Explains what happened to musicampampamp8212for both artists and fansampampamp8212when music went online. Playing to the Crowd explores and explains how the rise of digital communication platforms has transformed artistfan relationships into something closer to friendship or family. Through indepth interviews with musicians such as Billy Bragg and Richie Hawtin as well as members of the Cure UB40 and Throwing Muses Baym reveals how new media has facilitated these connections through the active and often required participation of the artists and their devoted digital fan base.Before the rise of social sharing and usergenerated content fans were mostly seen as an undifferentiated and unidentifiable mass often mediated through record labels and the press.