Music on-demand: A commentary on the changing relationship between music taste,consumption and class in the streaming age

Abstract

From providing on-demand access to vast catalogues of recorded music at little or no cost to the use of Big Data to personalise the experience of consuming music, music streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music, have the potential to disrupt the part that music taste plays in the performance of class identities and the reproduction of class privilege in ways not previously encountered. The influential sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, demonstrated that cultural taste – what and how people consume cultural goods, such as music, food and fashion – is shaped by class background and in doing so serves to mark and reproduce class differences in everyday life. In this commentary, I consider how sociologists might address the important but challenging question of if and how are music streaming platforms shaping the part that music taste plays in the performance of class identities and the cultural reproduction of class privilege. I discuss some ways in which music streaming platforms may be shaping how class identities are performed through how people consume music, drawing attention to consumption practices that have the potential to both involve and resist the use of music streaming platforms in the pursuit of social distinction.

The disruptive potential of music streaming platforms

In recent years, music streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music, have radically transformed how many people access and engage with recorded music. For free in exchange for a monthly subscription fee of around £9.99, these platforms facilitate on-demand access to catalogues of over 50 million songs, alongside podcasts, videos and lyrics. Not only this, music streaming platforms actively seek to shape what and how people engage with recorded music. Through the provision of editorially curated (e.g., Spotify’s ‘Rap Caviar’ playlist) and personalised playlists and recommendations (e.g., Spotify’s ‘Discover Weekly’), these platforms are curating the experience of consuming music. They are making determinations about what music is relevant to situations, activities and moods, individually and at scale. This mass curation is powered by the immense troves of digital data these platforms pervasively collect about who their users are and what and how they engage with music in everyday life. These transformations are not limited to the musical field. From film and television to online retail, platform-based businesses, such as Netflix and Amazon, have made it easier than ever before to access large volumes of cultural goods, and they have made great strides in personalising the online experience of consuming culture.

The influential sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu (1984), demonstrated that cultural taste plays an important role in the cultural reproduction of class inequalities. Bourdieu examined how the formation of cultural taste is shaped by class background, resulting in differences in taste serving as a marker of class divisions. In turn, being able to consume the ‘right’ culture in the ‘right’ way has the potential to be converted into social and economic opportunities, such as by helping people to ‘fit in’, form alliances, and succeed in formal education. At Bourdieu’s time of writing in the 1960s, the tastes of the dominant classes were characterised by the exclusive consumption of highbrow culture, such as classical music, whilst the dominated classes engaged with popular and ‘low’ forms of culture, such as popular music. Over time, sociologists have refined our understanding of the relationship between class, culture and consumption. The concept of cultural omnivore was introduced to describe a qualitative change in how class privilege is performed through cultural taste, away from the exclusive consumption of highbrow culture to a more pluralistic engagement with cultural forms spanning hierarchies of highbrow and lowbrow (Peterson and Kern, 1996; Savage and Gayo, 2011; Warde and Gayo-Cal, 2009).

Music streaming platforms have the potential to disrupt the part that music taste plays in the performance of class identities and the reproduction of class privilege in ways not previously encountered. In principle, these platforms make it possible for anyone to access any music at any time. Music no longer has to be purchased as these companies rent access to music for free or in exchange for a subscription fee of around £9.99 a month; access to music is no longer bound to socially regulated spaces, such as the record store or nightclub, as music can be accessed anytime, anywhere using an Internet-enabled device (e.g., smartphone); and these platforms encourage engagement with music through the creation of playlists and recommendations, such as workout playlists and the best in new music. The profound ease at which music can be consumed in the streaming age has the potential to reconfigure the formation of social differences in music taste. This is because no one style of music is exclusively the domain of any social group, as the history of recorded music is available at little or no cost to anyone with an Internet connection.

Furthermore, Big Data and the use of music recommendation technologies (i.e., computational systems designed to predict the relevance of music by analysing patterns in past listening behaviour and/or the objective characteristics of music) has the potential to detach the formation of taste from class-related socialisation processes (Beer, 2013; Wright, 2015). Whereas for Bourdieu (1984) class background plays an important part in the formation of taste, with our families, friends and schools exposing us to different ideas, values and cultural norms, music streaming platforms are exploiting immense troves of digital data about music preferences to make decisions about what music is relevant at any given point in time (Jansson and Hracs, 2018; Webster et al., 2016). For example, Spotify regularly updates the contents of its ‘homepage’ for each individual user according to a variety of factors, such as the time of day, individual music preferences, and recent listening history. As the popularity of music streaming platforms grows and their troves of digital data about individual music preferences rapidly expand, they have the potential to influence everyday musical encounters at an unprecedented rate and scale.

