Apple music: the regrettable rise

Imogen Thom

With Apple Music poised to revolutionise the future of the audio streaming industry, it appears to me undeniable that 7-inch vinyls are truly a thing of the past. The last few decades have seen a rapid progression in the way we listen to music. In the space of about thirty years, we have moved from tapes to CDs to digital, and now find ourselves with pretty much every piece of music ever created available online to be streamed to our computers and phones. There is a vast array of different platforms to stream music online, with Apple Music joining an ever-expanding list, which includes the likes of Spotify, Google Play and Tidal.

With over 75 million users worldwide Spotify is currently at the top of the audio streaming game. Apple has a knack for making devices more aesthetically pleasing and Apple Music is no exception to this rule, but in terms of usability Spotify seems to me to be several steps ahead. Already looking at how they can advance in order to stay abreast of new trends, Spotify is currently progressing to video and pictures and undoubtedly the evolution of online music should be interesting to watch.

The progression of music to digital has led to rapidly declining profits for artists. Musicians at the top of the charts earn next to nothing from music sales and make the majority of their money from gigs. Both Spotify and Apple Music have over 30 million songs to choose from, with only a few discrepancies in their catalogues, as artists such as Taylor Swift have not released their music for streaming. In true T-Swizzle style she removed all her music from Spotify, giving sole rights to Apple Music following a campaign to enable artists to still profit from the free trial. Responding to Swift’s request Apple made the last-minute decision to still pay royalties to artists during the 3-month trial period. Swift felt that multi-billion dollar tech giant Apple was far humbler in their approach to artists than Spotify – a start up that’s grown rapidly in just a couple of years. Had Apple not agreed to pay royalties, thousands of struggling artists would have had their music listened to and enjoyed without any sort of return, making it harder for their work to continue.

With the ease of streaming music online there is a growing inclination to listen to just singles rather than entire albums. The hard work and thought that goes into an album ends up unheard by so many as a result. A record is in many ways a piece of art, carefully constructed and honed, going well beyond just the hours of studio time used to record it. Not only is the sound quality of digital music inferior to physical CDs but we also lose the impact of the cover artwork and the credits given to the producer and lyricists, which as a package establishes a stronger emotional connection to the music. Worse than this, the decline in revenue from recording leads to the dismantling of the label system, the biggest source of funding when producing records. Streaming pays the artist the worst of any format prior to it and consumption now happens at little-to-no cost to the listener. Last year, thirty years after being opened by Bob Geldof, the HMV flagship store on Oxford Street closed its doors for the final time. Whilst some may view the decline in physical record stores as inevitable, the impact this has on independent record labels is far greater than that on the major labels, and unfortunately streaming services are more than failing to catch their fall.

It is hard to believe that my lifetime has seen the leap from listening to my Walkman whilst carrying around stacks of CDs to a world where I have thousands of songs immediately available from a digital cloud. The future of music is making everything smaller and as a result, I can’t help but feel that we’re losing contact with hard physical reality. For me, music is becoming almost too intangible. In the past you could go to a store and pick up a vinyl, and the act of purchasing music was in itself an experience. Now it’s all about digital content. Whilst this makes for accessible listening and reading, perhaps it’s too easy. Most of us will remember the first CD we bought (Busted, naturally), but will kids growing up today hold the memory of the first song they streamed online? It seems less likely. In this great change something has been lost. The whole experience of consuming culture and art has been reduced to a click of a mouse.