“It was too dark, too personal, too risky, not commercial. It wasn’t pop until it was on the radio”: How Lana Del Rey’s breakthrough hit transformed the contemporary pop landscape

Lana Del Rey.

At a time when the music industry generates $28.6 billion in global revenue a year, it’s easy to forget that 20 years ago, major labels faced an existential crisis as they battled the spectre of ‘free’ P2P filesharing and scrabbled to work out how they were going to make a profit from recorded music ever again.

Subscription-based music streaming would ultimately provide the answer. Conceived as a utility – like gas, electric or water – streaming would pump all the music a consumer would ever need, tap-like, into their homes, just as long as they paid their monthly subscription.