The Streaming Shift That Changed Country Music

Country music has always been three chords and the truth.

But the way those truths and chords get delivered to and consumed by country music fans has changed, thus changing the actual recording of the music that they are streaming.

As a radio host for almost 30 years, I’ve seen some musical trends come and go, but none have been more earth-rattling for music than streaming. Let me explain.

Streaming Has Affected the Length of Songs

Country songs, like all other recorded music, previously came to us in a physical form that you could hold and own. When you got the 8-track, cassette or CD, you took good care of it and you weren’t looking at the length of the track, you just put it in and pressed play.

Now that we stream music, the length of the song is in our face, and some people won’t even give a song a chance if it’s over four minutes long.

Our attention spans as humans has dwindled down to seconds, so if the song looks long, it can subconsciously deter the listener from enjoying it.

I’ve talked to the stars of country music for years, and here’s what they won’t tell you: the sound you hear on the radio isn’t the whole story. It’s just a snapshot of what the story would have and could have been, had the listener’s attention span not been altered by streaming platforms.

Streaming Has Led to More Genre-Blending Collaborations

With the way music is consumed nowadays, people are more likely to want to hear a song that has a featured artist credited on it.

For example, let’s say Kane Brown is your favorite artist and you see he has a song featuring another artist you like in another genre — say, Marshmello — when you see the two names together on one song, you are most likely going to want to stream it right away.

Whereas back in the day, you would have to hear it on the radio enough times to want to go to the record store and ask the employee if there is a way to buy the song with the two artists on it, and they would sometimes say that it isn’t being physically sold, just a radio single.

Streaming eliminates that in today’s world of music consumption, as the two artists can just release the song on all streaming platforms, tell people on social media about it, and get streams off of that.

Streaming Has Led to the Demise of the Recorded Album

Country artists nowadays have to have a couple of streaming hits under their belt before they can actually record a whole album.

READ MORE: Morgan Wallen Outsells Garth, Carrie, Luke + More — Top 10 Highest-Selling Country Artists of All Time

Previously, you recorded an album and hoped people bought the whole thing and picked out songs they liked.

Now, you can just post one song here and there on streaming platforms to get or stay top-of-mind to your audience, so you can release songs more often and with less thought or trouble.

Artists Only Get Pennies for Each Stream as Opposed to Money From Record Sales

When full albums were all the rage, and we paid an average of $15 per album, the artists got to see more of that money than they do now from streaming revenue.

Spotify pays artists about $0.003 – $0.005 per stream, Apple Music pays artists around $0.007 – $0.01 per stream and Amazon Music pays roughly $0.004 – $0.006 per stream.

All in all, the streaming platforms for music have changed the game.

Like with any change, it comes with some pushback and non-adaptors, but for those artists who have learned to utilize it in their favor, it seems to pay off in the long run.