How has streaming changed our discovery of new music?

The way in which we experience music (and other media naturally too), has become irredeemably alien to that of prior generations. Everything is at your fingertips. So convenient it can inconvenience. So much choice that at times you can almost feel overwhelmed, opting to scurry back to your playlist of guilty pleasures instead. I feel that this “New World” of streaming can at times discourage the curious from exploring out with their all too familiar comfort zone. As a self-confessed and typecast with laser precision thirty something year old, from the latter end of the physical ownership-to-digital ownership generation, I admit to feeling somewhat nostalgic for this unashamedly analogue period of time.

I would flick fervently through HMV’s walls of shelves in my teens, making my laboured choice based on how striking the album cover may have been, or the interest an inventive list of song titles may arouse in me. Hurriedly I would hunt through the brush like a squirrel for a nut. Bushy tailed an all that... I found Black Sabbath and Megadeth this way. I found Santana and Cream this way. I found a gorgeous jazz album named Cityscapes and hid it away in confusion, waiting for the day I could just about digest it. In. This. Way.

We could debate for days on what streaming culture has done to an artist’s ability to subsist financially in a burgeoning music career. Where previously they were given the time to nurture their talent, possibly leading to an exponential increase in quality of output and solidifying their creative vision in a studio – Now I fear we’re missing out on some potential slow burning savants, who in times to come would unleash a masterful tirade of zeitgeist informing tunes to a more than willing public. As I boringly waffle on and altogether as expectedly eulogise a former format of media and lambast the new, I would like to posit this: maybe the greatest of all crimes committed by streaming apps, is the seductive allure of that “related artist” button - hey computer, can you make sure and keep me in my lane please? An exotic melody might blow out my one remaining brain cell like a faulty light bulb. Admittedly, it is much easier to market to a target audience who are stuck within the confines of their identifying genre of music. Better that young people are steered from straying too far from the pop isle, there are quotas to meet you know! Could this have been devised so and strategised by the ever-villainous, penguin suit wearing, cigar toting music execs that exist in my subconscious? I surmise this is not too far from the truth. It is the music business after all. Not the musical-happy-fun-time-parade… or something.

More likely this is just the cynic in me, deliriously banging my drum for the enjoyment of no one at the aforementioned parade. So, maybe I’ll record my own rants and market them as the next big thing—an aging fool’s take on an era he’s still trying to understand. But the truth is, as I navigate this world of algorithms and endless playlists, my optimism for the future of music and artists is beginning to fade. With each guilty touch on the 'related artist' button, I can’t help but wonder: are we trading genuine exploration for convenience? Are we missing out on the magic of discovery, the serendipity of finding something that challenges us? Perhaps, in this age of limitless choice, it’s the limitations of the past that made those iconic decades of music we adore so timeless.