How music streaming has changed our perception of music

St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

With several new European friends, I met here during my exchange semester, we decided to spend our semester- break in a road trip across the island. Between all reminders before leaving campus, one of the most important was to download the playlist we beforehand created to be listened while driving.

I don’t know exactly why especially in this occasion, but I realized the enormous change carried out in the way we listen to the music.

The main benchmark from which I wish to begin is the fact that I always have loved music, I grew up listening to every kind of music. I remembered when I was young that I had an enormous number of CDs: from compilations to entire albums, passing by to caskets with also the live DVD. I reflected on multiple points: the amount of money I spent, the practicality of carrying those with me, the fact that I used only to buy a product that I could not modify as I wished. Then the main spot: I will turn 22 soon, so my focus moved to the swiftness in which everything changed.

In the period I described as “when I was young” a Swedish company was found, this company nowadays has more than 85 million Premium subscribers; it is called Spotify, and it was found in 2006.

The company is not the only streaming music provider, but it is the most used, only in the US Apple Music has slightly more users.

The incredible growth of these platforms is the consequence of smartphones’ diffusion and improvement; in fact without smartphones all these applications would have remained only beautiful and revolutionary dreams.

For what concerns price, we need to analyse the distinction between buy a CD, compared with the periodic subscription: when you buy a CD, you can listen it till it is demagnetized, instead, when you subscribe a service, you have access to an enormous variety of contents, but to keep using them, you have to renew the subscription. If we think about, with roughly the half of the average price of a single CD (18 €), you have access for a month to more than 35 million songs (Spotify monthly charge 9.90 €). Totally an other subject is the vinyl market, because that is a niche market affected by people who have the special pleasure of listening to LPs, this does not mean that the same people use one of these services for everyday practical listening.

Practicability i consider to be a second important factor, I had a Walkman and I felt so proud of having one always with me, but I only had accesso to a single CD, not more. And I remember I always need to bring with me additional batteries because they did not last so long. Nowadays I have my phone, the battery’s problem is still constant, but at least now it’s less difficult. Between CDs and Spotify we also had kind of transition period in which we used to have pen drives, any size of SD cards, but, still, in my humble opinion, they are more similar to a CD: if you are in the middle of a day and you would like to listen a song, if you already have it, you can play it; but if you do not have, you cannot search and add. From my Walkman I passed to a MP3 player, and then to an iPod, the first one, with also couple of silly games; this was a revolutionary passage because of the quantity of songs you can bring with you, and for the practicality of usage, but still it was complicated to keep always updated with new songs.

Today we have smartphones, usually also with wireless earphones, or Bluetooth speakers; we totally forgot the feeling when someone asked us a song and we didn’t have it on our MP3 player; if we don’t know the title of a song, we have Shazam that directly links us to Spotify, YouTube and similar. We can create infinite playlists lasting long hours: and this is something we could not do with normal CDs, because, unless we formatted our ones, we could only buy normal albums or playlists already done by someone, and there was at least a song which we did not like.

An other interesting and important aspect to be considered of these platforms is the simplicity and the huge possibility to discover: there are related sections based on what you listened to, and automatically they recommend you similar artists and/or similar songs; this mechanism let you discover an extremely various and multifaced diversity of new songs. In a certain way, the same is possible with CDs; you con go to your trusted seller, asking him/her to suggest you something similar; but it’s more difficult, and therefore, much more costly; this possibility to personalize, to create your perfect multimedia library, but without incurring in any additional cost, I believe it’s one of the most important point that made the difference.

When I open my Spotify now I cannot avoid to think about the quickness change in my way of listening to the music, and the big impact that this digital progress has given to out entire lives; even the perceived value of a CD changed, because some hobbyists still buy them, but generally, they are not bought because of a need to listen music, but, instead, they are experiencing a transition from a common mass market, to a special niche market.

Their role has been taken over by music streaming platforms, played thanks to a smartphone. I really cannot find any cons in the new concept of listening to the music thanks to these services because I firmly believe that these apps perfectly match the new general need of personalization, they are easy and smart to use, they are affordable both in their general price, but mainly if we think about the quantity of contents available inside.

Giulio F. E. Venturi