STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: We are reporting on the first quarter of our century. Those 25 years show how our world has changed and give us clues to where we're going. In today's installment, we consider a quarter century of music. The world has changed even more than it did in the first quarter of the 20th century...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU'RE DOWN AND OUT")
BESSIE SMITH: (Singing) I mean when you down and out.
INSKEEP: ...When music like this was popular. Jazz and blues spread through technology - flat disc records. Technology from the early 1900s eventually changed the music itself. New, more sensitive microphones made it possible for musicians to sing to their audiences in a more intimate way.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IT'S EASY TO REMEMBER")
BING CROSBY: (Singing) You came to me from out of nowhere.
INSKEEP: Bing Crosby wrote those innovations far into the century, while jazz and blues inspired music that lasted even longer.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SAY MY NAME")
DESTINY'S CHILD: (Singing) Say my name, say my name when no one is around you...
INSKEEP: In our quarter century, technology again is changing music. In the year 2000, CDs ruled the earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BYE BYE BYE")
NSYNC: (Singing) But it ain't no lie, baby, bye, bye, bye. Bye-bye.
INSKEEP: NSYNC sold 2.4 million copies of "No Strings Attached" during its first week, and that was a record.
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: But then piracy happened.
INSKEEP: NPR Music's Ann Powers is our guide to this quarter century.
POWERS: I mean, this was young tech masters figuring out how to share music across the new expanse of cyberspace.
INSKEEP: In 2000, internet file sharing was already causing CDs to go...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BYE BYE BYE")
NSYNC: Bye, bye, bye. Bye-bye.
INSKEEP: Napster launched about nine months before that NSYNC album, and others followed. NPR talked with two University of Virginia students back in 2000.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I used to spend a lot of money on CDs and stuff, and now it's just so much easier to just go on, like, these Napster things. Takes, like, 10 seconds per song.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I'm online right now, and there are 259,025 separate songs, all of which are online and accessible by me.
INSKEEP: Which meant 259,025 separate songs for which artists and record companies were not being paid.
POWERS: It was a real shock. I mean, the gates were falling everywhere, and fans were taking control.
INSKEEP: Labels were freaking out. Entire record store chains went out of business.
POWERS: This was as big a change as when the recorded music era began a hundred years before. What most of us fans didn't know was what the labels were already planning - right? - which was to figure out a way to monetize and, frankly, corporatize this new wild west.
INSKEEP: First by suing Napster out of existence and then by supporting music streaming. Spotify came out of Europe in 2006, reaching the U.S. in 2011.
POWERS: Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify. He's Swedish. Sweden was, like, the wildest wild west for piracy.
INSKEEP: Who knew?
POWERS: Absolutely. And this was supposed to be like, hey, let's all put our stuff on the same platform. Make it easy for fans. And as they were able to make these deals with the labels, they had the music everyone wanted.
INSKEEP: For those who don't use it, Spotify is like a personalized radio. The record labels get paid, and you pick the music. Eventually, you pick different music because the tech makes it possible. I'm thinking about the way that I use my phone for music. I'll get a song in my head, and I'll listen to it 50 times.
POWERS: Right. Sure.
INSKEEP: No problem.
POWERS: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: I may also go - an old song comes into my head. "Snowbird."
POWERS: Yes.
INSKEEP: (Singing) Spread your tiny wings and fly away.
POWERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNOWBIRD")
ANNE MURRAY: (Singing) And take the snow back with you where it came from on that day.
POWERS: Anne Murray, right?
INSKEEP: Yeah. Well, at first, I didn't know the name, but I found the song. I found that was the artist that had the hit. And then I started finding all the other versions of this song.
POWERS: Right.
INSKEEP: Elvis Presley sang that song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNOWBIRD")
ELVIS PRESLEY: (Singing) The breeze along the river seems to say...
INSKEEP: Loretta Lynn.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNOWBIRD")
LORETTA LYNN: (Singing) That he'll only break my heart again should I decide to stay.
INSKEEP: I'll end up having this experience of music that I had no idea I was looking for until I started looking for it.
POWERS: Well, this is why we love streaming, frankly. It feels so natural. It feels organic. It moves at the speed of thought. But there are consequences. There's been very major consequences for artists. The rise of streaming has really changed the economics of the music industry in ways that have not benefited most artists.
INSKEEP: Well, let me understand that because I would think that the person who's not super famous would benefit from streaming because whatever their audience is, they can maximize it through streaming. If there's only 10,000 people in the world who might like their music, they can find it on streaming. Why isn't that not good for them?
POWERS: Well, this is the paradox, right? We live in a time when it is far easier to become a, I guess, quote-unquote, "professional musician," or become a musician with the public, let's say...
INSKEEP: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Than ever before. But fewer and fewer people can sustain themselves.
INSKEEP: Wow.
POWERS: Because music has been devalued, frankly. If everything feels free, we expect things to be free. When the major labels negotiated deals with the platforms, the artist was left out in the cold.
INSKEEP: And if technology made it hard to succeed, it also determined who did succeed. Algorithms and playlists increasingly choose music for people who stream it, and they often create hits.
POWERS: So a song like "Despacito," or "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X.
INSKEEP: Ah.
POWERS: Which is a total streaming phenomenon. You know, it was on so many playlists that it just never went away.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OLD TOWN ROAD")
LIL NAS X: (Singing) I'm going to take my horse to the old town road. I'm going to...
INSKEEP: Is it possible we're heading to that moment when people turn on a particular stream that's delivered to them by algorithm, and the algorithm begins sending them reasonably serviceable, good enough music that's produced by AI?
POWERS: Yes.
INSKEEP: And no human beings have been involved in it at all?
POWERS: It's already happening.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MIKU")
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Hatsune Miku, singing) Miku, Miku. You can call me Miku.
INSKEEP: This is a Vocaloid, a voice entirely AI-generated. She's got a name, Hatsune Miku. You can see a picture of her rendered as an anime character, but she doesn't exist. Singing without the singer. One of my kids listens.
POWERS: People are so adaptable, just as no one thought at the dawn of the recording industry that, you know, listening to a voice that was pressed onto a slab of wax could be as good as hearing someone sing in person or play the piano in person. Look how we adapted to that. Bing Crosby got his mouth near a microphone, and the world swooned. So this is what we do. We adapt to technology.
INSKEEP: Ann Powers. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much.
POWERS: Thank you so much, Steve.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MIKU")
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Hatsune Miku, singing) Miku, Miku, (vocalizing). I'm thinking Miku...
INSKEEP: We're telling the history of the first quarter of our century. We've so far heard of space travel and music, and we have more to come. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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