Sorry musicians, but approximately 50% of the time, this is exactly what I want. I'm not actually listening to the music, it's just aural wallpaper.
I see this as two separate markets:
- there's music I actively want to listen to, even sing along to, maybe even dance to, that needs to be full of emotional resonance and relatable lyrics. Stuff I'll talk to my friends about, or ponder the meaning of at length, and dig into.
- then there's the background stuff that should be (in the words of the article) "as milquetoast as possible". It's just there to cover up incidental sounds and aid my concentration on some other task (usually coding). If it makes me feel anything or it snags my attention at all then it's failing.
So it's not a devaluation of music in the streaming era, it's just a different, possibly new, way of listening (or not) to music.
I really don't see the harm in Spotify sourcing this background stuff cheaply and providing it in bulk. As the article says, this is not "artistic output" from a musician expressing their soul.
It's the difference between an oil painting and wallpaper - both are pictures put on the wall, but they serve very different purposes and have very different business models. We don't object to wallpaper being provided cheaply in bulk, without crediting the artist. But we would consider treating an oil painting in the same way as borderline immoral.