Stream of Consciousness - the transition of music streaming

Music
re:publica 2017

Short thesis: 

Streaming has become the most important way to distribute music in our age. Although the use of Spotify, Tidal, and other services has become mundane to the most of us - including musicians and labels - the key questions concerning streaming have not yet been explored: How does common streaming deal with data privacy and our music taste? Are there a business modell beyond the proceeds of the big publishing concerns? How does streaming and its economic conditions affect the music itself? Three protagonists of music in digital times are contributing to these questions in the panel presenting and discussing their own innovative approaches: Peter Harris, the founder of the alternative streaming service "resonate", Andreas Bischof from the artist-led German indie label "analogsoul" and Ariana Zustra, a music journalist and musician herself.

Description: 

Although streaming has thereby become subject of many discussions (for example the question of fair payment for musicians), the implications of such a comprehensive change in the way we listen to music have not yet been discussed. Disconcertingly a lot of actors involved seem to believe that music and the ways it's produced and consumed will not be affected by this new main distribution channel.

This is surprising since thus far every distribution channel left imprints in the structure of music and songwriting. The diameter and playback speed of vinyls shaped the formats of singles and EPs. Although music production is not bound to these standards set by physical sound carriers anymore, the formats of popular music remain surprisingly solid. Three and a half minutes playing time are still the formal core of pop music and the requirement for a successful song. Streaming will leave its own traces in music and our habits how to consume it.

The panel »Stream of Consciousness - the transition of music streaming« is addressing these changes to music and the selection of it, emerging from the technical, economical and cultural interplay of streaming as dominant way of distribution.

Stage L1
Monday, May 8, 2017 - 14:45 to 15:45
English
Discussion
Everyone

Tracks

Tracks: 

Speakers

Journalistin und Musikerin
Digital Media & Communication Researcher