Across the streaming world, companies have been focused on adding features that make their top-tier subscriptions more valuable to the users who consume their content. Anime streamer Crunchyroll recently added access to a library of digital manga for top-paying customers. Spotify-somewhat belatedly-has begun offering high-quality audio for its Premium subscribers. SoundCloud is taking a different approach. It operates a standard streaming platform, with 100 million licensed tracks.
Yet for as many 99-cent songs as were purchased in the 2000s, anyone who spent time on that era's file-sharing networks can verify that the LP was still the most important unit for music obsessives. And it has remained so-albums are the venue for the most niche and audacious creative projects; they remain the organizing principle for press cycles and stadium tours; no one has gold mp3s hanging on their studio walls.
"Since Spotify came along, I have always felt skeptical and opposed to their platform. Because it became the norm, I felt like I had to just put up with it and take what I could get. Perhaps that was true more so in the nascent stages of my solo career, but it doesn't feel that way now."