How Do Streaming Platforms Affect the Way People Engage with Music Compared to Traditional Media (radio, CDs, vinyl)?
With the tides of society ever-changing because of technological advancements, it is crucial to evaluate the key differences within media. Music has been a constant part of human evolution since the Stone Age. Different societies from across the globe cherish music in their way. National Anthems, marching songs, and songs to signify and remember the fallen, music has and always will be a staple for the human race. In the 1800s, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph. This was the first way people could store and share music. Soon after, the invention of the Vinyl disc found its way into households throughout the world. As time went on, things like CDs and cassettes became extremely popular, creating easy portability for one's tunes. With the Walkmans hitting the shelves in the 1980s, it marked an incredible milestone for music. When originally listening to music, the phonautograph was huge, clunky, and not portable in the slightest. Now, people can listen to their music every day, while commuting to work, grocery shopping, or working out. In the year 2025, the once-groundbreaking Walkman is a thing of the distant past. Nowadays, streaming platforms and social media have made great contributions to the music industry. Apps like Apple Music and Spotify have made their way onto practically every cell phone in the world. Apart from this, it has become more accessible for individual artists to put out their music. In short, the music industry has taken a complete 180 since the invention of the phonautograph in 1857.
In this paper, I will discuss common themes, similarities, and especially differences between modern music consumption and the music industry of the 20th century. Using multiple sources, the topics of music discovery and the lasting negative impacts of modern-day technologies will be compared and contrasted. Finally, I intend to prove that yes, modern-day technologies generate a more open and diverse platform for discovering music, while not discrediting the negative impact these social media platforms have on the industry as a whole.
Modern society has integrated mobile devices into daily life patterns, making anyone who does not constantly carry their phone around an outcast in that regard. Due to this and the surge of social media platforms, music streaming apps and capabilities are at an all-time high. With just a click of a button, you can have anything from 1800s Beethoven to 2025 hyper techno. In comparison to this, in the 1980’s, when you wanted to find new music, your only outlets were record stores, friends' recommendations, and the radio. These are not futile avenues of discovery by any means. However, when comparing it to the options of the modern day, they are simply lackluster.
The CLRN team’s article, 'How Did People Listen to Music in the 80s?' Explore various music discovery methods, including radio, CDs, and vinyl records. It also examines the cultural impact of MTV and televised Top 40 countdowns. The Publication “Grease Release” article “The Influence of Social Media on The Music Industry” discusses Music Discovery, effects on the industry, and music consumption patterns that social media has affected. As well as diving into niche subgenres and touching on the possible future of the industry. In continuation of this, the blog “Kill The Music” released an article named “The Role of Social Media in Shaping the Modern Music Industry”. This article gives a more in-depth look at this question, studying fan behaviors and analytics to arrive at a consensus. Proposing and testing theories of algorithms and AI personalization. The final two articles propose similar ideas and findings. Specifically, the article “The impact of Streaming Platforms on the Music Industry” delivers clear and organized charts and references. These help lay out the thought line of the article, giving a clear visual of the effects of these streaming platforms.
Throughout researching and reading these articles and many others, I’ve reached a general guideline on how one would gauge the impact that social media and streaming platforms have had. With popularity and exposure, you can easily analyze trends and direct follower and like counts. Revenue and monetization is another form of analysis, with streaming payouts and tickets/merch sales. This has an impact on albums as well, with media applications promoting singles rather than full-length albums. Finally, the final research method I will be covering is industry dynamics and demographics. One can easily verify if an artist is signed to a label or not, thus impacting how much their art is being promoted. Following this, in correlation with analytics and the accessibility that social media offers. The availability to find new genres in various cultural and geographical areas has never been easier.
While the prior listed research methods are sustainable, there still lie many variations in which these methods can be at fault. With the sheer amount of trends that occur on social media, it is hard to differentiate whether a song is going to be successful in the long term or just for that moment. On top of this, every social media platform has an algorithm embedded in the application. These coded algorithms can easily latch onto a single successful video and promote that trend until it dries up, leaving many amazing songs in the dust. Streaming services also have complex recommendation systems that influence user behavior, making it hard to separate organic success from algorithmic boosts.
As found in the CLRN article, the avenues in which artists can promote their music pre-social media are far and few. Many listeners were restricted to whatever vinyl or CDs they could find with what local shops ordered in, and what the radio or TV was playing. It wasn't until the 1990s that society began seeing the integration of personal computers in music discovery. This integration kicked off the digital age of music we are experiencing every day. Many artists in the late 20th century struggled to get off of their feet due to these limitations. Besides hoping you'll be noticed by an agent at a live concert, the only other routes you can go are promoting and selling your CDs in public and writing letters to executives. These avenues give the artists a true shot in the dark, where one can do this his whole life and find little success.
