Best Streamin Podcasts (2024)

1
Keep on Streamin’ in the Free World 1:02:04

13d ago1:02:04

1:02:04

This week, we take a roundabout tour of the platform power that drives our musical landscape. First up is Neil Young, whose one-man stand against Spotify for its support of Joe Rogan just ended in….well…total defeat. We explore why Ol' Neil was unable to escape the musical monopsony that defines our streaming age (with a few detours into the terror…

1
Millennials Nostalgia Tour 31:24

6d ago31:24

31:24

Dear Listener, Have you found yourself coming down with more consistent cases of nostalgia lately? Do you consider yourself a millennial? Well, if so, you might be soon buying a pricey concert ticket to one of the hottest trends in live music: The 20 year Anniversary Album Tour. Yes, your favorite album of 2004 (or perhaps 2014) can soon be heard l…

1
A Living Wage and a Tik Tok Ban: Could…Congress Transform Music? 1:11:03

1M ago1:11:03

1:11:03

Much of the time, it feels like almost nothing could shake up the streaming status-quo. This isn’t one of those times. Over the past week, Congressperson Rashida Tlaib (with support from the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers) released the Living Wage for Musicians Act—a fascinating piece of legislation that (if passed) would completely transfor…

1
Imagine Dragons: The Most Popular Band of the Millennium? 1:09:36

2M ago1:09:36

1:09:36

Is rock dead? Not according to Imagine Dragons. You know the band with 10 different billion-streamed songs? The one that’s sold 46 million records? You’ve definitely heard of them, but....have you ever really HEARD them? Probably not. And that’s because despite being the most successful band of the past 25 years, Imagine Dragons has received next t…

1
Universal VS. TikTok: The Showdown No One Should Have Wanted 29:47

2M ago29:47

29:47

This past week, negotiations broke down between Universal Music—the biggest and most powerful of the three major labels—and Tik Tok, the world’s most viral social media platform. The result: Universal’s music has been pulled—almost entirely—from the mimetic app. It’s a show of raw muscle the likes of which we haven’t seen for years, and the implica…

1
Pitchfork, GQ, and the Music Criticism Lifestyle 1:07:00

3M ago1:07:00

1:07:00

Like the rest of the increasingly small world of music criticism, we were shaken by the news that Pitchfork had not only been more-or-less gutted by publisher Conde Nast, but pulled into GQ. Gentleman’s Quarterly. Of all possible things. G-freaking-Q...? We’re not gonna lie—this one feels grim. But, what kind of grim? Events split the team, with Sa…

1
Royalty Rumble at Spotify and a Crisis at Hipgnosis 58:45

3M ago58:45

58:45

New year, same old music business. To get things kicked off right, we circle back to check in on two of our favorite industry players, and things….well, we hate to tell you, but things aren’t GREAT, you know? Regarding Hipgnosis, the once high-flying music fund is very much in hot water—conflicts of interest flying, shareholders revolting, and boar…

1
BMI Sells Out 58:58

4M ago58:58

58:58

When we heard that BMI, an organization designed to collect money on behalf of songwriters, had decided (on its own?) to drop its non-profit status and go for the cash, our response was confusion. Like—can they even do that? What does that even MEAN? But then BMI sold themselves to a private equity fund. Backed by Google. And now...we’re concerned.…

1
Can You Actually Support This Podcast On Patreon? (w/Penny Fractions) 47:38

5M ago47:38

47:38

This time Sam and David Turner dig into the financially rocky patch in which Patreon—the name that launched a thousand podcasts—has recently found itself. Looking at the longer trajectory of the fan-funding platform, they try to piece together how it moved from a replacement for YouTube ads to a supposed panacea for the value collapse of musical (a…

1
E-Zoo and the Future of Nightlife 57:55

6M ago57:55

57:55

Over the summer, New York’s premier EDM festival Electric Zoo descended deep into the Fyre Fest zone—that magical place combining blatant rip-off and profoundly unsafe conditions. Purchased by by owners of Brooklyn mega-club Avant Gardner the previous year, the latest edition of the three-day rave took the Bold and Forward Thinking step of mixing a…

1
Bandcamp Blues: (Penny Fractions 4 Nothing) 44:18

6M ago44:18

44:18

Hi folks! As part of our collaboration with Penny Fractions, we are bringing you the first episode of a new format—David, Saxon, and Sam, thinking through our moment in an off-the-cuff convo about current events. We hope you like it! The music industry was recently shaken by news around beloved marketplace/web-magazine Bandcamp, where half of the s…

1
Scooter, Baby! The Life and Times of the Most 2010’s Manager You Can Possibly Imagine 59:29

6M ago59:29

59:29

First off—big news in Money 4 Nothing-land. We’ve just OFFICIALLY joined forces with the amazing Penny Fractions newsletter to create a new and almighty Voltron (Sailors Moon?) of critical coverage on the music industry. We’ll be rolling out exciting new projects over the next few months, so please stay tuned! And now, on with the show… When news b…

1
Moog’s World: The Story Behind the Synthesizer Behind Modern Music (feat. Albert Glinsky) 1:22:36

7M ago1:22:36

1:22:36

If you listen to essentially any piece of contemporary music, you’re likely—more than likely—to hear the influence of Bob Moog. Moog invented the first modular synthesizer, a device for creating electronic sound simultaneously more powerful and more accessible than anything that had come before. Initially adopted by the avant-garde, Moogs were quic…

