Though unfortunate, I don't think this belongs on HN.
"Unfortunate"... ?
When a stone hits your windshield and causes a small crack, that's unfortunate.
David Bowie Has Died
71–80 of 312 posts
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a ton of interesting, adventurous music being made by young people right now but you will never hear it because the music labels still dominate pop music and they've become more conservative than ever. So don't judge the current generation by what you see in the top 40. Dig around on Bandcamp instead and be amazed.
It's funny, Bowie did speak about Labels disappearing. As I said above, the top before had more interesting stuff (if you consider The Police, or Dire Straits interesting that is). I'll seek through bandcamp, I rarely hear things intersting these days but maybe I'm under a passeist phase.
No idea what your tastes are but here's a bunch of interesting stuff that went under the labels' radar.
http://hcmj.tumblr.com/post/135300528373/hcmjs-favorite-albu...
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "50s to the 90s"--which is so laughably general, that's four generations of music, if not more--had The Beatles and David Bowie and it also had The Monkees and Men Without Hats. We have the artists who it's funny to make fun of, like Bieber, and we have Jack White, we have Kanye West, we have Radiohead--and we had David Bowie, he's a modern artist today , have you listened to Blackstar, which openly tips its cap…
Isn't the situation reversed ? were men without hats big ? the good music today is in the shadow while the mainstream pours industrialized music overwhelmingly. I don't understand how Kanye West is anything but an arrogant dude, but I'm biased against Hip Hop nowadays. Radiohead is very much a 90s in my eyes.
Well, it's fortunate that Kanye West isn't a "hip-hop" musician, he is a musician, and pulls in influences by the wheelbarrowful. Even were that an adequate definition--congratulations: you know your biases. Now overcome them, because if you can't draw a barely kinked line between David Bowie and 808s and Heartbreak, that is on you.
But I don't think that's the problem here, is it? :) He's "arrogant"--and my, but your choice of adjective here is so interesting!--so, well, that's all she wrote.
Bowie was just a shrinking violet, right?
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#74I bought my first Bowie album probably 35 years ago, I still carry Bowie music around on my phone. Back then buying music seemed like such an important thing. It was both a choice, you could only afford one record out of many, and a statement, your record collection said something about you to your peers. I guess social media takes it's place in that you use it to express who you are and what you like.
Back then you listened to every album you bought hundreds of times and really made a connection with the ones you liked. One of my Bowie LP's developed a skip and I still expect to hear it jump when I hear the track now on the radio or spotify.
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
One would think services like Spotify would help, but they only make the music more accessible, they don't help you find it. I don't have pro and only ads I hear (besides the spotify ones that are trying to annoy you into paying) are ones from Universal Music.
I don't agree—I use Spotify a lot and it's helped tremendously in my finding new music. The "Discover Weekly" and social playlists features always point me to sources of new music.
Spotify and other streaming services are amazing for discovering new music if you're willing to put in the effort but most people just listen to what they have pushed on them. I doubt most people even realize that top 40 music isn't written by the people that perform it.
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#76Such sad news. Given the Golden Globes is just over, it might be timely to rewatch the classic Extras segment in which Bowie roasts Gervais - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv6mEv_rDdE
"This video contains content from BBC Worldwide, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." You just have to love modern copyright.
Silly governments and corporations who think the internet can have borders ;)
Use a browser plugin like ProxFlow/ProxTube and never have this problem again :)
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#77I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyrigh…
If anything labels are more important than ever and music sales are driven by the kind of marketing campaigns that only big records labels can afford. There's a ton of interesting music being made outside their domain but most people will never hear any of it.
My music style is far from trendy, but I can't remember the last time I listened (even more so bought something) from the major label. I'd say is much harder to become millionaire rock star now, but for indie bands, that play as a hobby, situation is very favorable as you can contact you audience directly and you don't need to frame yourself into "format" dictated by the labels.
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#78I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyrigh…
> I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years,
> because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution
> systems in the same way.
>
> --David Bowie, 2002
These are social activities. People don’t judge music solely by some kind of independent metric of appeal. They also judge whether the music is popular within their social circle. Choice of music is one of the mediums people use for communicating.
To listen to something nobody except you likes is a little like programming in a language nobody you know uses. We make up all sorts of stories about how network effects affect the quality of a language, the availability of tools, and so on, and all that is true.
But it’s also true that we self-identify in a tribal way with our choices, and that those choices have social import. Even if you brag defiantly that you’re a pragmatist who doesn’t care who does or doesn’t use a tool: That’s a lot like being a hipster growing a beard and putting on plaid.
So back to music. The vast majority of people wish to belong to the tribe of “The vast majority of people.” They work very hard to study what is and isn’t “mainstream.” There is thus a very natural force by the market to want to have some kind of pop music dominated by just a few superstars at a time.
This, I believe, drives a winner-take-all market for pop music, which in turn is a huge incentive for the existence of massive pop marketing machines. Even if you take all the friction out of distribution and discovery, the mainstream want there to be a massive marketing push for pop artists, it helps them judge who is going to be popular.
It’s not that much different than picking a JavaScript library because some large and well-heeled organization is devoting themselves to support it. You may personally say it has something to do with bug fixes, but for most people that fact helps them judge whether other people will adopt the library, which helps them judge whether they want to belong to that particular tribe.
And most people want to belong to the biggest tribe, and will follow the signals with the biggest boost.
Thus, labels or some other kind of very big, very efficient machine for manipulating pop culture.
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#79"We could steal time,
just for one day" :-(
Re: David Bowie Has Died
#80Who?