Was on a nice call last night where @Fflic I think rightly noted that there are very very few globally ubiquitous records not in some ways entangled in traditional label or publishing infrastructure.

Which touches on something I often wonder. 20 years deep into the 21st century, has there been a game changing record that could be claimed to have come out of nowhere, purely as a product of the "democratized" internet? (i.e not from time old scenes, not shepherded by a label..)

best cases I see are amongst hip hop/grime/drill communities where existing mixtape culture was accelerated by the ability to publish widely online, however even then many are signal boosted by what could be understood as trad publication models and/or demo submissions to elders

like where is the example of the person coming from absolutely nowhere, uploading their music direct to a streaming service, and turning what we knew of music upside down with their entirely unique talent and style?

Is streaming actually just producing a pastiche factory? Is there a qualitative musical contribution it has uniquely facilitated?