…

Everyone in our business chooses one side or the other.

After some time – shorter for a few – those who switch usually go from the “Content” or Programming side to the Sales side because they found a bit more stability and often a lot more money in the latter than the former.

But for those of us who began on the Content side, and stuck with it, a love of music was often behind our choice.

Most of us had huge collections of albums which we carefully maintained. They held specific memories that we loved.

I don’t think most radio performers, or most radio listeners for that matter, love music that same way today. They haven’t for quite a long time. And I think this woman figured out why.

It has to do with streaming versus owning.

We are “…the last generation to remember what it was like to own a music collection that doesn’t live in the cloud. Maybe that’s why I never latched onto streaming services — I didn’t like depending on a third-party platform, or being part of a social experiment that feeds Spotify data that it then sells to advertisers.”

“There’s also the matter of fair pay: Streams are the slowest way for musicians to earn money, at fractions of pennies per stream.”

“Most important, though, I don’t like how streaming feels — like I’m only borrowing something for a while, rather than having a handpicked library of albums (digital or physical) that I’ve vetted and can keep forever.“

“I don’t need the entirety of recorded music at my fingertips. I just need the few curated albums that I cared enough about to collect. Having my own library means I can distinctly remember the context of every find, and that makes my intimacy with the songs I care about — the ones I can mentally fill in when one earbud falls out as I’m tying my shoes — feel especially rich.“

It’s such an interesting insight.

You can read the rest of what she has to say about how to enjoy music more HERE.
(It’s a gift article, so you don’t need to be a subscriber.)