Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#121

Post by raspyberr » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #63

grawprog wrote: post #49

Streaming music sucks. It might seem weird but I don't like it. The first music I ever 'owned' myself personally were songs I taped off the radio. After that I started pirating music the same way I would collect songs on the radio, after that I started buying CD's, today I buy songs and albums from artists and producers directly. Building playlists on a streaming service is not the same as building a music collection…

Just sounds like a whole load of "these kids are ruining what used to be the good old times". Of course, I also think music from back in the day was better, but I am also aware that its just a matter of taste and our tastes are molded by prevailing business-social pressures as ours was back in the day. If music appreciation sucks today it can be blamed more on the music industry and their idol manufacturing pipeline…

The person you're replying to doesn't say anything about "music from back in the day was better" though. They're talking about the "consumption" of music. And in a way I agree, I generally lean towards limitations being important. Humans aren't good when everything is given to them easily.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#122

Post by arcturus17 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

awild wrote: post #113

arcturus17 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said in a sibling comment, I love Spotify but I think its recommendation and discovery mechanisms are really subpar. They're merely "good enough" IMO. I can go to "Song Radio" or "Artist Radio", and browse through related artists and the like. But the latter still requires a significant amount of effort on my part, and the autogenerated radio playlists are nothing to write home about. I think it's fine that th…

You might find this interesting and depressing at the same time: https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/c2b20d/lets_...

Yea, more depressing than anything, in the sense that it confirms that Spotify relies very heavily on preferences of other users and creates filter bubbles like Youtube.

It's a vastly inferior method to Pandora's song analysis method IMO. I'd definitely use Spotify more if it had that, maybe significantly more - I can use it for 6 hours on a given day but then I often give it breaks because I'm on a discovery rut.

Maybe that's just me, and they know on very certain statistical terms that for most users that's not the case and music filter bubbles work much better.

Or maybe they're completely wrong in their approach and they're making a massive mistake at scale. We've come to develop this bias that tech giants "must know what they're doing" but I think it's often not the case. In ten years we could be reading how a competing service took over by offering the same catalogue with much better recommendation tech or other bells and whistles layered on top.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#123

Post by Kye » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #98

josephg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you’re saying, but Spotify solves a problem I never managed to solve with CDs: it solves discovery. I used to go to music shops and browse albums, and I had no idea which CD would be worth my money because I couldn’t listen to them and find out! Even from a band I like I would often buy their other albums then get home and be disappointed because they didn’t work for me. In comparison, spotify will find a…

Like I said in a sibling comment, I love Spotify but I think its recommendation and discovery mechanisms are really subpar. They're merely "good enough" IMO. I can go to "Song Radio" or "Artist Radio", and browse through related artists and the like. But the latter still requires a significant amount of effort on my part, and the autogenerated radio playlists are nothing to write home about. I think it's fine that th…

Pandora repeated the same five songs no matter how many times I skipped them the last time I tried it.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#124

Post by fb03 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:12 PM UTC

While I really like what music streaming services gave me (an opportunity to explore quickly lots of new music), I think it is also coaxing, pasteurizing and generalizing music to the 'most added value possible' or 'most hype created possible per track', to which the epitome of this concept is called 'lo fi hip hop music', which now everyone making mainstream music tries to emulate or incorporate.

I know this will sound harsh and obtuse, but if you notice, all 'dope' pop music now for kids is some variant of alternated trap-like rhythmic hihats and a really sloooow beats with a looong, bassy kick tail. to fill that huge nothingness pocket between the stuff, add some nice lush vocals (saying whatever, it doesn't matter much) and that's it.

or maybe i'm just getting old and cranky.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#125

Post by oblio » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:16 PM UTC

fb03 wrote: post #124

While I really like what music streaming services gave me (an opportunity to explore quickly lots of new music), I think it is also coaxing, pasteurizing and generalizing music to the 'most added value possible' or 'most hype created possible per track', to which the epitome of this concept is called 'lo fi hip hop music', which now everyone making mainstream music tries to emulate or incorporate. I know this will so…

> or maybe i'm just getting old and cranky.

