How Streaming Algorithms Are Reshaping Your Music Taste and Discovery

- We're not gonna solve the woes of the recording industry. - Why not? (Steve laughing) You said we would. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Outside the Fox," where we explore what's happening online and why it matters. I'm Steve Flavin. - And I'm Kim Horcher. And today we are going to be talking about something that is incredibly personal, yet is constantly changing, and that's how we listen to music, how technology affects it, by how we experience it, discover it, and even make it. - That's right. And what is Firefox, if not a window to the internet? - I mean, literally. (laughs) - But yeah, if you zoom out, the way that we interact with music today is completely different than even 10 or 20 years ago.

- Yeah. And these changes are just so imperceptible. Like, of course I've always had all the songs in the entire world on my phone, right? - Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing how quickly that things are normalized. But let's zoom out and do a quick speed run of how we got here. A brief history of recorded music, if you will. If you look back at the genesis of the recording industry, you know, as we know it, basically the 1800s is when gramophones became a thing.

- I didn't know that. - Gramophone recordings, it was still very niche, expensive. It wasn't super mainstream. It wasn't really until radio, which is I believe, the 1920s, where it became kind of a communal experience of listening to music at home. Previously, you're gathered around the radio, you're- - My grandma told me- - Experiencing it together. - She used to do that. They'd all gather around and they'd listen to music and radio plays. - Radio dramas. Yeah, that's right. And so in that era, you don't really choose the music, the music finds you. So then we go into the owned era,

which I believe it was the late '40s that vinyl records kind of emerged on the scene and became popularized over the decades. And then of course, going into cassettes and CDs, this idea of collecting and curating and owning a collection of music was something that previously wasn't really a thing, but became much more mainstream and much more accessible during this era. And of course, discovery was amplified by radio. Radio is still a big way to get music out there, you know, the Billboard charts, but also crucially music videos and MTV became a massive way to, you know, bring the visual and the spectacle to music and was a whole new way to reach people.

I should also note that historically the length of singles and albums has largely been dictated by the capacity limits of recorded media. So if you look at the average length of a single throughout all of history, a lot of it is, you know, what can onto a 45, or. - Oh. - You know, the length of an album, you know, what can fit on an LP, you know, flipping it over, eventually you had like double LPs, you had CDs, which could hold up to 80 minutes, so albums got longer, and then you have double CDs or like multi CD collections, which is a whole other thing. And so that brings us to the digital era or what I call the infinite era, where now we have all of this choice.

It's almost too much choice, but it was kickstarted by peer-to-peer services, which, you know, is nostalgic for those of us who remembered Napster. And what were the other services? There was Kazaa, there was LimeWire. It was kind of like Whack-a-Mole where the recording industry sued a lot of these tech companies. - Yep. - But also crucially, they pivoted at a certain point and started suing the people that were downloading music. - That's messed up.

- Which was not really a good look for them, but I know some. I had a friend in college who had to reach a settlement with. You know, it is like the initial, when they were contacted by the legal team was like, "Oh, you owe a million bajillion dollars." And then they negotiated it to probably, she never told me how much it was, but I would imagine it maybe a few thousand. It was like kind of, you know, a- - What are they doing with this? - I know, right? It's more like- - Is the way you get it back by gouging one person?

- You know, it's like they're making an example of people. - I hate it. - Was not a great way. I think what they were very slow to come around to is that there was a demand for this access, this style of discovering and listening to music where all of a sudden it's uncoupled from, you know, the stores and the recorded media. Back in the day, like, if you liked a song on the radio and you go to a record store, and you know, maybe if you're lucky, you might get like a little listening station where you could preview 30 seconds from each track. But other than that, you're kind of taking a gamble on whether the whole album would be to your liking.

- When I was a kid, I bought CDs, and there would be, sometimes there'd be maybe two good songs, and the rest would be garbage, and I would just have to buy it. - Yeah. - And there's. You know, if you think about it, most albums aren't wall to wall bangers. - I don't know. I mean, maybe I just got lucky. Like sometimes you would, or at least this was my experience, like sometimes you would discover new favorites that, you know, it's full of like great songs that weren't necessarily released as singles that become new favorites.

