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?

#131

Post by ferongr » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:20 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…

>It's higher fidelity than 320 kbps

No it's not. SNR is at best 65dB, low frequencies go through processing before getting cut to account for limitations of the medium and channel separation is less than 30dB. Furthermore, there's wow, flutter and rumble. You also have issues with RIAA equalization (many preamps STILL can't get that right) and cartridge loading, that end up affecting high frequency response. The latter is also affected by stylus and record wear.

With vinyl being such a technically flawed medium, ofcourse you could A/B between that and a high bitrate MP3 file that most probably is transparent to a lossless source. MP3 reaches transparency at lower bitrates, as has been proven by ABX (not A/B, those are useless from a scientific perspective) tests conducted in many communities like Hydrogen Audio.

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

#132

Post by awild » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:26 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #122

awild wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Ma…

To me Spotify has this vibe of musical ignorance all over it. A friend and I joked about their ceo wearing a t-shirt that had something to the effect of "I love music" on it. Which IMHO no-one that deeply likes music would wear. He also made snide remarks about how musicians should adapt to their platform wrt to publishing more music more often (instead of adapting Spotify to the needs of the musicians)

The story I linked also has a similar feel, the music is basically avant pop and neo soul, and instead of forwarding this cluster to someone with a musical/cultural background, a techbro comes up with their own label that comes off as basically "it reminds me of my favourite thing".

From the outside it seems they are really only approaching it from a purely technical point with a subconscious arrogance, ie they are adding the value not the musicians.

Their programmers probably make more money than most musicians on their platform and that's frustrating as fuck.

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

#133

Post by fb03 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:27 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #125

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.

I can agree, but what makes me doubt it is that "back in the day" (oh shit) we had lots of mainstream music that was different between themselves. we had the hiphoppers, we had the people that craved fast "whitney houston remix" level high energy dance stuff, we had the "hey i'm mean" rockers. all sharing the top charts.

if you take the medium bpm between the top 100 billboard tracks right now it must be somewhere between 69-80bpm and with the characteristics i mentioned above - and it's all a smear between "i'm depressed" and rhythm and blues.

i still can't quite confirm but yes, i am also getting old and cranky :)

but srsly, don't you feel music is just becoming a pasteurized smear of the 'same' ?

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

#134

Post by kingosticks » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:28 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…

For what it's worth, Spotify don't use mp3. They stream AAC for the Web player and Ogg Vorbis for the rest.

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

#135

Post by arcturus17 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:39 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #123

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…

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

Can't say anything about the state of the tech right now, maybe they've screwed it up, but I remember back when I used it ~15 years ago it went on these very long escapades and very rarely repeated songs...

I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing collapsed under the weight of some stupid policy of the rightholders (eg, make sure it plays Taylor Swift every 5 songs, or else!) or some other commercial consideration.

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

#136

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:40 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…

>Music discovery is easy, relying on a streaming service for discovery is lazy. What's hard is commitment. Taking time to explore the back catalogue of artists you like and taking the time to get to know music.

That is only true if you only use the Radio feature and never notice the suggested artists. Otherwise everything you listed is literally easier than it has ever been.

If you want to complain that other people are doing things wrong, then please stop. You have no control over other people.

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

#137

Post by strogonoff » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:49 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #107

strogonoff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just earlier this month I discovered some stunning new music. I paid its producer $10 for the album, $9 (minimum price) to gift it to a friend, and $9 to gift it to another friend. That day the artist earned $28, minus Bandcamp’s cut, from me alone. Even though that musician enables free listening via Bandcamp, he does not distribute his work under Creative Commons or a similar license, which radically reduces the ch…

You should read this: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encrypti... The person maintaining GnuPG went nearly broke because nobody donated to this widely used project. Only because corporations stepped up, GnuPG didn't go unmaintained. This is a constant issue and hardly anybody can survive on private donations alone. Government grants and corporate donations keep the lights on.

If that was seriously intended as an analogy, it is at best comparing apples to apple tree fertilizer.

One can be appreciated by anyone for its own sake, answering fundamental human needs; the other can only be used by certain qualified technicians.

100% of people who heard my song in background of John Streamer’s Minecraft speedrun are capable of enjoying music for its own sake. (In fact, they may be more likely to listen to my song again and again than rewatch his speedrun. I have gained up to as many new listeners as John has had viewers.)

0% of people who used the app Kyle McDeveloper built on top of my web framework are capable of enjoying a web framework for its own sake. (In fact, 0% of humans are, and only a rounding error would know what it even is. I have not gained anything, so if Kyle is profiting off this I’d rather prefer if he sponsored me on GitHub.)

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

#138

Post by schwartzworld » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #60

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…

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…

Funny that you say that because I have long thought Spotify kills discovery.

In the 90s, I discovered a lot of great music because it was playing at a listening station at a record store, or because I was browsing through the ska-punk section and liked the cover art, or by flipping through a friend's CD collection. A lot of my early tastes came from gems I found in my parents old records.

It was also really common to buy an album for one or two songs and then "discover" more songs you liked on the album. The scarcity required you to actually give new songs a chance. I feel like streaming caused my music taste to stagnate because there is no reason not to just skip an unfamiliar song.

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

#139

Post by j0057 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #60

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…

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…

Discovery was a social process not an algorithmic one. The person behind the counter in the record store (and/or your friends) would get to know your taste and recommend new stuff to you. In most stores, you can listen to a CD before you buy it, maybe not the big American retail-style ones but certainly all the smaller record shops.

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

#140

Post by jon-wood » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #128

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 ba…

The cynic in me thinks that the abundance of old bands on festival line ups is probably more focused on targeting people with disposable income, rather than a young audience who may be very enthusiastic, but are also broke.