1
State of Pl-A(i) With Cherie Hu 1:09:54

8M ago1:09:54

1:09:54

Machine Learning. It’s in the news, and increasingly, it's in our tunes. Somehow. Maybe? Given the ravenous hype cycles of tech, it can be extremely difficult to separate the real, the potentially real, the squint-and-maybe-you-can-see it, and “the SEC wants to speak to you now” of it all. To try and get a better sense of how AI is factoring into t…

1
Astroworld and the opposite of ”Utopia” 1:01:20

9M ago1:01:20

1:01:20

On Nov 5th, 2021, the first night of Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival collapsed into horror—a terrible crowd crush at the Houston event killed 10, and reportedly injured thousands. In the wake of the catastrophe, fingers were pointed at Scott, at Live Nation, at the Police, at Rap music, at “the kids.” And then? Silence. We didn’t really know wha…

1
Super Fans and Super Strikes 1:03:20

9M ago1:03:20

1:03:20

This week, the crew digs into two timely stories providing some new perspective on this crazy little thing called music. First, they dig into the rising influence of so-called “super fans”: folks who consume content from their favorite artists along 5 or more distinct channels. According to recent research they are not just a thing—they’re increasi…

1
Ambient Music: Functionality and Liberating Potentials 1:07:08

10M ago1:07:08

1:07:08

"Ambient Music" has seen a renewed interest for reasons that we can only speculate. 2016 election? Increased atomization of individuals? The multi-headed hell-scape of pandemic + climate change + economic woes? Sure. Whatever the reason, the past decade as seen a revival of soundscapes and synths that is both helping us escape from the toils of our…

1
K-Pop Merger Mania (feat. the Idolcast) 1:11:13

10M ago1:11:13

1:11:13

Early this year, K-pop was the site of some truly Succession level drama, as Hybe (the company that launched BTS) attempted to steal SM Entertainment (a longtime mainstay of the industry) out from under Kakao (a Facebook + Spotify level media conglomerate). The story had it all: legendary businessman refusing to go quietly, alleged stock market man…

1
Merlin and What It Means (and Meant) to be Indie 1:02:24

11M ago1:02:24

1:02:24

It used to be so simple. There were the major labels (all 6 of them, or whatever) and there were the independents or "the indies." Over the 80’s and 90s, a position initially adopted out of economic necessity grew into a distinctive cultural mode, with a host of aesthetic and political dimensions. Now things have changed and being "indie" no longer…

1
The Great Music AI Contradiction (Live at Wavelengths Summit) 48:59

12M ago48:59

48:59

Everyone is talking about AI—and that includes the music biz. No one is disputing the wide-ranging potential of these new tools, but is our rapidly-approaching deep-fake future really (or at least, FULLY) being driven by technology? Sam and Saxon offer a dissenting voice to the cloud of excitement hovering around our up-and-coming machine overlords…

1
Blurred Lines and the Future of Copyright 1:07:33

12M ago1:07:33

1:07:33

Five years ago, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams finally lost the (musical) lawsuit of the century. Their song, “Blurred Lines,” had been an inescapable summertime hit, a wedding-DJ-standby, and the center of a very Obama-Era debate over whether it was creepy to have a song called “Blurred Lines” in the first place (it was.) Now, it was also foun…

1
Inside the Algorithm Factory: Music Recommendations (w/ Nick Seaver) 1:04:43

1y ago1:04:43

1:04:43

In the digital economy, recommendation algorithms get…a LOT of attention. To some, they’re the special sauce behind everything from Spotify’s personalized playlists to Tik Tok’s “For You” page. For others, they represent a dark, vibe-generating demiurge slowly sapping music’s social power. But for all the discussion of how these programs are transf…

1
Streaming in the Dark: No One Knows Anything (w/ Meredith Rose) 59:00

1y ago59:00

59:00

No one knows anything about the streaming economy. Not Really. That’s the stark message at the heart of Public Knowledge’s new whitepaper “Streaming in the Dark,” which catalogs the remarkable “wall of NDAs” operating at every level of the modern music industry. The relationship between labels and streaming services? NDA. The relationship between d…

1
Spotify Redux (Quiet Threats + Desperate Flailing) 1:11:34

1y ago1:11:34

1:11:34

For this episode, Saxon and Sam check in on Spotify, which is…not in great shape. Even in the best of times, the company was handcuffed to the majors, and threatened by mega-sized competitors like Apple & Amazon. And these, my friend, are no longer the best of times. But it’s okay! They’ll get...faster! And more efficient! And, um, remake their hom…

1
From Houston to the World: The Political Economy of DJ Screw (with Lance Scott Walker) 1:18:19

1y ago1:18:19

1:18:19

In the '90s, a remarkable sound was being developed in Houston—its cavernous drums, booming, crawling vocals, and distinctive, hiccuping rhythms reflect the indelible influence of DJ Screw. During the latter half of the decade, the hardworking musician produced hundreds if not thousands of tapes, mixing regional classics with on-the-fly freestyles …

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