Quite likely. There are a lot of studies that show that we're "programmed" to like music we listened to as teenagers. Even though we like other kinds of music we listen to as adults, they don't trigger the same level of response in the brain.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#126

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:16 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #63

grawprog wrote: post #49

Streaming music sucks. It might seem weird but I don't like it. The first music I ever 'owned' myself personally were songs I taped off the radio. After that I started pirating music the same way I would collect songs on the radio, after that I started buying CD's, today I buy songs and albums from artists and producers directly. Building playlists on a streaming service is not the same as building a music collection…

Just sounds like a whole load of "these kids are ruining what used to be the good old times". Of course, I also think music from back in the day was better, but I am also aware that its just a matter of taste and our tastes are molded by prevailing business-social pressures as ours was back in the day. If music appreciation sucks today it can be blamed more on the music industry and their idol manufacturing pipeline…

[deleted]

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#127

Post by oblio » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

yoz-y wrote: post #108

grawprog wrote: post #49

Streaming music sucks. It might seem weird but I don't like it. The first music I ever 'owned' myself personally were songs I taped off the radio. After that I started pirating music the same way I would collect songs on the radio, after that I started buying CD's, today I buy songs and albums from artists and producers directly. Building playlists on a streaming service is not the same as building a music collection…

> Music discovery is easy, relying on a streaming service for discovery is lazy. People are lazy. Automatic discovery works well enough so why bother unless music is something really important in your life?

Or in other words:

Expert in field X disappointed that regular people are not experts in field X :-)

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#128

Post by randomsearch » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #49

Streaming music sucks. It might seem weird but I don't like it. The first music I ever 'owned' myself personally were songs I taped off the radio. After that I started pirating music the same way I would collect songs on the radio, after that I started buying CD's, today I buy songs and albums from artists and producers directly. Building playlists on a streaming service is not the same as building a music collection…

You’re projecting your free time / dedication to discovery on other people and that’s unfair. Spotify’s discovery tools for example are a real boon to many.

That said, I do feel the same as you about the “good old days”. Owning music was a very different experience. It doesn’t help that streaming apps haven’t worked out the UX yet (god knows why, they’ve had long enough).

But... flip side... if I could time travel back to being a teenager and say “for £10 a month (even in that money) you can have access to pretty much all music commercially released” I would have cried with joy at the thought of it. There are so many bands I probably wouldn’t have worked through the catalogue of because they weren’t on my radar or popular within my social circles - even major artists like Bowie or Queen - and Spotify has enabled me to work through most of the great 20th century pop/rock/indie music, plus explore a lot of dance and electro I wouldn’t have.

Problem is I think it’s (the?) jam today and bread tomorrow... I think popular music peaked just before the internet arrived. A good tell is the many festival line ups full of very old bands. If you make a list of the greatest bands/artists of the latest 10 years and compare it to any decade since pop music got going, it doesn’t compare. I don’t think that’s the commercialisation of music (that hasn’t changed so much) rather the financial incentives are no longer there. Appropriately for HN, a lot of kids dream of a building a startup instead of making music.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#129

Post by Kye » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

dag11 wrote: post #97

kortilla wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I enjoy most on vinyl for higher fidelity active listening Vinyl is not “higher fidelity” than what you pay for on Spotify, at least not in the audio quality sense.

It's higher fidelity than 320 kbps. Not remotely higher fidelity than FM or CD quality audio. But I've A/B tested songs I know inside and out on the same equipment using both vinyl and 320 kbps mp3 and I can hear the difference night and day. But the main reason I listen to it is not that it's better than Spotify, but that it's a physically beautiful medium with artwork and is still high quality while promoting activ…

Vinyl seems higher quality because it's such an unforgiving medium. The mastering has to be done well or it'll sound terrible. The MP3, CD, and vinyl are not necessarily done by the same person, or someone with equal skill in each. FM has someone in a sound booth who knows what they're doing.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#130

Post by mrob » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:19 PM UTC

dag11 wrote: post #97

kortilla wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I enjoy most on vinyl for higher fidelity active listening Vinyl is not “higher fidelity” than what you pay for on Spotify, at least not in the audio quality sense.

It's higher fidelity than 320 kbps. Not remotely higher fidelity than FM or CD quality audio. But I've A/B tested songs I know inside and out on the same equipment using both vinyl and 320 kbps mp3 and I can hear the difference night and day. But the main reason I listen to it is not that it's better than Spotify, but that it's a physically beautiful medium with artwork and is still high quality while promoting activ…

Was that MP3 encoded from audio ripped from the vinyl (with a good ADC)? ABX tests show that 320kbps MP3 is usually transparent, so for it to be "night and day" suggests the vinyl had better mastering. It's not always the case, but vinyl is sometimes mastered with higher dynamic range than the digital versions.