Weekend read: The Past, Present, and Future of Streaming Music (Pitchfork)

Music publication Pitchfork has produced a dazzling feature called Station to Station: The Past, Present, and Future of Streaming Music. It is a worthwhile read for anyone in the field, or interested in the evolution of music listening — if you can figure out how to read it.

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Both innovative and annoying, the feature presentation offers no instruction for getting past the opening gibberish. Use your mouse scroll wheel. If you’re using a touch-screen computer, swiping downward makes the best experience. (iPad reading works fine, but loses some of the sizzle in this unique display.)

With sharp and stylish writing, the Pitchfork feature lays out an interesting history of recorded and streaming music, reaching back to player pianos and scenarios from science-fiction literature. Consumer trends are explained alongside legal issues. Some of the technical explanation might cause you to scroll rather quickly, but there is a lot here for everyone.

“The only future of streaming music, history tells us, is a future of streaming music.”

One lens focuses on Spotify’s acceleration of consumers adopting the streaming model, reviewing the service’s early years in Sweden record label cooperation with a non-piracy solution. the article refers to Spotify as “The Post-Piracy Platform,” and also acknowledges it as “the most controversial digital music service since Napster.”

Pandora, Beats Music, Google All Access, SoundCloud, and YouTube get the same wholistic treatment.

Source quotes are well chosen: “I’m like a small farmer who interacts with people who consume what I make, and the Spotifys of the world, which are like McDonald’s, make people less aware of how the thing gets made and of its value.” (Musician David Bazan.) Historical references going back to 1877 are amazingly relevant.

Read the Pitchfork feature here.

Brad Hill