Having a streamer was like drinking from a firehouse when I first started, some 10-11 months ago and now it's like...drinking from a firehose. I love the option of listening to a new album and researching some of its history (supplied initially as meta data from, in my case Qobuz). Often I find some tidbit about the musicians, the venue, a producer, or label and this becomes a thread I'll pull into another new collection of music, musicians, styles..etc..
Another entry into new artists or albums is to clear my played-music queue in Conductor (Aurender control app), play a (new) favorite album, an then let Qobuz/Conductor continue to play new cuts based on the initially played album. I've created numerous excellent playlists in this way and followed up with discovering dozens of new albums/artists based on the cuts Q/C came up with. Of course, this works genre or sub-genre of music...it's, fortunately, endless. Look for the playlist Jazzmen Playin Blues2 on Qobuz. This started by listening to Turrentine's Blue Hour and letting Q/C do it's thing.
Some may take pride in thumping their chest about plenty of variety in their vinyl/CD collections and therefore have no use for streaming, and that may be true, for them, but from the viewpoint of all music produced throughout the world over the last 100 years, they're dancing on the head of a pin. It's like living in the movie The Truman Show.
Further examples:
I've recently started reading the book The Making of Jazz by James Collier. While reading the book James describes how Ragtime elements interpreted by Sidney Bechet made a sea-change contribution to the evolution of what we now know as jazz. Naturally, reading about how an artist, or a series of artists(Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver..) changed one genre of music into another, is somewhat lacking. As a person who loves music..I want to hear conventional Ragtime and then critically listen to early Bechet, Armstrong, & Oliver. I suppose I could do this, pre-streaming, by visiting some library..but, with streaming I can pull up some late 30's Bechet and listen to it in seconds, as I'm reading, on my own system, while drinking coffee in my jammies.
Some 15 years ago a, I guess former, Agon member JAX2 turned me on to the album El Cant de la Sibilla by Montserratt Figueras and Jordi Savall on the Alia Vox label. At the time, this was a very different genre of music for me. But, loving female vocals, I bought the CD based on JAX2's suggestion. Wonderful music! However, 15 years ago, obtaining more music like this was nothing more than a cr@pshoot. Drop $15+ on a similar CD and hope for the best. With streaming I now have a dozen plus similar Alia Vox recordings in my collection, based on listening to many more, that I really enjoy. And I've only scratched the surface.
Letting Conductor/Qobuz suggest tracks from Figueras tracks(ZERO effort or time on my part), I discovered the world of Christina Pluhar and her group L'Arpeggiata. Wonderful music I never would have discovered on my own. Listening to Pluhar has led to other similar artists and terrific music...
After WW2 subsided many US jazz artists went to Europe on extended concert tours. Like anyone else, they needed work and if it wasn't available here, then EU was a good option. Many musicians found more enthusiastic audiences and better social acceptance in EU. A number of great jazz musicians went to EU and never came back. Naturally..US jazz found fertile earth in EU and this was the seed for a whole new, in many cases different, world of EU-influenced jazz. Today there is a TON of great jazz from Scandinavia, the UK, Poland, southern EU, the Mideast, and North Africa. Artists like Garbarek, Katche, Stanko, Brahem, E.S.B., Hadouk Trio, Garcia-Fons, and Youssef. I never would have come across these artists by taking a flying $18 leap on buying some random album and hoping for the best.
More examples go on and on and on.
And all are due to having direct, immediate access, on my own system, with zero effort, to hi-res streaming.
All at less than the cost of ONE CD/month.
It doesn't matter how big anyone's vinyl/CD collection is..it's still dancing on the head of a pin.
