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Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

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Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#151
post #5

Personally, I used to be able to listen to a large portion of the top 50 on Spotify without skipping too many. As of late last year, though, I've found that the top 10 are almost exclusively songs made popular on TikTok. I can't stand to listen to these songs, not because I necessarily dislike the songs (or TikTok for that matter), but because there are 15-30s sections of the song that I have heard dozens of times, p…

Wonder how tiktok is changing the way pop music is produced nowadays. I'm sure music producers are focusing more on that unique 10-15s catchy tune that is easy to market. This is definitely not good for the future of music.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#153
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I agree. I anticipate some amount of people still discover music on the radio (even pop mega hits you have to hear the first time somewhere), then go seek it out on spotify. I haven't much been in a car, thus haven't heard the radio, in 7 months. I have no idea what's on the top 40 right now.

> I haven't much been in a car, thus haven't heard the radio, in 7 months. What's the connection between being in a car and listening to the radio? Do people not generally have radios in their homes where you live? And you must have a phone or laptop to be typing this where you could listen to the radio!

The radio model is heavily influence by cars listener. Sometimes marketing tools are just not able to track if customers left or just moved to another category.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also folk music[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24130589 (peasants with little to no agricultural surplus aren't interested in freemartins, neither four- nor two-legged. Compare "we also have a ‘big’ cycle of generations" in https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they... ) I'm not intending to watch WAP until I must in order to understand a parody. There's certainly no shortage of other musi…

The theme goes way back: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song%20of%20Sol... (By no means the earliest.)

Hmm...

    Do not gaze at me because I am dark,
    because the sun has looked upon me.
    My mother's sons were angry with me;
    they made me keeper of the vineyards,
suggests another layer to:

    Там смуглянка-молдаванка
    Собирала виноград.

    there's a dark-skinned moldavian girl
    harvesting the grapes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSc3fVBjYks

(The violinist's earrings don't contradict my white/red theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382154 )

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#155
post #53

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.

I'm in the UK and in my 40s. For me the Top 40 used to be one of the few places where you could hear stuff that wasn't just pop radio - because in the UK it was a sales chart, not an airplay chart and genuinely represented what people were listening to, not what the pluggers and labels had successfully pushed.

However, since streaming, that equation has totally changed.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got curious and listened to it, and after listening to that load of rubbish, I simply don't feel connected with society anymore. Do people actually listen to this and like it, or is it just the perceived shock value that counts?

"Rock and roll" is an explicit reference to the sex act and "jazz" the usual male contribution to same. Mick Jagger couldn't "get no satisfaction", the Beatles asked "why don't we do it in the road", Nina Simone wanted "some sugar in my bowl", one-not-really-a-hit-wonder Hillary instructed listeners to "drop your pants around your ankles" ( https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wu9Zps8vnEY ), and then there's pretty much every…

Oh, I don't have a problem with explicit lyrics and am perfectly well aware of sex' and love's statuses as the most common tropes in lyrics. It's just that this particular "song" is so horribly bad that I simply can't understand how anyone could endure it.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio just works. Someone else is choosing the playlist and you kinda hear the music in between the ads and annoying hosts. At home, I can select what I want to hear. I don't need to keep my attention on the road.

Do you not have radio stations where you value how the host selects, curates, and gives the background to the music for you? What about the current affairs, plays, comedy, history? I can’t imagine going without the radio!

That's understandable because you have BBC Radio. Not every country has access to such high quality.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#158
Why does it matter? Top 40 only really had relevancy to what journalists talk about, music journalists are not really relevant because the idea of having to go to town to a store to buy music is no longer a thing when you can just listen to any music instantly and make your own mind up quicker than you can read a review.

Think they're getting annoyed at modern way of consuming music affecting an antiquated meaningless chart that had already been made irrelevant by the very way music listening had changed.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#159
post #53

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.

Yup, exactly like democracy and "big government". It's not good, it's just the "common denominator".

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#160
post #57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm similar, I spend a lot more time discovering and exploring than I do listening tonold favourites. Which is saying a lot, because I used to DJ House and DnB for a community online radio station.

Isn't soundcloud better for house?

Yeah lots of better places than Spotify. I only listen to house when I am mixing or listening to a friends set these days so it has to be from my own collection or theirs. It's all the other genres I listen to that are on Spotify.
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