For better or worse and follow your opinion with reasoning itt

I think it created essentially the fast food age we’re currently in with a lot of artists coming and going more than ever before

People consume it differently, not many listen to whole albums anymore... just the popular songs from said album.

that feeling of a big song dropping on the radio, or going to the store to buy an album is gone

and that s*** was special, idc what anyone says

You mean the songs themselves?

I guess it's well known at this point that artists are forced to "hook" the listener earlier because people skip songs so much on streaming services.

There has been no positive impact whatsoever lets be real

Almost no more album leaks

this gonna change because of the new rules around physicals/bundles tho

What happened

Well I suppose thats one positive

physical items such as vinyls or cds have to actually shipped to the person who ordered it for it to count as a sale, this will give artists/labels an incentive to produce physical copies weeks before release to ensure higher first week sales (I'm assuming) this will lead to albums being more likely to leak.

Or they'll fully abandon physical copies

It has helped me check out a lot of albums, artist and genres that I usually wouldn't have.

^

A lot more exploration of different kinds of music because you can listen to any song by pressing a few buttons for a low price per month instead of buying a CD for $20 and maybe getting burnt with a bad album

for the better IMO, I think its forcing the artists to go in a better direction too

Personally I'd love to see 7 song, 20 something minute albums become the norm too, make these folks cut out the unneeded bullshit, but, that won't happen because everyone will keep making 25 song projects so they can fill the top 25 on the charts

Album sales hurting (less albums goin multi plat)

Single sales thriving (easier for sales to chart)

It’s for the worse unfortunately besides the fact it’s cheaper for us

I remember how exciting it used to be when a new album you were waiting for dropped. That s*** felt like an event. People listened over and over, found their favorite track, their favorite lines, hidden meanings in places, and talked about it for weeks and even months

Nowadays albums come and go. People listen to albums just to find a song or two to add to a playlist and then it’s off to the next one. And so many artists now aren’t even bothering to make strong cohesive albums with developed songs because streaming incentivizes then to just put together a 1.5 hour compilation of samey streaming fodder songs

Idk even know if it’s better for underground artists tbh. Maybe streaming makes them easier to find and listen to but they’re getting paid s*** because a stream is like $.0002

makes life easier for the artist at least, maybe

extremely negatively

some huge artist is gonna have a genius marketing idea soon and only release an album as a CD in stores and sell like crazy

Huge disconnect between an artists music and their listeners now I think which is ironic given how "accessible" artists now on social media. And maybe thats part of the problem...when an artist didn't have all these platforms to "connect" with fans they had to tell their story through their music so every track on their album needed to be meaningful, now they can be on social media and the music can almost be an afterthought, so why not drop a 20 song album full of mid to maximize revenue.

As a matter of fact if an artist gives off a certain persona on social media of course they need to have that be reflected in their music, the irony being most of social media is shallow facades so of course thats the music that comes out.

Now all thats kinda more about the current climate than streaming specifically but I definitely think streaming plays a large part in enabling just because the sheer amount of music available makes any individual artist harder to connect to solely on a musical level.

Streaming killed the mixtape dj

well, gets rid of all the unnecessary yelling at the beginning and running back the first 10 bars 3 different times

You're right. Some DJs can be annoying as hell. Would prefer a no dj version 9 times outta 10.

But you have to admit that streaming and the major record labels put a lot of these DJs out of a job.

Not to sound corny, but some DJs were gatekeepers to the streets.

And the labels seized an opportunity to omit the DJ and drop mixtapes as official releases

Practically destroyed a whole subsection of the culture

Streaming has honestly made music feel like more of a product than ever before. Now the goal of labels is to market the artist as well as possible through social media, drama, and seeming like as much of a character as possible so that people want to stream them and feel like they’re in with who’s popping at the time

Yeah technically music has been a product for a long long time now but never to this degree. The “art” really doesn’t matter anymore because people aren’t paying for individual albums anymore. There’s no real incentive to try to make quality albums when you can just make a 25 song streaming fodder package and devote all your energy to gaining clout

There was a local record store here in Chicago that I used to hit every Tuesday after school to go buy my new CDs. That feeling that I used to get is what drove my love for music. It’s a shame that some will NEVER have that feeling.