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David Bowie Has Died

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Re: David Bowie Has Died

#171

Post by arnvald »

cageface wrote: post #161
m_mueller wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most larger Asian countries have quite their own music market. But everywhere else I think it's true what you write.

Here in Southeast Asia it's Maroon 5 and Katy Perry everywhere you go.

Is it? Maybe in shopping malls and bars, then I agree. I live in Singapore and a lot of Singaporeans who I meet listen mostly to either Chinese or Indian music. It might be different though in Thailand or Malaysia.

Remember though, that SEA is just part of Asia. China and India are huge music markets. Additionally, Japan and Korea have very strong, local music scene as well.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#173

Post by arnvald »

rplnt wrote: post #48
cageface wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 actually use Spotify to discover new music. I take some artist I know, and then I go to some related one, and then to artist related to that one, etc.

Spotify actually made discovering music way easier to me.

BTW there was one website that I used very often. It was called "We are Hunted"[1] and unfortunately it was acquired by Twitter, and as we all know Twitter Music is dead. That website had a playlist of emerging new tracks and I found a lot of good music there (and I heard some artists just 1-2 years before they became very famous)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Hunted

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#174

Post by gbog »

zo1 wrote: post #125
gbog wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what Asperger is. I am very sensitive: I cry at almost all movies I'm watching even the silliest ones, when the guy kiss the girl, or the father finds his son back. Maybe I'm weird, or just too influenced by Eastern philosophy, but when someone old dies I feel it is ok, it is supposed to be like that, it is the normal course of nature. My preferred living writer died some time ago. It was ok too, even if I r…

> "[...]it is supposed to be like that, it is the normal course of nature." Just because it is the normal course of nature doesn't mean it's okay. Nor does it mean that we should not be upset about it, or mourn it. A person accumulates a life-time's worth of knowledge and experience and insight. And in an instant, it's taken away from the world. It's a loss in every sense of the word.

> it's taken away from the world.

Well, it the case of Bowie this is especially untrue: he let a lot for us to read and listen. It is acutally much sadder when someone unknown dies young, before having the time to leave a deep enough footprint behind.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#175

Post by user_0001 »

cageface wrote: post #56
bootload wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." That's what record companies would like you to think. Counter-example, Milk Records, Melbourne. It's might be a record company but it looks so much like a startup. - http://messandnoise.com/features/4666617 - http://diymag.com/2015/03/23/courtney-barnett-its-like-tur…

I've been traveling all over the world and all I hear everywhere I go is crap American top 40 pop music. Like I said there's a ton of interesting stuff going on outside their purview but they control the conversation right now.

In central / South America that is not the case. Reggaeton, salsa, cumbia, meringue is played everywhere (shops / bars / buses / radio) constantly.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#176

Post by luxpir »

huxley wrote: post #138
tjl wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I feel old. I saw him in concert over a decade earlier for his Sound + Vision tour.

Me too, on July 2 1990 in New Brunswick. I won't ever forget it not just because Bowie was awesome but because a woman that climbed on stage to grab Bowie's arse leapt over the barriers and landed on my girlfriend, knocking her out. I had to lift Em over the barrier so the roadies could take her off to get medical treatment and I spent the rest of the concert trying to find her. Poor Em was a bit stunned by the blow…

What became of Em?

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#177

Post by eropple »

dbattaglia wrote: post #143
gbog wrote: post #85

Do we all have to share this culture of mourning and condoleances? I have listened to some music made by David Bowie, but I kind of feel not that much about his death. Am I heartless? Or just honest? I mean, listening to some guy's music do not make it a close relative, is it? (If so, then well we all have too many "close relatives" for this mean anything anymore). Or should I just shut up and let the people weep unt…

> Also, I fail to see what this is doing on HN, sorry. It's currently #1 on HN. Think about that. Just because you don't care about Bowies death doesn't mean it's not important to a lot of people on here. There's a ton of articles (especially sociology and science focused) that I wouldn't think belong here but they're interesting and I'm glad people post them.

Not just #1. Right now, it has 863 upvotes; that's a ton for a story that broke in the middle of the night on a Sunday. The next highest has 347, and has been around for a day-plus. This pretty clearly hits home for a lot of people, and I really, really hate the faux-above-it-all "I don't see what this is doing on HN" mini-modding. It's here because people believe it should be here.

(edit: 899 points, 18 minutes later. wheeeee)

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#178

Post by rayiner »

synthmeat wrote: post #21

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. 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…

It's so funny how people construct narratives. I'm listening to Bloomberg Business on the radio and they're talking about how David Bowie was a pioneer in monetizing future copyright cashflows to finance music production.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#179

Post by reitanqild »

andrepd wrote: post #163
reitanqild wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW a couple of the absolute worst periods has been under decidedly atheist regimes (Communist Russia etc + French revolution). Then again I think atheism is a religion too.

Is communist Russia objectively worse than the crusades or the Catholic inquisition or ISIS? Let's just be honest here and say that human being are capable of pretty cruel things, regardless of being spurned by religion or not. And why is atheism a religion. Isn't its definition a lack of religion?

> Is communist Russia objectively worse than the crusades or the Catholic inquisition or ISIS?

In numbers, yes.

> Isn't its definition a lack of religion?

I thought it was defined by the lack of belief in deities / supernatural powers. I might be wrong.

Re: David Bowie Has Died

#180

Post by braythwayt »

sjclemmy wrote: post #160
braythwayt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Something to think about in music that also happens in startups and software: 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 popu…

I think Bowie was the antithesis of this. If you'll forgive the hyperbole, he is the archetypal outsider, the patron saint of the dispossessed. So for all those who don't feel that they belong, Bowie's activities provided a message - 'It's OK to be an outsider', and, curiously, through that message provided a sense of belonging - I'm going to get all metaphysical and say that that is alchemical / transformative in a…

Bowie may have been an outsider, but consider that your exact feelings are social, those feelings of belonging and connection to an icon.

The music industry is just as adept at monetizing those feelings as they are of monetizing teen-age angst or adolescent her-worship of boy bands.

My point being, that while Bowie and many others can stand outside of the industry, I don’t believe the basic dynamics are going to change. Radio may go away. Physical media may go away. Apple may disrupt the labels.

Bt I believe that massive marketing machines will continue to slice and dice the market for music and continue to dominate people’s choices.

Remember, you only heard of Bowie because he played the game.

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