Music streaming gets a lot of shit. And a big helping of that is very fairly earned.
But it's important not to forget that there is a positive side to the new paradigm as well.
As someone who teetered on the brink of getting into the old world, and failed (twice), I have a bit of perspective.
A few years ago, couple of decades maybe, we talked hopefully about 'the democratisation of music'. And a lot of what we hoped for has come true.
Capable hardware and software is cheaper than ever, and a website and Bandcamp page are all you need to share your message and sell your music.
But the biggest challenge remains the same now as it was then: how to get your music in front of potential fans?
And obviously this is the bit where we've effectively built up the same systems of gatekeeping, twisted incentives and dubious companies with unethical practices.
Who'd have thought?
But this is about the positive side of things.
This week one of my songs tipped over the 10,000 plays threshold on Spotify.
Small numbers for some, but for a DIY artist on the wrong side of 50, with zero marketing budget, this is actually quite a big deal.
That's thousands of plays, to over a thousand listeners, that simply never would have happened in the old model.
That song might, maybe, with a lot of luck, made it into and out of a studio as a demo track.
But then it would have withered away on a batch of unsold CDs in a gig bag somewhere.
Instead it's been out in the world, living its best life, slowly racking up plays over the last 10 months. And hopefully giving a few of those people one of those special moments only music can provide.
Yes, the streaming model has serious flaws, but sometimes something is better than nothing.
And here's a link if you want to make it 10,001
https://open.spotify.com/track/5Jc22YCGEGxMx9H3lNcEVP
