From the Soundboard: Streaming services deserve more credit for exposing new music

When examining the music industry of the past decade, one may be hard-pressed to pinpoint exactly when streaming platforms were introduced. The emergence of services like Spotify and Pandora and their progression from start-ups to industry behemoths, seem blurry.

Still, it is certain that the vast majority of us have logged on to one of these sites and streamed our favorite artists at one time or another. Yet, student musicians and other industry professionals contend that streaming has been detrimental to artists’ bottom lines for a variety of reasons.

The low royalty rate paid to artists for each stream poses the most glaring issue. Shortly after the boom of Spotify and Apple Music, the price paid to artists per stream on each platform has been a point of contention between the tech industry and the music business. Today, a musician on Spotify would need close to 90,000 streams to match the U.S. monthly minimum wage of $1,472 — a paltry royalty rate to say the least.

Also, musicians have vocalized their distaste for streaming services and the effect they’ve had on the overall perception of the value of music. Jay-Z went so far as to call streaming platforms “criminal” and believes that streaming has enabled the general public to “feel like music is free.”

In the past, artists like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have famously restricted their music from distribution on streaming platforms with free tiers, opting instead to only include their work on services that require paid subscriptions.

Musicians and industry professionals have concerns surrounding music streaming that are both valid and understandable. However, streaming culture has brought about myriad benefits both for the music industry and society as a whole.

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of streaming is that practically the entire last century of recorded music is now available to us at the click of a button. Gone are the days of scouring through record stores only to walk out empty-handed. Today, every new release is delivered to our devices on Friday mornings alongside our weather forecasts and news briefings.

Streaming culture should also be commended for increasing the accessibility of a musical artist’s work. Decades ago, aspiring musicians were tasked with tracking down any and every record label employee they could find in hopes of getting their demos heard. Even then, there was no guarantee that they would be signed to a label. Today, anyone with access to Pro Tools and a suitable microphone can have their work heard. Yes, this means that even the bad apples can be picked, but it also provides countless opportunities for extraordinary musicians around the world to share their music when they could not have otherwise.

Moreover, streaming is slowly turning the music industry back into a business that is predicated on singles instead of albums. On the surface, this may not seem like something to celebrate, especially from an industry perspective (after all, album sales bring in way more money than singles). Nonetheless, record labels can use this trend to their advantage. Instead of giving new artists multimillion-dollar advances to record full-length albums, they can cut costs in order to focus on one-song or two-song releases, or even short EPs. Doing so would offset the potential loss of low album sales and allow for other efforts — like marketing and merchandising — to be funded more.

True, music streaming companies still have lots of work to do to increase the amount of compensation given to artists who distribute their work through each platform. The general public should reflect on how streaming has impacted the ways in which we consume and value music: Are we more appreciative of the craft now that we have access to everything that’s ever been produced? Or are we increasingly treating it as a disposable commodity?

In any case, streaming tends to be unnecessarily criticized and derided, especially from an industry perspective. The executives over at Spotify and Apple Music are going to depend on users pressing play for quite a while longer, and the music industry has no choice but to accept and adapt to this.

Willard Givens is a junior writing about the music industry. His column, “From The Soundboard,” runs every other week on Mondays.