Abstract
Streaming boosts music consumption and discovery by offering on-demand access to a large music collection from any connected device, anytime and anywhere. Music curation - which can be done by humans or machines - is as a way to filter, select and guide consumer experience, helping users to deal with the abundance and over-accessibility of content. Results of in-depth interviews conducted with 20 Spotify users in Brazil, articulated with data collected from their digital listening practices, shows how ease of access encourages practices of music discovery and promotes a more diversified and fragmented consumer experience. Playlists are often used as mechanisms of musical discovery, collection and identity formation, being one of the main changes fostered by streaming. This study also demonstrates that algorithmic curation, although constantly improved, still does not replace human curation mainly due to its greater predictability and lack of precision.
Keywords
Consumption; Music; Streaming; Curatorship; Discovery