Streaming era

 

Pros:

- Music distribution has become easier and more accesible than ever

- Artists can drop songs in the blink of a second and dont need big labels to push their songs since they can go viral on social media

- Music exploration has become easier, so older songs that were previously ignored can get a boost again

 

Cons:

- Streaming vastly underpays artists

- Songs are becoming shorter and shorter due to people’s attention’s spans regressing

- Less focus on the visual aspect of pop music because YouTube is no longer a necessary tool

 

Digital era

 

Pros:

- Even with piracy in mind, artists still can get paid fairly for their work through iTunes

- Artists were forced to get creative to convince people to buy their albums or songs hence traditional promo was much more prevalent in this era

- Music videos were a much more important tool in this era and artists cared more about their visuals

 

Cons:

- Music is more inaccesible because it isn’t free unlike streaming

- Monoculture was much more present in this era so it was harder to discover more underground artists if all you had was the radio

- Music exploration was much harder on iTunes

 

 

Streaming. Having most music easily acccessible for a small monthly price >>> having to spend a dollar per individual song.

Having whatever song I want, whenever I want is kinda unbeatable as a consumer 

Just now, Virgos Groove said:

Streaming. Having most music easily acccessible for a small monthly price >>> having to spend a dollar per individual song.

Good point, but is it fair that artists get severely underpaid because of Spotify? Especially smaller artists?

Streaming era. Digital era was basically ONLY Us and Europe, while with streaming music is way more global.

1 minute ago, Gorjesspazze9 said:

Having whatever song I want, whenever I want is kinda unbeatable as a consumer 

YouTube is free and has all songs as well. So why do we need streaming services then?

I personally really like the way the streaming era has democratized the music industry. It helped smaller and indie artists so much and anyone can release music without label support these days. Streaming also gave us the opportunity to listen to whoever we want and discover new songs, albums and artists easily. We have several indie artists releasing their albums and building a niche following simply by uploading their music on Spotify/AM.

 

It obviously has its cons but still much better than the digital era imo, especially on a global scale.

3 minutes ago, Love Again said:

YouTube is free and has all songs as well. So why do we need streaming services then?

It's a free market. If there is demand, then there's always companies trying to capture that demand.

Just now, State of Grace. said:

I personally really like the way the streaming era has democratized the music industry. It helped smaller and indie artists so much and anyone can release music without label support these days. Streaming also gave us the opportunity to listen to whoever we want and discover new songs, albums and artists easily. We have several indie artists releasing their albums and building a niche following simply by uploading their music on Spotify/AM.

 

It obviously has its cons but still much better than the digital era imo, especially on a global scale.

What are some example of indie artists that have succeeded because of streaming?

Digital.

 

Loved how big album rollouts were.

Loved browsing music blogs for new finds.

It all just felt a bit more meaningful.

 

 

 

1 minute ago, Otter said:

Digital.

 

Loved how big album rollouts were.

Loved browsing music blogs for new finds.

It all just felt a bit more meaningful.

 

 

 

i don't care about visuals, everything has been made from this point of view. Also concerts prizes are highest cause labels and artists make less money from selling record so they have to invest more in the live shows to make these prices worthing.

 

So i don't agree artist doesn't invest in visuals anymore, it's now more in the live events than in the videos. Some decade ago only few artists were like giving spectacular shows with high production values now "even" drake makes incredible shows from that point of view. I said "even" Drake cause in the past rap shows were the ones with less investiment in this. 

 

and now you get all these live shows and documentaries about artists in every platform with a massive global launch (not a special on nbc only in america watched only by 3M people) so i feel like i know more artists, their process, their shows, their whole catalog and artistry than 20 years ago when it was just seeing them with a 5 minutes of performance at the vmas. 

Edited March 22, 20233 yr by vale9001

18 minutes ago, Love Again said:

YouTube is free and has all songs as well. So why do we need streaming services then?

Annoying ads every 10 seconds

From a music consumer's perspective, streaming is hard to beat.

 

From a pop culture fan's perspective, the 'monoculture' of the digital era was a lot more entertaining. Nowadays celebrities don't feel like celebrities, pretty much no songs are ubiquitous and nothing feels eventful or impactful. There'll never be another 21, Teenage Dream or BOMT because the industry can't control what you're listening to through radio and performances, so very large segments of the population are just never gonna listen to the likes of Billie, Olivia or Dua. That's why I think people have a lot of nostalgia for late 2000s/early 10s pop, cause it's the last time music felt truly united.

Just now, Chika said:

From a music consumer's perspective, streaming is hard to beat.

 

From a pop culture fan's perspective, the 'monoculture' of the digital era was a lot more entertaining. Nowadays celebrities don't feel like celebrities, pretty much no songs are ubiquitous and nothing feels eventful or impactful. There'll never be another 21, Teenage Dream or BOMT because the industry can't control what you're listening to through radio and performances, so very large segments of the population are just never gonna listen to the likes of Billie, Olivia or Dua. That's why I think people have a lot of nostalgia for late 2000s/early 10s pop, cause it's the last time music felt truly united.

No lies in this post, this is exactly how I feel

18 minutes ago, Love Again said:

What are some example of indie artists that have succeeded because of streaming?

JVKE is independent and had a big hit with golden hour I'm not sure if this counts 

Digital 

As a music consumer, streaming is pretty much unbeatable.

