Image provided by @gabrielgurrola.

As part of the 15th Anniversary celebration for Natetheworld.com, I am hosting a 24-hour writing challenge. Starting in January 2024, readers began submitting essay prompts. My goal is to tackle as many of these prompts as possible in a 24-hour period.

Long gone are the days of the song of the summer. Long gone are the days of us collectively consuming the same songs on the radio or on MTV. Long gone are the days of us rushing to a record store to buy the same album.

With the introduction of streaming platforms such as Spotify, we have lost a sense of community.

According to NME, “more music is released in a single day in 2024 than all of 1989.” The article goes on to explain that “on a daily basis 120,000 tracks are uploaded to streaming services or 43 million songs every year.” They also expect, given current trends, “that the number of music creators will more than double, from 75 million to 188 million by the end of the decade.”

On the one hand, streaming services have democratized music. With boundless options, you can explore and discover music that appeals to you. You are no longer bound to the whims of a DJ, VJ, or programmer. You can create your own tastes and match artists to those tastes.

On the other hand, we are losing something that served as a rallying point for our community. When I really began listening to music in the 90s, I created a community with friends who were listening to the same music. All my friends listened to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and the Dave Matthews Band. We often compared notes and reactions. We would rush to the record store together. We would go to concerts together. We created a community. It didn’t mean the community was homogeneous. We varied and differed, but we shared a core group of artists that held us together.

There is something lost when the joy of sharing music can only be experienced with people who share similar online spaces.

Looking at Spotify, I can see David Ramirez has 77,000 active monthly listeners. Now, David Ramirez is a singer/songwriter who I dearly love. I wholeheartedly believe more people should listen to his music. If anyone deserves a wider audience, it is artists like him.

But none of my friends in Seattle actively listen to David Ramirez. I am not listening to his music with a friend who loves him as much as I do. I am not comparing notes with people I admire. I am not attending his shows with an avid friend I know. I experience David Ramirez, for the most part, alone in my car listening to Spotify.

This isn’t all on Spotify. We don’t watch the same shows. We don’t watch the same movies. We don’t read the same books. We aren’t experiencing the world in a community that draws us into real life interaction with others.

So, how do we solve this? We can become paralyzed by choice, or we can throw in the towel with the belief that this is a war that cannot be won. I believe there is another way.

The abundance of choice means we must be intentional in our desire to create community. We can host listening parties, cinema clubs, book clubs, and a thousand other options that force people together around a shared collective experience. I believe this intentional community is necessary and vital for a healthy and thriving society. In a community, we learn to care for and look after each other. If America needs anything right now, it is more people to look after each other.

Be good to each other,

Nathan