Daily Archives: April 13, 2026

Deep Catalog Exploration: How Streaming Handles (or Fails to Handle) Album-Oriented Listening

Posted on April 13, 2026 by nathanalbright

White Paper 5 of the Beyond the Playlist Series Abstract The album is the primary artistic unit of recorded music for most of the twentieth century’s serious musical output. It is the form in which composers, bandleaders, and recording artists … Continue reading →

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The Radio Analogy: What Broadcast Radio Got Right (and Wrong) About Discovery

Posted on April 13, 2026 by nathanalbright

White Paper 4 of the Beyond the Playlist Series Abstract Broadcast radio preceded streaming by decades and was, for most of the twentieth century, the primary infrastructure through which ordinary listeners encountered music they had not chosen and had not … Continue reading →

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Platform Comparison: How Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music Handle Exploration

Posted on April 13, 2026 by nathanalbright

White Paper 3 of the Beyond the Playlist Series Abstract Spotify is the dominant streaming platform by subscriber count and cultural visibility, but it is not the only architecture through which listeners engage with the recorded music catalog in the … Continue reading →

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Spotify’s Album and Artist Radio: Algorithmic Behavior, Decay, and the Echo Chamber Problem

Posted on April 13, 2026 by nathanalbright

White Paper 2 of the Beyond the Playlist Series Abstract Spotify provides several mechanisms beyond the playlist for listeners to engage with the catalog in an exploratory mode: artist radio, song radio, album radio, artist mixes, and the autoplay continuation … Continue reading →

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The Playlist as Ceiling: Why Streaming’s Default Mode Limits Discovery

Posted on April 13, 2026 by nathanalbright

White Paper 1 of the Beyond the Playlist Series Abstract The playlist has become the dominant organizational metaphor of the music streaming era, shaping not only how platforms present content but how listeners conceive of their relationship to music. This … Continue reading →

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