The introduction of streaming platforms democratized the vast library of music. As shown in the CLRN article, listeners were extremely limited in the avenues to discover music. However, as shown in the Illustrate Magazine article “The Impact of Streaming Platforms on the Music Industry”, streaming services eliminated the barrier to entry of listeners, delivering all genres of music at a very low cost. The benefits of these streaming services speak for themselves, with ultimate global access for listeners to experience many cultures and genres of music. The discoverability factor is also key, with many platforms having lucrative suggestion algorithms, promoting songs that are in the same genre as the listeners go to and suggesting music that other listeners who fit into that niche enjoy. Finally, the convenience aspect is unbeatable; this alone offers more to users than anything could pre-streaming applications.
This chart is taken from an article published by Illustrate magazine. As you can see, there is a constant power struggle between platforms, with certain percentages changing yearly based on features being added and usability. This graph shows that just because the platforms are here and accessible doesn't mean that the evolution of streaming is finished.
This is a segue into the integration of AI Personalization in the music industry. In the article published by Kill the Lights, “The Role of Social Media in Shaping the Modern Music Industry,” the discussion about the future of the music industry is prevalent. “The intelligence provided through AI can also help artists better tailor their content and marketing strategies to music listeners' preferences.” This quote exemplifies the stance taken by the authors of the article. Expressing their pro-viewpoint in the AI Discussion. Furthermore, in the article “AI in Music Marketing” written by Toxigon, they dive extremely in-depth into the lucrativeness of AI marketing. To begin, AI marketing is essentially a way to automate the marketing process, assisting with data analysis, trend prediction, and generating new UI tactics to improve the user experience. Traditionally, the marketing model was a one-size-fits-all approach. The integration of technologies and AI creates a user-specific program, tailoring advertisements to the individuals. An example of this would be Spotify's user-curated playlists, which can be found on the home screen of the app. These playlists generally consist of 50 or so songs, with some being previously liked and the majority being undiscovered. The user has been accustomed to this luxury to the point where many people don't even consider how lucrative this feature is.
While on paper, AI capabilities seem amazing, there are certainly risks involved with it. Many users express concerns about their privacy, with the argument of not feeling comfortable with an AI software having full access to their streaming habits. Other concerns presented in the article express how AI can give a certain bias to music promotion. “AI algorithms are only as good as the data they're trained on, and if this data is biased, the AI will be too. This can lead to unfair outcomes, such as certain artists or genres being unfairly promoted or overlooked.” This quote exemplifies this reality, where if designers wanted to or were persuaded to. They can fully promote one band or artist to a multitude of users when that artist may not deserve the recognition given.
When writing this report, I intended to prove that yes, modern-day technologies generate a more open and diverse platform for discovering music, while not discrediting the negative impact these social media platforms have on the industry as a whole. Throughout my research, I have come to agree with this hypothesis. It is non-negotiable that the difference between the modern music industry and the industry of the late 20th century is vast. Previously, listeners had limited avenues of music discovery, consisting mainly of the radio and TV stations, local music stores, and word of mouth. On top of this, the genre disparity was great, with certain artists only being popular or discovered in secluded demographic and geographical areas. This leads to many challenges as a growing artist and limits the cap for financial growth on both the artist's and the label's sides. Now, in the digital age of music, listeners have a plethora of routes to take to find new music and artists. AI and Marketing specialists tailor specific recommendations to people based on collected analytics. This opens up the room for exploration to where you can listen to any genre and any band no matter where you are demographically or geographically. Inherently, this also produces more and more revenue for labels and artists, with music no longer being subjected to location or age. In the future, with AI involved, the possibilities are endless. For instance, it's possible for interactive listening experiences to take place. We already have within modern headphones different listening modes. For example, the AirPods have spatial audio and selective audio, where the technology actively detects outside audio and filters if it's worth being projected or if it should be canceled out. The music industry is ever-changing, as it's always been. It's impossible to accurately predict what route it will take next, but one thing is certain: the technology we have now will soon be a thing of the past.
Work Cited:
Illustrate Magazine. (n.d.). The impact of streaming platforms on the music industry: How Spotify, Apple Music, and others have changed the game. Illustrate Magazine. Retrieved from https://illustratemagazine.com/the-impact-of-streaming-platforms-on-the-music-industry-how-spotify-apple-music-and-others-have-changed-the-game/
Press Maverick. (n.d.). The role of social media in influencing music trends. Press Maverick. Retrieved from https://pressmaverick.com/the-role-of-social-media-in-influencing-music-trends/
Kill The Music. (n.d.). The role of social media in shaping the modern music industry. Kill The Music. Retrieved from https://killthemusic.net/blog/the-role-of-social-media-in-shaping-the-modern-music-industry
Grease Release. (n.d.). The influence of social media on the music industry. Grease Release. Retrieved from https://www.greaserelease.co/blog/the-influence-of-social-media-on-the-music-industry
CLRN. (n.d.). How did people listen to music in the 80s? CLRN. Retrieved from https://www.clrn.org/how-did-people-listen-to-music-in-the-80s/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Toxigon. (n.d.). AI in music marketing. Toxigon. Retrieved from https://toxigon.com/ai-in-music-marketing?utm_source