 

As a stan and chart follower, the digital era was much more exciting in my opinion:

Pop stars put in much more effort into the promotion of their albums (because it was still vital and worked), so as a fan you’d always get a lot of content from your faves, and the album cycles would usually last 1-2 years with half a dozen singles, if not even more. The existing monoculture also meant that every big song and album was known by everyone and awards shows were still big events since all the celebs would attend.

And from a charts perspective, the digital era felt faster paced, hits would rise but also fall quicker, albums wouldn’t clog up the charts for months upon months (unless they were truly massive), so there was always a turnover on the charts and they never felt stagnant like they can do now.   

19 minutes ago, Chika said:

From a music consumer's perspective, streaming is hard to beat.

 

From a pop culture fan's perspective, the 'monoculture' of the digital era was a lot more entertaining. Nowadays celebrities don't feel like celebrities, pretty much no songs are ubiquitous and nothing feels eventful or impactful. There'll never be another 21, Teenage Dream or BOMT because the industry can't control what you're listening to through radio and performances, so very large segments of the population are just never gonna listen to the likes of Billie, Olivia or Dua. That's why I think people have a lot of nostalgia for late 2000s/early 10s pop, cause it's the last time music felt truly united.

radio still exists. 10 years ago the mass was reached by that, now is reached by that and tik tok.

 

After hours and Future nostalgia are exactly what 21 and teenage dream have been. Maybe you're american and you felt dua was not that bigger but in Europe at least it was like that.

 

If an artist like The weeknd and Dua decides to make 5 singles, 5 videos, promotion and all of that big multitargeted eras can absolutely exists. 

 

What is different is now is the album cycle is changing and it's more like in the 50s 60s and 70s when artits didn't make an album and then 3 years with that.

 

Like elton john (and anyone else) in the 70s they make 1 or 2 albums every year, just one single from the album (people can stream the whole thing, when you are already famous you don't really need to push 6 songs from an album) and they move to next project, cause an old song can be discovered even one year after without an official launch.

Label doesn't need to invest so much money in album, this is the difference, but music can reach everyone exactly like 10-20 years sgo. 

 

Olivia rodrigo reached every girl under 25 in the same way avril lavigne did in 2002. And no one over 30 was listening to avril in 2002. 

 

 

 

Edited March 22, 20233 yr by vale9001

streaming is more practical from a consumer pov but the digital era was just superior, the girls had to get their lazy asses up and WORK, promote, perform, do interviews >>>> 

 

doing a corny dance on tiktok at best just ain’t cutting it, you really had to be there 

29 minutes ago, ScorpiosGroove said:

the girls had to get their lazy asses up and WORK, promote, perform, do interviews >>>> 

 

doing a corny dance on tiktok at best just ain’t cutting it, you really had to be there 

I actually still prefer physical releases over digital or streaming. Obviously streaming is the most convenient because you can access pretty much any song you want in a matter of seconds, but a lot of the bands / artists I listen to either aren’t on streaming or they have Japanese bonus tracks that aren’t on streaming, so I normally buy physical copies and then transfer those files onto my phone to play. 
 

There’s also something so satisfying about waiting to have a CD in your hand before playing that streaming or digital can’t replicate. When Imagine Dragons released Mercury - Acts 1 & 2 in 2022, I waited for my CD to arrive before playing and it just made it feel so special as it gave me flashbacks to when we’d have to buy CDs if we wanted to listen to albums.
 

I have a love / hate relationship with how accessible music is nowadays. 

Digital any day

16 minutes ago, vale9001 said:

radio still exists. 10 years ago the mass was reached by that, now is reached by that and tik tok.

 

After hours and Future nostalgia are exactly what 21 and teenage dream have been. Maybe you're american and you felt dua was not that bigger but in Europe at least it was like that.

 

If an artist like The weeknd and Dua decides to make 5 singles, 5 videos, promotion and all of that big multitargeted eras can absolutely exists. 

 

What is different is now is the album cycle is changing and it's more like in the 50s 60s and 70s when artits didn't make an album and then 3 years with that.

 

Like elton john (and anyone else) in the 70s they make 1 or 2 albums every year, just one single from the album (people can stream the whole thing, when you are already famous you don't really need to push 6 songs from an album) and they move to next project, cause an old song can be discovered even one year after without an official launch.

Label doesn't need to invest so much money in album, this is the difference, but music can reach everyone exactly like 10-20 years sgo. 

 

Olivia rodrigo reached every girl under 25 in the same way avril lavigne did in 2002. And no one over 30 was listening to avril in 2002. 

 

 

 

But TikTok isn't controlled by the industry, that's the difference. Songs can still blow up and be massive due to tiktok, but labels can't control that like they used to.  That's why megastars and blockbuster albums aren't made anymore, because popularity isn't largely dependant on how hard your label pushes your album, but rather how many silly little dance videos your 10 second sound bite gets. Artists can't reliably have 4+ songs from their album blow up and become number 1s because the industry is now entirely reliant on the fickle whims of teenagers and the algorithms of a Chinese spyware dancing app. That isn't even to mention the death of the 'traditional' celebrity due to changing public tastes, the fragmentation of the monoculture and the rise of social media, all of which feed in to the lack of megastars.

 

Comparing AH and FN to 21 and TD is just laughable, I'd say 80% of people over the age of 30 couldn't name a single song from either album, whereas TD and especially 21 were known by ALL demographics. I haven't heard a single Weeknd song since Can't feel my Face simply because I don't want to, and that's the problem! Music used to be unavoidable, if the industry wanted something to be a hit 9 times out of 10 it would be. Now I can just stream whatever the hell I want and pretend modern music doesn't exist, which used to be far more difficult.

Streaming.