Capitalism Colonises Culture: How Music Lost Its Value

At the turn of the millennium, music became free and culture was changed forever.In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape, we trace how capitalism slowly colonised music: from Napster and the backlash against Lars Ulrich, to streaming platforms that pay artists fractions of a penny, and finally to AI-generated music designed to replace creation entirely.This is a story about nostalgia how language shifts, art becomes content, audiences become engagement, expression becomes data, and how those shifts reshape what music is allowed to be.Indeed, this episode criticises Spotify itself and the ethics of streaming payment models.