionally makes us very impatient as listeners and causes us to have a lack of appreciation for music that does not gauge our interest the first time around. 

While streaming services have vastly improved our access to new music, as listeners, we should be obligated to have more patience to understand the underlying messages of certain songs and accept artists and albums that are less mainstream. While this current attitude may be part of a larger movement of increasing leisure time and the constant need to be stimulated through social media, understanding the purpose of songs and listening to ALL the songs on an album can bring way to a greater interest in concept albums and allow artists to make music they are proud of with a greater purpose rather than the next catchy pop-hit. While lighthearted, mainstream songs are also important, giving other songs a chance and understanding their purpose or implicit messages could improve our music tolerance and create a more fulfilling and insightful listening experience.