"Radio" played an infinitesimally small amount of the music that was being produced. If you wanted to discover new music, the last thing you'd do is turn to the radio. Spotify is both 'radio' and a music discovery service, and global in nature, so its impact is much greater. And unlike radio stations that tend to specialize in a certain sound (pop, classical, rock, jazz, hiphop), Spotify mixes everything together. A lot of contemporary music is 'genre-less' as a result. That was never the case with radio.
The BBC's John Peel:
Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of many genres, including pop, dub reggae, punk rock and post-punk, electronic music and dance music, indie rock, extreme metal and British hip hop. Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important single person in popular music from approximately 1967 through 1978. He broke more important artists than any individual." [wikipedia]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geI2TbD3ihM
The UK was in a special place with regard to radio music discovery, though. John Peel originally started on pirate radio where he could play whatever he wanted. That created such a demand within the UK that he was able to move to a job at the BBC doing the same thing and draw a listenership from the whole country. But since HN is so American-centric, most of the posters here know radio of that time only as a much less adventurous format, unless you could listen to a “college radio” station (the USA’s only real analogue to Peel). Otherwise, corporate ownership of stations, with local stations receiving their playlist from corporate, meant no adventurous programming.
Several of my favourite artists have "Peel Sessions". But that was an entirely different era of history; the last episodes were over 25 years ago I think.
Peel ran his show on a state broadcaster network (BBC Radio 1), in a country where the state provided significant arts funding until the 1980s or so. That created a culture where it was possible to record and perform music full-time without living on the street. Many bands met at state-funded, zero-tuition art colleges. Those days are long gone.
You're claiming radio didn't really affect discovery, when radio music discovery was being regulated by federal law and driving congressional hearings by the 1950s.
Radio changed music as much as streaming did, and before streaming, MTV did too.
I'm saying that radio isn't good for discovery, precisely because its selection is so narrow compared to an on-demand catalog of algorithmically selected music that Spotify provides.
“If you wanted to discover new music, the last thing you'd do is turn to the radio”
Really? What would people do, then?
I grew up in the 70s/80s in a small town. No music store, not even a Walmart until the mid-80s.
Pre-MTV, radio was pretty much the only mechanism for hearing new music, excepting maybe small doses of new stuff via SNLs musical act or someone on the talk shows.
I don’t think much (popular) contemporary music is genre-less. Fair number of crossover songs, maybe, but that’s not new.
Also, college radio (non-profit, staffed by student and community volunteers, usually at the low end of the FM dial) was a great place to be exposed to wide variety. In fact, record companies used to (and to some extent maybe still do) provide promo copies of many new releases to college radio and depended on feedback to fashion their marketing.
