Living with music in the digital age: Entanglements of the functional and the aesthetic

Critics of recent developments in music culture have often claimed, or accepted, that ‘functional’ or utilitarian experiences of music (using music to achieve goals such as exercise, relaxation, sleep or work concentration) have become more prevalent as a result of the widespread use of music streaming platforms, and these experiences are often contrasted with more aesthetically-oriented ones. Relatedly, such critics often also claim that streaming is leading to a greater prevalence of distracted, inattentive musical experience. After situating our research in a discussion of research on the sociology and psychology of music in everyday life, and of research on music consumption in the digital era, we draw on a diary and interview study conducted in England to show that people’s musical lives are more complex and varied than such accounts suggest. We explore musical consumption in the digital age by discussing material from these diaries and interviews related to two of the different ‘functions’ or ‘uses’ of music that have appeared prominently in recent critiques of music streaming – one based on providing ‘energy’ and ‘focus’, the other on recovery and restoration, in the form of ‘relaxing’, ‘chilling’ and so on. We show that while individuals may indeed engage in such functional and distracted music experiences, they also engage in aesthetically oriented, emotionally charged and attentive ones. We consider the implications of our findings, challenging on one hand views of musical consumption as a resource transparently available for well-being (apparent in sociological and psychological research on music in everyday life), and on the other as a ‘tactic’ for resisting power (apparent in some cultural studies of consumption). Instead, we advocate a sympathetic but critical understanding of music as a way of coping with the challenges of everyday life, shaped by powerful systemic forces.