On-demand streaming services

listening as an experience and experimentation

Abstract

This paper discusses the listening experience provided by on-demand music streaming services and some of its aesthetic, cultural, technological, and economic implications. It also presents the concerns of performers and authors regarding the changes introduced to listening habits since modern times, the coexistence of analog media under the auspices of the content production industry, and the contemporary omnipresence of digital music. On-demand music streaming services stand as the hallmark of this era, by offering convenient access to music collections, customized playlists (scrobbling) integrated with social media, intuitive user interfaces, and, in some instances, the possibility of searching for and posting original content. Nonetheless, implicit constraints such as controlling for and blocking unlicensed files and supposedly restricting amateur musical creations and interventions have been implemented. The convenient, yet heavily mediated, listening experience provided by on-demand music streaming services should be rethought as a potentially creative instance of the “micropolitics of experimentation.”