So that's. You know, it kind of cuts both ways. But it kind of opened the floodgates with peer-to-peer, where all of a sudden people are downloading songs and discovering music that way and gravitating towards singles. There wasn't really a legal sanctioned way to consume music in that way until iTunes, which paved the way for other music services. But that was sort of, you know, what they called the great unbundling of songs where you're no longer required to buy a whole album, now you can buy individual songs off of the album. And so that affected how music is marketed, how, you know, the Billboard charts work, you know, kind of segues into the streaming era

where music discovery is algorithmic and it's this emphasis on everything available instantly. Everything's on-demand. But in a lot of ways, it's kind of cool that you could listen to like, every new release when it comes out without- - Immediately. - Having to be selective. You know? - I don't know, I just, I think there needs to be a balance between what is convenient for us and what is fair to the artists. - Sure. - And you know, it's always been a little sketchy with streaming, and it seems like it's only getting a little bit worse all the time in terms of fairly compensating, but also being fair to us as consumers.

- Yeah, well, all that to say, we're not gonna solve the woes of the recording industry in the space of 20 minutes. - Why not? (Steve laughing) You said we would. You said we were gonna do that today. - We can try. - What's today about then? - We can try. (Kim laughing) But, you know, for better or worse, a lot of artists make most of their income these days from live music, from going on tour. It's, from what I understand, a bit exhausting for them because like, when you're, you know, life on the road. It's a tough gig. - It's a huge show every day.

I mean, it's like doing a theatrical, like a Broadway performance even. - [Steve] Yeah. - But like, I don't love consuming all my music that way. - Sure. - Because, you know, Ticketmaster is not fun. And there's a lot of extra costs that I don't love. - Yeah, no, I mean, that's another good point actually in how tech has influenced the music industry is sites like Ticketmaster have driven up the costs of seeing music live, have reduced access, you're competing with bots and scalpers and it's massively more expensive now than it ever used to be to go see an artist live.

- I only bother with just like one artist, you know, for the most part. Maybe if something crazy popped up, I would deal with all this- - Do you mean one artist as in like one per year? Or like one specific artist? - One that I feel that is worth it. - Uh-huh, and who's that artist? - Okay, so. (laughs) - I'm fastened. I'm on the edge of my seat. - Who is my favorite musical artist to see live? It's "Weird Al" Yankovic. (laughs) - I endorsed that. Like no, you have my full support.

- He's so good live! He's so good also not live, but he's great live! - The last time I was in New York, he was playing and we were staying across the street from Madison Square Garden. He was there. And so we did. He was sold out, but I bet he's. I've watched his concerts, like the taping, but I bet he'd be fun live, so- - He's great. - I love that. That warms my heart, that he's the one artist (laughs) that you will see in person. - I'm not cool, I like Weird Al. - But it doesn't even necessarily need to be like a big concert. Like, even if you're a small indie artist and you're playing smaller venues, like it's still a lot of work and it's a lot, you know,

it's a big massive life upheaval to tour multiple cities or multiple countries even, right? So, you know, that's tricky. But all that to say, you know, in this new infinite era where everything's on-demand, right? There are also new ways of discovering music beyond just the traditional streaming services, there's also YouTube and TikTok. - That's right. TikTok is a huge driver. - Yeah. Nowadays, you know, a lot of Billboard charts are influenced by TikTok and songs that were released, you know, years ago come back into vogue and it's kind of fascinating to see.

You know, it is a bit unprecedented. You know, there were maybe some outliers, you know, in previous decades, but certainly not in the capacity that it is now. - All you need is one hilarious hook and you got a hit baby. - So, yeah, I mean, basically it goes from what's on to what I own to, I'm overwhelmed, what do I even pick? So. (laughs) - Yeah, I get it. Because sometimes I, you know, I don't really. I don't know if you picked up from my Weird Al comment, but I don't really know how to find like, the new trendy music. And when I go to my Spotify for example, I get sometimes a lot of things that I don't really care for

suggested to me, or the same thing over and over. So it's a little bit tricky. - Yeah. What, you know, pivoting to our own personal music tastes and how we discover music, what have been some of your favorite releases recently? - I feel like you're asking just a complete music novice these things, 'cause you know, I don't really follow normal stuff. I like video game soundtracks. - Okay. - I like movie soundtracks. I've gotten really into vinyl lately. - Yeah. - I bought a spoken word retelling of the first "Star Wars" from 1977- - What? - Recently from a record shop. And I just- - From 1977?

