“Although I recognize the utility of listening to non-distracting study music, I nonetheless find it disheartening to see art being reconfigured, over and over again, as a tool for productivity—and then, when the work is finally done, as a tool for coming down from the work” Pelly does a great job of putting words to a phenomenon we’ve all noticed without really noticing . This passage especially stood out to me for articulating the shift in roles that streaming facilitates, where music is reduced to a productity enhancer . Streaming promised a radical blurring of genre lines, clearing out the dust of old-fashioned opinions on music , and it’s disappointing to see it turn into algorithmic goop. What is the next move?