No, Streaming Services Are Not ‘Saving The Music Industry’

Recent reports that streaming is now the ‘biggest money-maker’ for the music biz have prompted hyperbolic claims that Spotify and co have ‘saved the music industry’. In reality, this could not be further from the truth.

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Progressive music that goes against the aesthetics of whatever the mainstream might be at any given point by its very nature does not cater to the whims of a Spotify algorithm. Now that streaming is the industry’s biggest money-maker it has become the overriding force in music consumption. This dominance will only increase as time goes on, and for artists to gain anything, as a result, requires them to conform or die. There are exceptions, most notably in zeitgeist-seizing movements like grime that are both artistically essential and buoyed by the kind of mass appeal that in effect bypasses the need for a leg-up from the algorithms, but such a lethal combination is rare indeed. Not everything that is great is as popular.

Yes, not everything that is great is popular, and not everything that is popular is great! We need human subjectivity, and that’s more complicated than a complex algorithm.

If streaming platforms keep growing more and more influence over how music is curated and marketed by those in charge, while the revenue for those not mundane enough to fit their algorithms remains so pitifully minute, it is not that impossible to envisage the blandest landscape the industry has ever seen. Great music will continue being made, of course, but getting that music out to people outside of the algorithms will be so much harder. “I hope I am wrong,” says Reeder. “I hope the revenue from streaming does improve, because if it doesn’t, well, who knows how positive the future will be for the majority of music makers and labels out there?”

This is not only the case for music, but for literature, poetry, video, and photography.