Streaming
Since 2008. Spotify and the playlist as gatekeeper, per-stream rates and the payout arguments, TikTok breaking songs, YouTube as the world's biggest music service, algorithmic recommendation, and the way release strategy bent to fit it.
Part of Pop
44 moments in this segment.
- - Steve Jobs introduces the iPod, October 2001. Full Apple music event at which Jobs unveiled the iPod, the device that carried the music library into the pocket.
- - Napster and the culture of free. Retro Report for the New York Times on the 1999 file-sharing program built in a Boston dorm room and the shock it delivered to the record industry.
- - From the phonograph to Spotify: a short history of the music industry. WSJ runs the technology chain from Edison's 1877 phonograph through to the streaming era and asks whether the industry can keep reinventing itself.
- - Bob Ludwig and George Massenburg: The Loudness War Is Over. AES 2019 panel with mastering engineers Bob Ludwig, George Massenburg, Young Guru and Tom Lund on whether streaming loudness normalisation ended the loudness war.
- - An app called Napster. Bloomberg's System Shock episode one on Shawn Fanning's dorm-room program and the moment recorded music stopped being scarce.
- - How Record Deals Actually Work. FT Film on advances, royalty splits and streaming payouts, including how many streams it takes an artist to earn minimum wage.
- - Billboard explains the Hot 100. Short official explainer of how the Hot 100 is compiled from streaming, sales and airplay.
- - What actually happens after a song goes viral on TikTok. Vox and The Pudding built custom datasets tracking songs from TikTok virality through to chart and career outcomes, with input from hit songwriters and label executives.
- - The playlistification of music. Venus Theory on how playlist-led listening reshapes what gets made, from track sequencing to the incentive to front-load a song.
- - Burna Boy: The 'I Told Them...' Interview - Apple Music. Long-form interview with the Nigerian artist on the album cycle that took Afrofusion into American stadiums.
- - Has Streaming Made It Harder to Love New Music?. PBS Sound Field examines how algorithmic recommendation changes listening habits and the relationship between listener and record.
- - Coke Studio Pakistan: a live rehearsal jam. A filmed rehearsal of Piya Piya Calling from Coke Studio Pakistan season 15, the live-in-studio series that made Pakistani pop a global streaming presence.
- - Björk: The Cornucopia Interview - Apple Music. A fifty-minute interview with Björk about the staging of Cornucopia, from an artist who has spent thirty years refusing conventional pop formats.
- - Musicians push back on dwindling streaming payments. PBS NewsHour on how Spotify conquered distribution while many of the artists who supply the catalogue see shrinking per-stream income.
- - IFPI's chief executive on what is driving industry growth. Euronews interviews Victoria Oakley, head of the global recording-industry body IFPI, on the 2025 Global Music Report and where streaming revenue is coming from.
- - The state of the music business in 2025. An hour-long SXSW 2025 keynote panel on how global streaming and direct distribution have reshaped the balance of power between artists, labels and platforms.
- - Hikaru Utada on SCIENCE FICTION, touring and fame - Zane Lowe interview. A fifty-six-minute Apple Music interview with the artist behind Japan's best-selling album, covering her retreat from fame and her return to touring.
- - How musicians actually make money from streaming. BBC World Service explains the royalty chain and why artists from Taylor Swift down have contested label payouts.
- - The argument over what a stream is worth. More Perfect Union's investigation into why streaming revenue keeps growing while most working musicians' incomes do not, published July 2025.
- - Deezer's CEO on the battle against AI music. Critic Anthony Fantano interviews Deezer chief executive Alexis Lanternier at length about how a streaming service can identify and handle AI-generated uploads.
- - Burna Boy tops Spotify's global Afrobeats ranking for 2025. Nigerian broadcaster TVC News on Spotify's 2025 Afrobeats data and what the streaming numbers say about the genre's export position.
- - An AI-generated act reaches a Billboard radio chart. CBC on Xania Monet entering Billboard's Adult R&B Airplay survey, the first known AI act on a Billboard radio chart.
- - An AI-generated song tops a Billboard chart. Good Morning America on Walk My Walk, an AI-generated country track that reached number one in November 2025, and the backlash from country artists.
- - Rick Beato on the first AI number one. Musician and analyst Rick Beato examines what it actually means that an AI-generated song reached the top of a Billboard chart in late 2025.
- - AI music generator Suno raises $250m at a $2.45bn valuation. Forbes on Suno's November 2025 funding round, and the tension between its rising valuation and artists generated on it appearing on the charts.
- - What does the future of the music industry look like?. Al Jazeera's The Stream convenes critics and industry figures on a decade of streaming dominance and the online reviewer economy.
- - AI rewrites the rules in music. France 24 reports on the surge of AI-generated tracks in December 2025, and how convincingly they now fool listeners.
- - After the TikTok deal, an uncertain future. Reuters analysis of ByteDance's binding agreement to hand TikTok's US operations to an investor group including Oracle, and what it means for the platform.
- - YouTube pulls its streaming data out of the Billboard charts. News report on YouTube ending its data supply to Billboard from 16 January 2026, citing how ad-supported streams are weighted.
- - Should AI artists be allowed to chart?. Billboard hosts a debate between the manager of AI artist Xania Monet and a critic of AI music, on whether synthetic acts should compete on the same charts as humans.
- - The year in music, 2025. PBS NewsHour reviews 2025's chart-toppers and breakout artists with critic Maura Johnston, including the fierce argument over AI-generated acts.
- - How AI is changing the music industry. A Bloomberg Tech Europe episode from January 2026 on artificial artists, AI-remixed records and what generative tools are doing to the streaming business.
- - A.R. Rahman on Roja, the Oscars and AI - BBC Asian Network. An 86-minute BBC interview covering Rahman's whole career from the 1992 film Roja through Slumdog Millionaire to his views on AI in music.
- - TikTok finalises its US joint venture. Reuters on ByteDance completing the majority-American-owned joint venture in January 2026, ending the ban threat over an app used by more than 200 million Americans.
- - The Recording Academy president on the threat of AI music. BBC News interviews Panos A. Panay, president of the body that runs the Grammys, on how AI and streaming are reshaping the business at artists' expense.
- - Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX halftime show. Bad Bunny performed the Apple Music halftime show at Super Bowl LX in February 2026, a largely Spanish-language set on American football's biggest stage.
- - Breaking down how Spotify pays musicians. CBS Saturday Morning visits Spotify's offices to explain how streaming royalties actually reach artists.
- - The hidden business of AI music flooding streaming. Le Monde's investigation into AI tracks saturating Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music, reporting 60,000 AI songs uploaded to Deezer every day in January 2026.
- - Songwriters Got Poorer, and AI Is Next. Rick Beato in conversation on the collapse of songwriter income under streaming economics and what generative AI does to the writing profession.
- - Tidal begins labelling AI music and cutting its royalties. Tidal's editor-in-chief explains a 2026 policy flagging fully AI-generated tracks and denying them royalty payments.
- - Dua Lipa and the future of pop. ARTE's feature documentary on how a contemporary pop star is built and marketed across streaming, touring and image.
- - Why Does the Spotify Top 10 Sound Like AI?. Rick Beato works through the current Spotify chart asking whether generative tools have already reshaped what reaches the top of streaming.
- - Spotify will label AI music and stop recommending it. CBS News on Spotify's August 2026 decision to tag AI-generated tracks and keep them out of its recommendation system.
- - Why AI music is now labelled on streaming sites. BBC World Service on the rise of AI personas and fully AI-generated releases, and the platforms' labelling response.
