Emma Conroy, Contributing Writer
You don’t own a single song on your phone. Not one.
That precious playlist you’ve spent years curating? Rented.
Your “Spotify Wrapped,” telling you who you are based on what you listened to? That’s not actualization — that’s a corporation selling your listening habits back to you as identity.
You’ve spent thousands on streaming subscriptions and you own nothing. Your music library could evaporate tomorrow.
We are all responsible for this. We traded ownership for convenience and called it progress.
Streaming didn’t just change how we consume music — it stole music from us. It sanitized it, commodified it, optimized it for skip rates and playlist placement. Devaluation of art is just the start.
But in a studio on VCU’s campus, a small group of college radio DJs are staging a quiet rebellion. WVCW, VCU’s internet-only radio station, is one of the last places where students still spin physical media like vinyl records and CDs.
Every week, these DJs make a choice about how to broadcast. Some, like Eric Wiggins, stream from the catalog VCU has provided with digital uploads. Others, like Alexis and Lana Waters, refuse to play anything that isn’t physical media. The format war isn’t theoretical here; it’s happening in real time, one show at a time.
It’s Wednesday afternoon just before 5 p.m., and Eric Wiggins is about to go live. He’s a first-year graduate student studying statistics. It is his fourth week hosting “Barking At the Wall,” a talk radio show where he interviews people. Today, the tables are turned; I came on the show and interviewed him.
“It’s not that I never identified with WVCW in undergrad, I just didn’t have time,” Wiggins said, “But when I saw the opportunity to be a live host, I jumped at it. Childhood dream.”
He listened to the “Steve Harvey Morning Show” growing up. He was even interviewed as a kid, and was told he had a great voice for radio — a dream was born.
He’s ready to defend a position that would get him booed out of most college radio stations — streaming is good, actually.
He cites the affordability that streaming offers, especially when compared to physical media; $20 for a CD versus $20 a month for unlimited access.
“You’re telling me that’s bad?” Wiggins asked.
He’s not wrong — and that’s what makes this hard. Streaming democratized music in ways physical media never could. A kid in rural Virginia with no record store for 50 miles has the same access as someone in New York City. A first-generation college student who can’t afford a $30 vinyl has virtually every album ever recorded in their pocket for the same price or less.
So why does it feel like a scam?
You don’t own those songs. You never did. You are renting accessibility.
It’s not freedom. It’s tenant farming for culture.
Wiggins argues that the streaming algorithm that suggests songs to him based on his listening history has helped him discover all sorts of music. He says he found “After Hours” by Kehlani, one of his new favorite songs, through that algorithm.
But was the suggestion because of genuine musical compatibility, or was it because the label paid for playlist placement? Or because the sound profile matched the “safe, digestible, skip-proof content” that keeps listeners engaged and Spotify’s quarterly numbers healthy?
The algorithm isn’t a music critic; it’s a retention tool. And it works because we let it. We’ve been trained to want the next thing before the current thing is over — the autoplay queue, the skip button, the endless scroll. Instant gratification isn’t a side effect of streaming; it’s the whole business model. Music that doesn’t hook you in 15 seconds doesn’t get discovered. It gets buried.
Music, art, becomes a product. And the great commodification begins.
In contrast to Wiggins, Lana Waters and her twin sister Alexis host Greatest Hits on Saturdays from 3-4 p.m. Their show runs exclusively with records from their own vinyl collection.
“We always knew we wanted to be involved at WVCW,” Lana and Alexis said.
Their passion began when they came to VCU as freshman in 2023, when they pitched and got approved for a vinyl-only show.
The sisters grew up on classic rock from their dad, ‘90s/2000s pop from their mom, and their catalogue reflects that; but it doesn’t stop there. They love rock operas and concept albums: Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” or “Velvet Goldmines’” soundtrack, specifically on vinyl.
“The algorithm sucks,” Lana quips, “Our friends are our algorithm.”
The cost? Less than $5, the sisters say, if you’re willing to dig. It just takes time to flip through crates instead of grabbing the brand new shiny one.
“Just try it,” Lana says about vinyl. “Dedicate time and care about the music.”
But even the sisters aren’t immune to the streaming bug — Alexis says that’s how she found local Richmond band Deathcat, a group she probably wouldn’t have found on her own.
Today Lana’s on the mic, Alexis on the tables. Alexis drops the needle at Lana’s cue. My Chemical Romance’s acoustic intro to “Romance” opens the show.
They have a set script and a theme each week. This week was “Unplugged: Acoustic Songs,” all from their collection. They work in tandem to create jokes and fill the air with anecdotes. Throughout their show you can hear a low hum on air. It’s a reminder that there are people here making decisions with intention behind them.
Dropping a needle on a record is the opposite of instant gratification. You have to find the record, clean it, cue it and then wait. That friction isn’t a bug — it’s the point. It’s what makes listening a choice rather than a reflex.
Eric Wiggins — and people who share his perspective — aren’t the enemy. Wiggins is just a guy who wanted to be a radio DJ and didn’t think too much about where his music comes from, and neither is anyone else who uses streaming.
The enemy is the system that convinced all of us that renting access is the same as ownership, that the algorithm knows us better than we know ourselves and that convenience is worth sacrificing control.
When you don’t own your culture, someone else controls it.
That someone is often optimizing for profit, not art. For retention metrics, not revelation. For quarterly earnings, not the kind of transcendent musical experience that makes you pull over on the highway because you need to hear that guitar solo one more time.
Buy a record this week. Something with weight to it, literal and otherwise.
Take it home. Put it on. Don’t skip anything. Sit with the songs that don’t grab you immediately, the ones the algorithm would have buried, the ones that take three listens to open up. That discomfort is the point. That’s what it feels like to let art work on you instead of the other way around.
Alexis drops the needle. Lana cues the mic. In a cramped studio on VCU’s campus, My Chemical Romance plays to whoever is listening — not because an algorithm decided it was safe, but because two people decided it mattered.
That’s worth protecting.
Rage against the streaming machine.