Are streaming services like Spotify the new music journalism ?

Are streaming services like Spotify the new music journalism?

the new music journalism 


Have you heard the latest Led Zeppelin interviews? They’ve not been recorded and
 aired by a broadcaster or a music magazine

Instead, they’re available through streaming music service Spotify: the third instalment in its series of “Landmark” documentaries about classic albums following 
past looks at Nirvana’s Nevermind and Nas’ Illmatic.

This time round, it’s Led Zeppelin IV getting the treatment, with new audio interviews with surviving band members Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, presented as a Spotify playlist that mixes the chat with the remastered tracks.

Spotify isn’t the only digital music service getting into editorial: Google’s music team made a YouTube “mini-doc” about The Clash last year, while Scandinavian streaming service WiMP’s homepage mixes interviews and editorial with streams and videos.

All of these services have editorial teams

All of these services have editorial teams compiling playlists too, providing the curation that I grew up getting from weekly music magazines like NME and Melody Maker.

Meanwhile, music site Bandcamp is building a catalogue of reviews from fellow fans about the albums they’ve bought, while crowdfunding service PledgeMusic is providing the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff while albums are being made that I used to get from those magazines too.

It’s making me wonder: are digital music services increasingly the place where we’ll be finding what we traditionally think of as “music journalism”, from longform interviews to recommendations for new tracks?

Not necessarily as a replacement for traditional writing – there are more outlets than ever online, even if the economics of it are challenging – but as an additional channel where the music itself is woven into the journalism? Is Spotify the new NME, or the new Mojo, or the new Pitchfork, or something different entirely?

The comments thread is open for your thoughts, as well as your views on other technology talking points this morning. For example:
TechHive thinks that Google’s new guide to switching to Android “locks you into its cloud”. But is this a big concern?Facebook wants to start hosting articles from news publishers rather than just linking to their sites. The New York Times wonders if this means “media companies would essentially be serfs in a kingdom that Facebook owns”.
A startup called Yardam is making a “smart gun” for police that tracks every bullet they fire. Could this be a big step forward in controversial cases like the recent Ferguson shooting?
Can iPad apps help children learn to read? A recent study at New York University shows encouraging signs from a trial of an app called Learn With Homer.
Research firm Gartner thinks more than 217,000 3D printers will ship in 2015, rising to 2.3m in 2018. Is this technology really going to go mainstream?

A note on the new Open Thread format: regular Guardian Tech readers will have noticed that we’re experimenting with the format formerly known as Boot Up this week.

Today’s post already looks a little different to yesterday’s, as we explore a way to focus on one story in a bit more depth, while still providing some links to chat about. Your feedback on the format itself, as well as stories you’ve spotted online that deserve debate, is very welcome.

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