There was a time when I thought I’d never have a Spotify account. It seems inconceivable now that I would resist what has become unequivocally the most used tile in my iPhone’s entire bank of handy applications, yet I remember when mainstream music streaming was enjoying its initial signs of blossoming in the early 2010s and thinking that this was a medium I’d like to avoid. After all, a large category of streamable tracks hasn’t got anything on the pleasure one takes from actually owning a bespoke collection of tunes all to oneself, I thought.
My listening sessions were tethered to the old formats, and by that I mean a handful of battered Killers CDs and an Apple Music library onto which much of my early collection of music (think Muse, Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, an inexplicable obsession with Tina Turner) was subsequently burnt. How quaint it must seem now to look back at this antiquated medium of listening, to see it as but as mere stepping stone to the server-reliant subscription model services we now all take for granted. Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal – the present, if not the future, is very much defined by the streaming titans.
