The World of Music Streaming

Music streaming has become the main way for many people to listen to music these days. For a long time however, I did not use any streaming services. This is unusual because I often use streaming services for other types of media. Despite my hesitancy, I have been recently using Spotify a lot and it has been a very refreshing way for me to engage with music.

For many years in Japan, I always bought music. There were a few reasons for this. Throughout my teenage years I became very passionate about Japanese music. Not living in Japan however made it difficult to be able to physically buy Japanese CDs and limited my options. Once I moved here, there was something exciting about being able to hold a CD of musicians I had loved for years. I also discovered that despite most of the world turning to digital formats, Japan still had a huge physical CD market. One of the big reasons is due to CDs coming with special goods or codes to buy advanced concert tickets.

But the past few years I started buying less CDs. CDs cost a lot, and I could not justify buying them for artists I was only slightly interested in. The novelty of buying physical CDs started to fade as well. I decided I would finally give a streaming app a shot. The experience I have ended up having has been more significant than I expected. Many musicians I was curious about suddenly became easy to listen to. I could discover musicians I did not know about before. I could re-listen to old songs from earlier in my life. And I could easily dive into the discographies of musicians I have loved for many years. I have not been able to go to a concert in many years, so it is nice to have something happen that has reinvigorated my interest in music.

Jules WhiteComment