Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and YouTuber Rick Beato has spoken about the impact of streaming on the music industry, claiming it “devalues” music.
In a conversation with Rick Rubin on his Tetragrammaton podcast, Rubin asks: “How do you think streaming has changed the way people relate to music?”
Beato says having a “physical representation of someone’s art, including the album cover and the credits, is a completely different experience than being able to make a playlist that doesn’t necessarily go together”.
“Things are not meant to be listened to in that way,” he says, referring to when album order was important, when artists would choose an A-side and a B-side of their record.
He goes on to provide an analogy about the flow of water. “I turned on the faucet and said, ‘This is basically Spotify.’ The water just keeps going on indefinitely. Every day, 100,000 new songs are added to Spotify and at any point you can interrupt the stream. I put a glass in there and said, ‘This could be Led Zeppelin’s entire catalogue right here in this glass.’ If you take an eye dropper this is Zeppelin III.”
Beato continues, “Music, in some ways, is too available. It’s too easy to obtain.” Rubin agrees, noting that the scarcity of music in history was the very thing that made it desirable. “You had to make an effort to get it, and because of that it had value,” he says.
Beato, who also owns and runs Black Dog Sound Studios, recalls a time where he would physically carry records to and from friends’ houses. “Maybe I had a Jimi Hendrix record that my friend didn’t have, but he had a Beatles record that I didn’t have, and we would trade the things or we would go over and make a cassette copy of it … You would physically carry the record over to somebody’s house.
“Now, on your phone, everything is available for you on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and YouTube. You pretty much have everything that’s ever been recorded. That’s hard to wrap your head around, but how much is it worth?”
Beato also feels that streaming has created a “complete disconnect” between listeners and the personnel who put records together. “Where do you go to find out who the people are that contributed to the sound of that record? That’s been lost,” he explains. “Sure, you can look at the credits on Spotify … but they make it incredibly difficult.”
While Rick Rubin is a titanic figure in the music production, many – including himself – have noted his lack of musical or technical ability. And the Cult’s Billy Duffy was recently the latest name to corroborate this when he said Rubin was “not musical… at all”.
