Streaming As The New Reality

NPR Music examines the realities of today's streaming economy and looks toward the future for music listeners and creators.

By NPR

NPR
Toward New Musics: What The Future Holds For Sound Creativity
NPR - Tod Machover, Charles Holbrow
In his brilliant, provocative 1966 essay, The Prospects of Recording, Glenn Gould proposed elevating – pardon the pun – elevator music from pernicious drone to enriching ear training. In his view, the
July 26
NPR
Hello, Brave New World!
NPR - Cherie Hu
8:02 a.m., July 12, 2019 I don't even know if you'll be able to see this note, but I'll write it anyway, because I really need your help. The Success Of Streaming Has Been Great For Some, But Is There
July 26
NPR
A Borrowed World: Streaming As The New Reality
NPR - Andrew Flanagan
Several years ago, NPR Music published a series of stories that measured up the aggressively nascent space of music streaming, which had finally — after either four, 15 or nearly 100 years, depending where
July 22
NPR
The Success Of Streaming Has Been Great For Some, But Is There A Better Way?
NPR - Paula Mejía
It's tough to recall a time when listening to music — and making it — wasn't completely synonymous with streaming. The idea of filling an iPod up with carefully selected digital files almost feels like
July 22
NPR
The Language I Learned From Cassettes
NPR - Ben Ratliff
A cassette tape was the first instrument with which average people on a grand scale could create a musical artifact. What can we call it besides a format? A medium — good, but too neutral. A mode — we're
July 24
NPR
Remembering The Bottled Lightning Of 'Music Tumblr'
NPR - Mark Richardson
The story of fandom is the story of community. You can — and do, more often than not — experience music alone, but if what you're listening to moves you, eventually you're going to want to talk to someone
July 24
NPR
A Requiem For Audiogalaxy, The Digital Wild West's Best Outlaw Record Store
NPR - Sam Hockley-Smith
It was one of those spring New York days where the garbage breezes of summer were already gathering. You could smell it, but you couldn't yet feel it. It was 2012, and I was interviewing the rapper El-P
July 24
NPR
Khalid Is The Shooting Star Of The Playlist Era
NPR - Frannie Kelley
In the spring of 2016, an A&R executive working for RCA Records named Tunji Balogun came across a song that had been uploaded onto SoundCloud a few months prior. It was called "Stuck On U," a wistful,
July 23
NPR
The Green New Deal: Where Spotify Stands, And Where Artists Wish It Would
NPR - Marissa R. Moss
If it weren't for the signs reading "Spotify," "Amazon," "Google" and "Pandora" sitting atop four empty chairs on a warm Wednesday in April, the scene onstage at 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville would have
July 25