This morning I got an email from Bandcamp announcing the new playlist feature. Users can now make playlists out of the music in their collections. Last week, Korean Weverse magazine published an articled titled “In the world of music, it all comes down to playlists”, whose subtitle reads “In the age of streaming, playlists are the default mode of listening”.
I have been thinking a lot about the topic lately, as someone who does radio for a living, and also as someone who is about to turn 30 and spends a lot of time on TikTok checking what younger people are doing. Despite me having worked behind the scenes of radio for 6 years and now being at the front about 10 times a month, every time one of my friends from back home suggests to start a new online radio station because there is none in our region, I am hesitant, pretty much in disagreement. It is not like I don’t see the value in it, and I truly love radio - but I wonder who is still listening. The fact there are more and more independent online radios, hence more opportunities for more people is great - I am not trying to say it should be elitist. But I wonder if nowadays there are more people making radio than people listening - and what’s the point if there are no listeners?
In part, this stems from personal fear, of course. I do my shows, put lots of effort in preparing them, only to realise that probably not that many people actually tuned in. Some might have liked my post on socials, they have even shared it perhaps, but have they actually listened? On the other hand though, I have been asking myself for a few years already “what’s next”. The ecosystem of online radios has sustained the so-called underground music scene for the past 10 years. It built people’s careers; created and consolidated local scenes around the world. But the players who started it all are now in the 30s and 40s, and it doesn’t seem to me that teenagers and people in their early 20s are flocking to online radios these days. Are online radios still relevant?
Younger people are making playlists. They have been making playlists for a long while actually, while we were making radio shows. The concept behind isn’t much different - in the end both are forms of music curation, and very similar ones. But playlists are made on established platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and so on) that are more widely available and used, and you don’t need to buy any music to make them. However, user playlists on Spotify for example are not easy to find. Spotify pushes their own algorithm-based playlists on users’ homepages but discovering user-made playlists, even ones made by brands or institutions, for instance the ones by fashion brand The Row, is almost impossible unless you know they are there.
Here come independent online radios then: No algorithm leading you and real people at the front. Easy to find real users’ selections. And more music: Music which is not available on big corporate platforms and music which hasn’t been released yet. Much easier to find never-before-heard music. However, Bandcamp now allowing users to make playlists though is very good competition, I believe. As small a platform it might be compared to the big streaming giants, it actually caters to the same listeners (and makers!) of online radio shows. I don’t mean it’s competing with Spotify; it’s definitely competing with independent online radios though - even if their goal is more likely to be an alternative to Spotify.
One thing I find fascinating and also baffling about the music industry is that there seems to be such a big divide between how the so-called mainstream and the so-called underground music scenes operate that sometimes it feels like they are two worlds apart, which only seldom overlap. I don’t think the same happens in art or fashion, not to the same degree at least. Being someone who is very much into mainstream K-pop, yet very much immersed in the underground independent scene, I think about this all the time. One of the main reasons I have been attracted to the South Korean music scene is that the divide is very much less pronounced - but this is a conversation for another time. What I mean to say is, often I see new ways of listening and engaging with music unfold in the mainstream scene, that the underground scene just does not want to acknowledge or even just see. Whether we like these changes or not is not the point - changes happen despite our preferences and wishes. I believe we should adapt and find ways to fight the system from within if we don’t like the shape it is taking. Pretending people aren’t listening to music in new ways is not beneficial in any way to anyone. Even worse, dismissing the fact people are listening to music in such new ways because “our way is the correct way” or because “real music lovers don’t do that” is elitist and conservative. Resisting change is just pointless. Have you ever heard of Darwin’s theory of evolution?
Seo Seongdeok, a music critic, wrote on the abovementioned article published on Weverse magazine on February 13th:
Streaming fundamentally changed the music industry and the way we listen to music. […] Radio stations and DJs were the gatekeepers of new music and measures of who had similar taste. […] You would purchase an album and then it would become a part of your personal music library. […] There’s no longer any point in having a music library when you can choose from more than 100 million songs at all times. […]
Playlists are at the very center of the services that combine discovering and listening to music into one experience. Everyone wants it to be quick and easy to find music that’s new and interesting but still aligns with their tastes. […]
Even Spotify themselves didn’t have any idea at the outset that playlists would play such a crucial role. In the earliest days of the service, playlists were just a way for listeners to share their tastes with others and make recommendations. This falls in line with the rest of the Internet prior to 2010, when sharing was the keyword behind every service. But playlists now do much heavier lifting than simply making music known. […]
This isn’t just empty talk, either— it’s proof that playlists aren’t just a way for music to find a paying audience but something that fully encapsulates all the different ways we enjoy our music. […] We no longer listen to singles and albums—we listen to playlists. Because music is playlists.
Nowadays more people than ever listen to music. You might got so used to it you do not pay much attention to it anymore but music is literally everywhere, very few places have been left silent: Music is playing in the background of every café and every single store around the world (And I hate it. But this is also a conversation for another time). How are all these people listening and how is this music played? I would say 8, if not 9, times out of 10 music is streamed. And what’s streamed is most of the times not albums but playlists (both algorithm-based and user-made). And some of these playlists are made of songs which people have heard on TikTok - not just the viral ones but also the ones recommended by TikTok creators of different degrees of popularity.
So where do we go from there? How is the underground scene going to evolve? I have been racking my brain but I still don’t have an answer to “what’s next?”. I wonder if these days we make radio shows anyway, even if we feel not so many are listening, because showing you are doing it might still be somehow effective. Who knows - hopefully one day the right person will notice, will listen, and will offer you a gig. But if the goal is to make a sustainable career out of it, is this still a viable method? And aren’t those people who could offer you something checking other platforms instead? Instagram is dying too.
This also inevitable leads to a conversation about DJs and artists having to promote themselves - which now I cannot really tackle in full but it’s worth noting at least this: It is difficult to avoid it. For many it is frustrating as they don’t necessarily want to do it, or are simply not just good at it. Others are discouraged, even when they are good at it, because they don’t want to come across as cringe and attention-seeking and worry about not to be taken seriously. I wonder daily what I am supposed to do as a radio DJ who, in all honesty, would like to live off of it. I wonder daily where the music industry is going and how we should navigate it. Should we all make playlists instead?
I really loved that article by the way. So informative and philosophical at the same time. This should be published somewhere!