These radical changes to the availability of music raise an important question: In the streaming age, does music taste still have a part to play in the performance of class identities and the reproduction of class privilege? In this commentary, I suggest that whilst differences in what music people consume may no longer play an important role in the cultural reproduction of class, differences in how people consume music may still serve as an important arena for achieving class distinction and is worthy of further empirical investigation. This commentary discusses why differences in how people consume music are important and it identifies some relevant areas for future research.

From what to how people consume recorded music

Sociology has been confronted before by claims about the ‘death of class’. Giddens (1991) argued that in the face of increasing globalisation and the decline of traditional collective-based identities, such as the firm, family, neighbourhood and social class, individuals are required to reflexively negotiate and construct their own lifestyles. Social structures, such as those based on gender, class and ethnicity, still persist, yet the individual chooses what and how to act with respect to them. Similarly, Beck (1992) argued that western societies are entering a phase of ‘reflexive’ modernisation, where structures and relations such as class, employment, gender and the family are less significant as frames through which identities are constructed. As Beck (1997: 95) put it: ‘… the individual as actor, designer, juggler and stage director of his or her own biography, identity, social networks, commitments and convictions’.

However, sociologists have rebuked these claims and demonstrated that class is still an important part of contemporary life, but how it manifests has changed (Savage, 2000). Rather than emerging through the formation of coherent class groups (e.g., the working classes), class structures social life in a more implicit and individualised fashion. Indeed, the reflexive and globalised identities and lifestyles described by Giddens and Beck are, in fact, better understood as manifestations of class identity for privileged groups in society (Atkinson, 2007; Savage, 2000). It is a way for individuals with access to social, economic and cultural capital to distinguish themselves as members of the dominant classes and take advantage of the social and economic opportunities opened up by globalisation.

The development of the concept of the cultural omnivore incorporates this shift in perspective. The rise of the cultural omnivore raises questions about the relationship between cultural taste and class identities. When focussing our analysis on differences in what people consume, cultural omnivorousness suggests that class background is no longer contributing to the formation of distinctive and coherent class tastes. However, more recent studies of the cultural omnivore have demonstrated that differences in how people consume culture remain an important way to achieve class distinction (Savage and Gayo, 2011; Warde and Gayo-Cal, 2009). Class privilege is performed through a person’s ability to confidently and knowingly navigate between diverse cultural forms.

New forms of class distinction in the streaming age

Recent studies of the cultural omnivore remind us that cultural manifestations of class are not ‘dead’. Rather, we need to shift our analytical gaze to incorporate differences in how people consume culture to attend to the structuring effect of class. Although music streaming platforms may have made it easier than ever before to fluidly engage with diverse musical forms, it is important to remember that people still bring their classed practices and perspectives to bear on how they consume music, as well as gendered, generational, ethnic or other social differences in music consumption practices. In what follows, I suggest some ways in which we might focus our analysis of how music streaming platforms are shaping how people consume music. I propose that future research could consider how people engage with recorded music both within and beyond the virtual spaces of music streaming platforms.

Exploiting the technical affordances of music streaming platforms

Music streaming platforms present a range of affordances to music consumers, from on-demand access to music to tools for discovering new and existing releases. Future research might examine if and how music streaming platforms have created opportunities to achieve class distinction that incorporate the technical affordances of these platforms. For example, the practice of playlist curation may represent a new arena for achieving class distinction. As well as creating and managing their own branded playlists, music streaming platforms afford people the ability to create and share playlists. People can create a playlist from scratch or take a pre-existing playlist and add, arrange and remove tracks. People can follow a person’s playlists and receive updates about changes, allowing a followership to be built. Playlist creation may represent a new arena for achieving distinction, as it creates opportunities for people to cultivate and deploy their musical expertise to develop a reputation online. Indeed, music streaming platforms have created economic opportunities for successful playlist curators, as they hire people to create and manage their suites of branded music playlists, in principle making it possible to convert musical expertise into social and economic opportunities (Barna, 2017; Webster, 2019).