- Yeah. - Oh, wow, okay. - And it's just a guy narrating the story and occasionally the actors have lines. - That's fascinating because that's like before VHS, right? So that was like a way to like, when you're waiting for it to come back into theater, this is like a way to reexperience "Star Wars," it's like kinda fun. - I guess Obi-Wan did do that, you know? (Steve laughing) - Oh, that's so interesting. I mean, you know, shout out to soundtracks. I love soundtracks. I was a huge movie nerd even when I was a kid. And so I think probably my favorite, or my first CD that I ever got I think was the "Jurassic Park" soundtrack.

- That's a great one! - It's a classic. Still slaps. Still put that on, but- - John Williams. - Yeah. - Banger after banger. (chuckles) - You know, I think that's a whole other niche that's in recent years as physical media has kind of like had a resurgence, there are companies like Mondo that release soundtracks with- - I collect those, or I just started to. - Yeah. Oh, those are the best, and like, alternate artwork. I have a coffee table book that's all the Mondo soundtrack art that's like fascinating. And so, there really is something to be said about like, having the physical artifact and like having the artwork and being able to like,

put on a record and like listen to it recreationally as not just background, but like as an active experience. - I got a four vinyl set of the "World of Warcraft" 20th anniversary. And it's so beautiful and it's so nice to hold and look at and see all the care and detail they put into the art. I don't know if vinyl sounds better. I think some people would say yes, but it's got texture, it's grainy. - I'm not an audio file. I'm told that it has a warmth, a character, but it is cooler. 'Cause it's like, you know, you got the big, you know, it's like the ritual of like putting the needle on it and I get it, you know?

- The needle, watching it spin. That sounds kind of like how auteur directors are like, "I only shoot on film." "It must have this quality." - I think I mentioned this before. I worked on a musical project outside of Mozilla and we're looking into doing a vinyl pressing for the soundtrack, which will be. It takes months. It's a long process, but it's like fairly straightforward and it's kind of cool that there are like these print-on-demand services and like, there are ways of putting your music out there and there's a demand to do it physically.

Which, you know, is like decades ago it would've been unheard of for me to like upload some WAV files and like order my own vinyl. Like, that's insane. - And get the art made and get the special edition. I mean, Olivia Rodrigo's "drop dead" is available in at least nine different ways. - Yeah. - And it's, a lot of it is based on that, you know, that extra care and that quality that's added to the physical media.

- So yeah, I mean, pivoting, I guess to like newer music, other music, you mentioned soundtracks. I'm still somebody who likes to listen to full albums. Even though things have moved in the direction of singles. I still like the process of listening to a body of work, a collection of songs from start to finish. These days, depending on the artist, some people take it more seriously than others. There are some artists that are really into, like, the statement that you create with an album.

I would say one of the major, like most mainstream examples of it is Taylor Swift. She's like very serious about like, this album is called "Midnights" and there's a theme, you know? - "This is what it means." - It's like, yeah, it's a concept album, you know? - This is each contributing factor to the overall thesis. - And I respect that. An album that came out recently was RAYE's new album. "This Album May Contain Hope" is phenomenal.

Like, absolutely, like not a bad song on it. It's like the whole experience, it's so over the top, she collaborated with the London Symphony Orchestra. - Mm. - And you know, she's. There's a lot of like old school R&B influence. She's had some comparisons to Amy Winehouse so there's like a little bit of that vibe. But she's an amazing vocalist. There's one track that she collaborated on with Hans Zimmer. - Okay. - So I think as somebody who likes scores- - You're getting me onboard.

- You should check it out. The music videos are phenomenal. You know, we've talked about like vinyl versus CDs. I prefer CDs because they're more compact. They fit on my shelf. - It is in the name. - It is in the name. True to the name, they are indeed compact. It's also nostalgic for me 'cause that's what I grew up with. So, but you know, if I commit to buying an album on CD, it's something that it's like shelf-worthy, right? It's like something that I've listened to that I treasure that it's like, oh yeah, this is like something that, you know, it's almost like a desert island pick.

