And for those of us who have no choice? Not all of us have mainstream taste. Unless you like the music that’s most popular in your particular corner of the wor

And for those of us who have no choice? Not all of us have mainstream taste. Unless you like the music that’s most popular in your particular corner of the world, some of your favorites are likely to be missing from streaming services—and even if you fit nicely into that mold, there are still licensing issues at times. Then what? For example: - I tend to favor European music, but I live in North America. Many of the artists I like are mainstream in Europe, but their music isn’t licensed for streaming here. I can see the tracks on Spotify with “Show Unavailable Tracks” toggled, but if I try to play them, I’ll get an “unavailable in your region” error. It doesn’t really matter which service I use: if it’s region-locked in one, it’ll be region-locked in all of them. - Some of the artists I enjoy are indie bands. I can often buy their music on Bandcamp, but it might not be on streaming services. - Some bands have albums and tracks (particularly covers and remixes) that keep running into licensing issues and dropping from streaming services, even if they’re mainstream. - Some bands have older, forgotten albums that are quite good, even if they’re older than me. Unfortunately, if those albums aren’t as popular as their newer works or were demos, good luck getting ahold of them, even if you try to pirate them. - I like the soundtrack and theme song from a movie or video game. Can I stream it? 50/50, regardless of how mainstream it is. How about a more concrete example? Cling to Me by LP. You can find low-quality versions on YouTube, and LP is a songwriter for several modern pop artists[0]—but it’s a demo, so you can’t stream it. You can technically play it in YouTube Music, but the quality is absolutely terrible, probably because the videos are either old or reposted. This is from an artist whose own songs play at my local supermarket, and who wrote music for other mainstream artists. But nope—can’t stream that one. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_(singer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_(singer) > She has written songs for other artists including Cher, Rihanna, the Backstreet Boys, Leona Lewis, Mylène Farmer, Céline Dion and Christina Aguilera.