As some of the pro-user-centric arguments hint, which option you prefer is partly a decision about cultural values, not economic cost. When you buy an album, no matter how many times you play it, you are making a conscious choice that it’s worth your hard-earned cash. With the existing streaming model, your money is not a direct investment—it is at the mercy of collective listening habits. Whether we want a system that rewards the conscious choices of individuals—versus, say, algorithms piping in modern-day muzak 24/7—is a question about more than dollars and (fractions of) cents.

Beyoncé seized the powers of a medium characterized by its short attention span to force the world to pay attention. Leave it to the posterchild of convention to brush convention aside and leave both sides feeling victorious.

Why You Shouldn't Feel Guilty for Using Spotify

I endured repeated listens of a record I could not understand or stand because I had nothing else to do but work out why it mattered to someone I worshiped and not to me. That will never happen again, not the way we’re set up. You will click away the second a song loses you, and you’ll never learn anything about yourself. I mean it: you will never unlock or awaken new neural paths in your brain if you continue to gravitate toward music that satisfies your expectations. That is Easy Listening.

as a listener, and as a fan of music, i feel like my experience is also being fucked up by the way the industry is right now.

Looking expectantly at the rest of the world to validate your interests, hobbies or art is a set-up to feel bad, to brood and be jaded that you are not understood. You need to reprogram your relationship with money as a creative person, because the one you have is like a hex. You need to grow-up your success dream and stop this focus on how it'll make you feel better.

(UPDATED) By David Macias, president of Nashville based label services company Thirty Tigers. Much of the recent discourse about the music business reminds me of listening to partisan political commentators. Continue reading

Damon Krukowski of Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi breaks down the meager royalties currently being paid out to bands by streaming services and explains what the music business' headlong quest for capital means for artists today.

COTQ is featured here.

This success story is almost entirely the result of efforts by my friend Mike Pooley, who works at Mountain Apple Company and is about to go free-lance to offer his digital marketing services to the world! “These efforts are a great example of how an artist can capitalize on viral buzz. By linking to their free-download offer from the YouTube video, Mountain Apple Company harnessed the video’s exposure to increase their fan base. Their store is beautiful & well-designed, and their marketing efforts drove direct-to-fan sales around the globe.”

‘Ian Roger’s presentation from New Music Seminar Los Angeles, February 2011.’ A great overview of how bands have used Topsin and online marketing to great success. Some good takeaways here: a) Don't sell anything until you have a few thousand people on your mailing list, b) Until that point, focus most of all on getting known, c) Do something small every week and something big every month, d) Communicate honestly and treat your fans well.

A followup to the article 'Do Fees Rationalize/Incentivize Communal-Culture Ecommerce?' checks in with actual musicians using the site, and finds that they're more or less unfazed by the change, and don't think it's evil by any means.