It is also important to be attentive to how people critically engage with the curation performed by music streaming platforms. It is relevant to consider if and how people from different class backgrounds experience curation in different ways. For example, the curation performed by music streaming platforms might be perceived as a ‘threat’ to people who pride themselves on their musical expertise and mobilise it in the pursuit of class distinction. Through the provision of personalised playlists and recommendations, music streaming platforms are seeking to alleviate the labour involved in finding relevant music, attempting to perform as a ‘taste-maker’ for each individual user. In contrast for those who have a more casual relationship with music, the judgements made by music streaming platforms about what is ‘right’ for them might not be so contentious. Indeed, these differences in the experience of using music streaming platforms may be shaped by other social factors, such as gender, as masculine identities are traditionally associated with notions of musical connoisseurship (Straw, 1997). We need to account for the differentiated ways people from different class backgrounds use music streaming platforms, exploring the possibility for class divisions in music consumption practices to emerge through platform use.

Looking beyond the use of music streaming platforms

Future research might consider if and how opportunities to achieve class distinction have emerged outside the virtual spaces of music streaming platforms. For example, the consumption of vinyl LPs has experienced a resurgence in recent years (Hracs and Jansson, 2017; Webster, 2019). Newspaper reports have highlighted that this resurgence is being led by a younger generation of consumers, contrasting with the stuffy, male and heteronormative image of the record collector (Ellis-Peterson, 2017). Intriguingly, much of this growth has occurred in mature markets with high levels of music streaming penetration, such as the US, UK and Sweden, the home of the market-leading platform, Spotify (IFPI, 2019). This invites us to consider if and how the vinyl revival is related to the rise of music streaming platforms and the ways in which they mediate access to music.

An interesting parallel can be drawn here between the vinyl revival and the Slow Food movement. In reaction to the fast-paced, quantity-orientated production techniques of the fast-food industry, the Slow Food movement celebrates more authentic convivial eating practices and the sustainable production and consumption of local produce (Pietrykowski, 2004). Yet, this movement also represents privileged ways of engaging with food, as it demands high levels of disposable income and specialised knowledge to source out the ‘right’ goods to consume (Goodman, 2004). The vinyl revival might represent a similarly privileged response to the radical changes in the availability of recorded music outlined above. The high cost of new vinyl releases and the knowledge needed to consume them creates opportunities for those with the right resources to consume music in a manner distinct from using music streaming platforms. The vinyl revival may serve as an authentic alternative to streaming that slows down the experience of consuming music and restores music’s material presence in everyday life. Moreover, a renewed interest in the materiality of music consumption may also extend to the devices used to consume music via music streaming platforms. From the brand of smartphone used to access music to the headphones used to listen to it, ownership of both old and new technologies has potential to represent new forms of social distinction.

Conclusion

Not only have they made vast amounts of recorded music available at little or no cost, music streaming platforms are actively shaping what and how people engage with it. These radical changes to the availability of music have the potential to shape the part that music taste plays in the performance of class identities and the reproduction of class privilege. This commentary has suggested that whilst differences in what music people consume may no longer serve such an important role in the formation and reproduction of class divisions, differences in how people consume music may still be an important arena for achieving class distinction in the streaming age. Indeed, this may not only be the case for recorded music, but other cultural arenas, such as TV and fashion, which have traditionally played an important part in the pursuit of class distinction yet have also experienced similarly disruptive changes to the availability of cultural goods and how people consume them.

The suggestions made in this commentary focussed on the implicit and individualised nature of class identities and how music streaming platforms might be shaping how they manifest through music taste and consumption practices. Yet, the ways in which music streaming platforms mediate access to music through the use of music recommendation technologies invite us to also question if and how these platforms are reproducing social divisions in music taste at scale. However, this is by no means a straightforward task. Greater clarity is needed about what data these platforms collect about people’s identities and interactions with recorded music, how this data is used to categorise individuals and groups, and how these categorisations are used to determine what music people see. With a better understanding of how these platforms operate in technical terms, there is an opportunity for sociologists to intervene and interrogate the social implications of the sorting and classification processes underpinning personalisation. In doing so, sociologists can better understand how the relationship between taste, class and consumption is changing in a world where cultural encounters are increasingly shaped by platforms, Big Data and computation.