Overview
Objectives
- Recall the significance of American Idol and the role it plays in both American popular culture and the careers of the musicians who perform on it
- Examine how YouTube has offered opportunities for musicians to be “discovered”
- Explain how streaming audio services such as Spotify and Pandora operate
- Describe some of the controversy from musicians surrounding streaming audio services
- Consider how reality television programs affected the careers of specific rock musicians
Streaming Audio
In the 2000s, Pandora Internet Radio, an automated internet music recommendation service, became a very popular way to listen to music and learn about new songs, genres, and artists.
Pandora Internet Radio, also known as Pandora Radio or simply Pandora, is a streaming a method for transferring data, typically audio or video, as it is being used, eliminating the need to download a file in its entirety before it is usable audio and music recommendation service powered by the Music Genome Project, where listeners do not download or own the music but instead listen to it as it is being provided. Each song in Pandora’s Music Genome Project database is tagged with roughly four hundred different characteristics that correspond to musical elements such as instrumentation, gender of the singer, and type of harmony. When a listener types in the name of a song, artist, or genre, Pandora responds by playing songs with similar characteristics. For example, if a listener types in "Green Day," Pandora identifies the artist and then plays music with characteristics such as "electric rock instrumentation," "punk influences," "a subtle use of vocal harmony," "mild rhythmic syncopation," and "minor key tonality." The algorithm offers music by artists it deems to be similar, such as the Offspring, Nirvana, and Blink-182. Listeners have the option to rate each song with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down; this helps Pandora refine the songs played by using the unique set of indicators and user feedback associated with each song.
Users with the free version of Pandora can only skip songs a certain number of times, so they can’t repeat or rewind a track once it starts to play. On this version of Pandora, advertisements also play at regular intervals. Pandora is a freemiuma portmanteau combining the words “free” and “premium” that describes a product (such as an app) that is provided at no cost with the option of paying for addition features service, where an annual subscription fee allows the user unlimited numbers of skips and advertisement-free listening. Regardless of whether the user uses the paid or free subscription service, Pandora does not allow on-demand listening of any specific song or artist. The number of plays of music by a specific artist is also limited. Listeners paint their music preferences in broad strokes, but the choice of the individual songs played is left up to the Music Genome Project algorithm.
Founded in 2008, Spotify is another popular streaming audio service. Like Pandora, it is a freemium service with basic features available through advertisement support, and additional ones offered for a subscription fee.Unlike Pandora, Spotify allows users to choose specific songs, albums, or artists to listen to.
Spotify users can also create playlists to share with other users. Paid Spotify subscribers are also able to download music to listen to offline. Spotify pays royalties based on the number of streams an artist’s song receives in proportion to the total number of songs streamed on Spotify.
Spotify's artist compensation model has caused controversy with some artists and bands. In fact, some artists have pulled their music from Spotify in protest. In 2013, Thom Yorke of Radiohead (see chapter 39) removed his solo music and the music from his other band Atoms for Peace from Spotify. He criticized the service, claiming that it did not pay musicians properly and that it favored the music industry over the artists themselves. The next year, singer and songwriter Taylor Swift also removed her entire catalogue from Spotify. Like Yorke, Swift argued that Spotify did not properly compensate artists for their music. Although Yorke has kept his solo music and the music of Atoms for Peace off Spotify, Radiohead’s music remains available through the service. The release of Radiohead's 2016 album A Moon Shaped Pool was not made available on Spotify until it had spent six weeks on pay streaming services. Following intense pressure from her fans, Swift returned her entire catalogue to Spotify in 2017.
"I remember Ozzy Osbourne making a fuss on The Osbournes - people were making a big deal about him taking the garbage out, and he said, "Well, who else is going to do it?" The garbage is full, and you're standing right there. You're still a human being who is going to make yourself a sandwich."
"That was very difficult for me on 'American Idol' to feel like I had to be a certain way. It wasn't that the producers were saying that you shouldn't be gay or whatever, but there was this unspoken energy around saying you have to appeal to Middle America, and Middle America at that point was not ready for all that."
