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Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

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Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#131

Post by bazoom42 »

jacquesm wrote: post #7

"Home taping is killing music" The record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves, the quality has absolutely cratered and the occasional great artist that has made it through the long slog to recognition has done so despite the music industry, not because of. I spent a fortune on various formats and when streaming came along I simply refused to participate. I'm simply not going to pay a thir…

> the quality has absolutely cratered

You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap.

People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#132

Post by intalentive »

jacquesm wrote: post #7

"Home taping is killing music" The record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves, the quality has absolutely cratered and the occasional great artist that has made it through the long slog to recognition has done so despite the music industry, not because of. I spent a fortune on various formats and when streaming came along I simply refused to participate. I'm simply not going to pay a thir…

Digital audio killed the industry. Why buy an album when you can

1. Use Napster 2. Use Limewire or Kazaa 3. Download from FTP trading sites 4. Torrent from Pirate Bay 5. Listen on YouTube 6. Listen on Spotify

Digital supply is effectively infinite so the price goes to zero. How to apply DRM to files ripped from a CD that can be compressed down to 3 MB?

There are other factors, like changes in youth culture and competition from other forms of entertainment, but digital audio + distribution completely transformed the music ecosystem. In the 1990s it was possible for talented, intelligent young people to start a band and pursue music as a career because the expected return was so much higher -- not only monetarily but in cultural cachet and the excitement of the local "scene". But all that has dried up. Labels aren't giving out big advances, nurturing unknown bands, or paying for million dollar albums any more, because they won't recoup the costs like they used to. Meanwhile potential talent got a job, went to college, or stayed home and played video games.

Once music lost its "goods-character", as Carl Menger would put it, all the upstream inputs -- like fancy, palatial recording studios -- withered away.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#133

Post by MivLives »

dylan604 wrote: post #121
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you already own all of the music you are going to listen to for your life? My own music tastes change over time. I don't listen to the same things I listened to 25 years ago - at least, not often. I want new music from time to time, especially if I'm walking places often. That's the thing with streaming. I'm OK with paying an amount that is less than a CD was 25 years ago just to have a bunch of music at my dispos…

>I don't listen to the same things I listened to 25 years ago - at least, not often. I want new music from time to time, It sounds like you want new music all the time. If you don't listen to "old" music often and only listen to new music from time to time, what do you listen to? So technically, 25+ years is considered classic. What is the definition of "new"? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? What is newer than classic, bu…

My interpretation of that is not they want recent music but they want novel music.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#134

Post by the_only_law »

bazoom42 wrote: post #131
jacquesm wrote: post #7

"Home taping is killing music" The record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves, the quality has absolutely cratered and the occasional great artist that has made it through the long slog to recognition has done so despite the music industry, not because of. I spent a fortune on various formats and when streaming came along I simply refused to participate. I'm simply not going to pay a thir…

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

It’s also a sign you aren’t looking. Yeah, music is going to be trash if you’re just looking at what’s popular on the radio/TikTok/charts. Spend some time on bandcamp going through what’s been posted in your preferred genres.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#135

Post by somat »

bondarchuk wrote: post #63
victorbjorklund wrote: post #54

In Sweden there is still a tax on cassette tapes that goes directly to artists... So if you buy a cassette tape (any cassette tape for any use) artists in Sweden gets a cut... Not sure how many people today use cassette tapes for piracy...

In the Netherlands there's a similar thing: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/intellectueel-eigen... 2.60 eur for every tablet and PC 5.30 eur for every smartphone 80 cents for every hdd or ssd etc. etc, though I don't see CD-ROMs (nor tapes) in this list strangely enough. I wonder who actually gets this money in practice. 5 bucks per smartphone for some random non-profit is pretty huge!

It would be interesting to see an audit on where the money actually goes.

It is probably not "list occupation as drummer on your tax return and get a 25 euro buck credit"

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#136

Post by intalentive »

bazoom42 wrote: post #131
jacquesm wrote: post #7

"Home taping is killing music" The record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves, the quality has absolutely cratered and the occasional great artist that has made it through the long slog to recognition has done so despite the music industry, not because of. I spent a fortune on various formats and when streaming came along I simply refused to participate. I'm simply not going to pay a thir…

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

No it's objectively worse. The average complexity is at all time lows.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#137

Post by lwelyk »

intalentive wrote: post #136
bazoom42 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

No it's objectively worse. The average complexity is at all time lows.

I wasn't aware there was an objective 1-to-1 correlation between the complexity of music to its quality.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#138

Post by math_dandy »

intalentive wrote: post #136
bazoom42 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

No it's objectively worse. The average complexity is at all time lows.

You’re right about the average, but that single summary statistic is too coarse. There’s probably much more great music being produced now than ever before, but there’s much much much more crappy music. And recommendation algorithms aren’t optimizing for quality.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#139

Post by fipar »

cubefox wrote: post #91
fipar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That graph does not show cassettes were responsible for that, it just shows revenue numbers. There are other possible causes. As someone who lived through part of that (I’m from ‘78 but for a country that was lagging in media developments; we got CDs in the early 90s) I can say that cassettes were a lousy medium. I love them because I grew up with my Walkman and I loved the tape swapping scene (physically compiled an…

> That graph does not show cassettes were responsible for that, it just shows revenue numbers. There are other possible causes. You don't mention any of these possible causes though. > interpreted as people willing to buy music just fine provided it sounded good and kept sounding good Yes, CDs replaced cassettes and records. They had better audio quality and were nearly as small as cassettes. But cassettes weren't mu…

> You don't mention any of these possible causes though. I did not, but I was responding to your "The reality is that yes, cassettes really were responsible" which to me reads like a statement of fact and not one of possible cause. The fact remains that the graph you shared does not proof cassettes were responsible for that.

Another possibility is that music revenue around that 1976 peak shown in your graph is due to wider reasons (e.g., '74 and '75 had negative GDP growth, then positive for a few years, then negative in '80 and '82 with a positive '81, that actually matches the revenue graph to some extent, so I don't think it's an established fact that cassettes were the cause for this.

As a disclaimer though, I'll admit my opinion is tainted by the fact that the record companies were pushing that 'cassettes are killing music' agenda, which I disagree with, so I'm certainly biased in my views.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#140

Post by some-guy »

intalentive wrote: post #136
bazoom42 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

No it's objectively worse. The average complexity is at all time lows.

What does “complexity” even mean here? Is modern music any less complex than “I Want to Hold Your Hand”?
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