Daniel Siegel Alonso

  How we consume music has shifted dramatically in the last decade, and unless you've been living under a rock—or worse, still using CDs—you've probably noticed. Streaming platforms have radically changed how listeners access, discover, and listen to music, leaving the traditional music industry to play catch-up. Daniel Siegel Alonso examines the modern music landscape, where algorithms are king, and our favorite artists are a thumb tap away. The Digital Shift Siegel Alonso recalls buying an album meant a trip to the record store. You'd hold a physical album in your hands, leaf through the liner notes, and commit to a collection of songs, good or bad. But then Pandora came along in 2005, offering the ability to curate our listening experience with "stations" based on specific artists or genres. It felt like magic. Suddenly, you didn't have to wade through B-sides or skip tracks. Pandora's algorithm did the heavy lifting, using the Music Genome Project to...

  Once upon a time, making it in the music industry meant playing gigs at every dive bar, hoping a record exec might be in the audience. Today, while talent and hard work are still essential, there's a new stage where stars are born—social media. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become the modern-day springboards for music careers, providing artists direct access to their audiences and unprecedented control over their look and sound. Daniel Siegel Alonso examines how social media is reshaping the music industry, one post at a time. The New A&R Siegel Alonso notes that in the pre-digital era, unknown artists used to rely on A&R (Artists and Repertoire) scouts to discover them. However, today, algorithms are doing much of that leg work. Platforms like TikTok have turned music discovery on its head. The app's For You Page (FYP) is the new A&R office, where a catchy beat or a witty lyric can go viral and propel an obscure artist into the limelight. Take Lil Na...