- I get it. - You know, it's like, if the internet went out and I just wanna listen to a CD, hopefully the, you know, electricity doesn't go out, (laughs) 'cause then, you know, I guess we're just sitting around the campfire playing songs in that case. - Maybe do this with books. - Right? (Kim laughing) Oh, there we go. Well, I mean, that's also an example. I mean, that's a whole other thing. - Well I only have, you know, books that I love on the shelf because if I had every book on the shelf- - Oh, yeah. - It would be too many books.

- It'd be overwhelming. Yeah, honestly, I'm somebody who's like, very minimalist in terms of what I have around me. I don't like a lot of clutter, but books are for me, like an acceptable type of clutter. I like piles of books everywhere. I think that makes you look smart. - I really wanna see what your home looks like. (Steve laughing) Just piles and piles of leather bound books. - Well, I'm in the process of moving right now, so it's a lot of boxes, but give us a few weeks and- - Okay. (Steve laughing) - We'll be settled in. But getting you back to the music, we talked a little bit about concerts and music festivals.

Coachella happened recently. - Somewhat recently. - It almost. It almost seems like moments like Coachella are engineered for those of us at home that, you know, it's a way to amplify what these artists are doing. You know, Justin Bieber and Sabrina Carpenter are recent examples of. You know, they had. It's interesting to juxtapose their sets because one was like hugely maximalist, like big theatrical production. - Massive production value. - And the other was very stripped down and informal. - Let's doom scroll, but on Maine. (Steve laughing) - And yeah, guess which one was which?

- We know. Everyone knows. But then, the Bieber reaction was way bigger. - [Steve] Yeah. - So maybe that lower level of production may. It kind of works in tune with how TikTok works, which is let's not go too crazy on how this looks. Let's just be authentic. - Yeah. It is fascinating to see because it was so different from what folks were expecting, I think, that generates conversation.

It is interesting. There was a lot of discourse around. So, Madonna's coming out with a new album and she joins Sabrina Carpenter at Coachella. There was a lot of discourse around the audience not really being into it, or- - They weren't vibing with "Like a Prayer" and they weren't singing along. Or was it "Like a Virgin" or "Like a Prayer?" - It was "Like a Prayer." - Okay. - And it was seen as kind of like a microcosm of the festival in general, where it's like people are there like watching the whole thing through their phones and they're not really like dancing or enjoying themselves

or at least not visibly. And I don't know what that says. - I think I know exactly what it says, which is like, proving you were there is more important than being there. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know? - Which is a whole other. There's a lot to unpack there, I feel like. - It's like when people take videos of fireworks and it's like, what are you doing? - Yeah. - Just experience this. It's going to be so much worse. And you're not gonna watch it later. - Yeah, yeah. You're not gonna watch it later. And you could watch lots of videos of fireworks and it's the same as watching it-

- It's the same thing. - Live through your phone. So you might as well watch it with your eyes. - That's my pet peeve, by the way. - Yeah, no, I mean, we talked about this or I went to a concert recently where I did not take out my phone and it was wonderful. - You'd film yourself singing. - I got to enjoy it. (Kim laughing) It was, you know, it's almost like I paid a lot of money to be there in person, and damn it, that's what I did.

- Mm. - So. - Okay. I guess. - But zooming out as we kind of wrap this up, I think as a music fan, there's almost never been a better time to discover music. There are so many ways that you have access to it. If you wanna get into physical media, you can do that. If you wanna, you know, listen to it on Spotify or Apple Music, you could do that too. You wanna go see it live. You know, there are just so many ways that you can interact. I suppose the takeaway is that tech isn't necessarily good or bad, but it's always shaping the experience.

- Well, I personally think there's a lot of bad, but there is a lot that I can control, so I will focus on that. - Well, on that note, we really wanna know what's your favorite way of listening to music. Let us know in the comments. - In the meantime, subscribe, and be sure to download Firefox because you know it's the best. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)