The highs and lows of music streaming

MANILA, Philippines - As more and more people are ingrained with the notion that music should be free — mostly through pirate downloads — apps like Spotify, Songza and Pandora are hailed as the saviors of the music industry. People are gradually turning away from radios and CDs to a more personalized form of listening — a viable byway of music consumption as every bit of our lives is now concentrated on assembling a digitized version of ourselves, from social media profiles to playlists. The great thing about these music apps is that they can intelligently pin down the music you prefer via the information that you feed it: the artists and songs that you frequently come back to or the playlists you listen to at any time and any mood.

In the case of Spotify, which was recently released in the Philippines (delayed due to licensing issues), it lets you in on its catalogue of over 20 million songs. Almost every type of music that you can think of is here, from Tchaikovsky to Avicii, Regine Velazquez to Ang Bandang Shirley, and The Ink Spots to The Bloomfields. Complete discographies of the biggest pop acts can be loaded in seconds, a capability which has tempted me to delete all of the music stored on my phone in favor of this magical access. Without having to download and sync data, I can listen to Madonna’s Ray of Light or the Fantastic Mr. Fox soundtrack whenever the need arises.

To some extent, Spotify has brought me back to appreciating albums. YouTube and SoundCloud, great as they may be as innovations for musicians, have slowly trained listeners into thinking that pop music these days is solely made up of hits prepackaged for Billboard Hot 100 fame. It acts as a jukebox, particularly when you feel like walking the wistful lanes of nostalgia. A late-night comb through Spotify has led me to rediscovering John Mayer’s early albums, Vanessa Carlton’s underrated post-“A Thousand Miles” releases, and the guilty pleasures of Glee soundtracks.

LONG-WINDING RETROSPECTIVE

But therein lies the rub: Spotify can plug you back into a long-winding retrospective, making you seem like your lolo who insisted on listening only to songs before the 1970s. As the wave of 2000s sentimentality rides high with every Mean Girls anniversary post or “Remember in the 2000s…” Buzzfeed link, I couldn’t help but feel like my musical choices are being bottled into a specific brew. Encased in the shimmer of pop songs that guided my ascent to puberty, I could definitely feel the lolo vibes coming on strong, slowly growing into an alarm as I dismissed an invite for a night of drinking for another deep scramble through Spotify’s back catalog.

Of course, there are still blind spots on Spotify. A number of albums are not available for streaming on the app such as releases from AC/DC, The Beatles, The Black Keys and Thom Yorke. Spotify has been criticized for unfairly compensating artists, a claim that has been supported by artists such as David Byrne, Amanda Palmer, Pink Floyd and Thom Yorke. To wit, Lady Gaga’s smash hit Poker Face only earned her $167 for a five-month period of streaming on Spotify in 2010. Yorke has called Spotify a “small and meaningless rebellion” which only favors the big catalogues of established artists rather than pushing for smaller acts. Partnerships with distributors such as CD Baby affords local artists, like Ang Bandang Shirley and the bands featured on the Ang Nawawalang soundtrack, a space in the music streaming service, but it also came as a surprise when listeners discovered the presence of such bands when Spotify was unveiled locally.

Despite the thrills offered by Spotify, its status as a savior of the music industry also comes with hefty baggage, especially for artists looking to spread their music to a bigger audience. Spotify is only a bump in terms of the great debate on how music should be propagated in this digital age. Should you ditch Spotify if you care about the welfare of the artists you support? I’d like to think there’s a middle ground for this. A platform like Spotify can always serve as a machinery to boost an artist’s career. Ultimately, as Eric Harvey wrote in Pitchfork’s feature on music streaming, services like Spotify tap into our moral compasses, with the idea that paying for music access can play into artistic creation that has been sabotaged by piracy: “After a decade during which millions of music fans became used to unfettered MP3 access while quietly ignoring the economic consequences for artists, certain mental calculations come into play. In an email, a friend put it succinctly: ‘Spotify is the best-yet middle ground between putting an artist in financial difficulty and putting myself there.’”

* * *

Tweet the author @donutjaucian.