Today in 2002, ten years ago, the group They Might Be Giants put out an album compilation to celebrate their 20th year as a band. They named this compilation after an odd service the band provided that some people consider the first real instance of music streaming. Dial-A-Song, 387-6962, "free when you call from work".
It was a simple service. You called up the actual phone number to John Flansburgh's studio apartment, and locked inside a suitcase to dampen its ceaseless calls was an answering machine that was changed daily, with new They Might Be Giants songs in place of a missed call message. The service gained popularity for the technical amazement of calling a phone line and getting a song about breaking cupid's legs, or bread hair. I'm not joking, those are actual TMBG songs.
[ASSOCIATE NOTE: They Might Be Giants' Dial-A-Song originally ran from 1983 to 2006. They temporarily rebooted the service for limited runs during 2014 and 2018, both running the duration of their respective years. With this revival the Dial-A-Song number changed area code from the original (718) 387-6962 to a more accessible (844) 387-6962 toll-free number. With the rebooted number, one could call the number each week and listen to a new song, while the song cycle on the original service was whenever John Flansburgh changed the tape in his answering machine.]
Oh crap I forgot a h in flansy's name can you fix that