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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

#331

Post by chx »

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.

What about

* The rise of blockbusters. Jaws was the first in 1975. Domestic office boomed https://i.redd.it/7nmrszljbdda1.png

* The rise of home gaming and computing. The second generation of gaming consoles is right around this time: Fairchild Channel F (1976), Atari 2600 (1977), Odyssey (1978)... In 1977 you had the Apple II, TRS-80, and the Commodore PET.

* VHS got introduced in 1977.

If we posit there are only so many dollars any one person is willing to spend on entertainment, perhaps it's not a stretch to think these have contributed to less dollars being spent on music?

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

#332

Post by vestrigi »

crucialfelix wrote: post #329
Ralfp wrote: post #317

Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help B-side on Dead Kennedys „ In God We Trust, Inc”

Home f**ing is killing prostitution Graffiti in a band practice space, written by a friend of mine

Responsible disclosure is killing the zero day industry

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

#333

Post by brightlancer »

cubefox wrote: post #215
fipar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. It's an inference to the best explanation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/ No empirical evidence conclusively proves its true explanat…

> It's an inference to the best explanation

You've not provided that explanation. You're telling us it's the best explanation but you haven't explained it or given any argument for why it's the best -- other than because it's what you've said is the best.

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

#334

Post by croes »

ben7799 wrote: post #309
croes wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could the CD save the market from piracy? With a simple cassette recorder with microphone or other audio input you could copy any CD.

You could copy the CD but the copy wasn't as good as the CD. Everyone bought CDs when they got popular because: - They sounded better - They didn't wear out from playing them - Small/Portable/Durable - Easy to move between tracks - No need to flip them to go to the other side (some cassette players eventually figured out how to do this without a flip)

If you have the choice between a cassette copy, to which people were already used to, and no copy, people would choose the cassette copy.

CDs made the source better because the sound was better than the sound of original cassettes.

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

#336

Post by jononor »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #322
barbariangrunge wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artists need to buy groceries and retire some day--almost none of them successfully pull this off, it's like one in a million--but every day there's a dozen posts on here about how greedy the arts industries are for trying to charge money for things. Well, no problem, in the near future you can just get a personal AI to make everything for you. The Arts will be wiped out completely. Time to celebrate? No human artist…

One in a million still implies over 8000 successful artists at any given time. Assuming an average tenure of 20 years in the limelight, that's 32000 over the course of a 80 year lifespan, which is probably more than anyone will bother to listen to in a lifetime. Not to mention the tens of thousands of historic and famous artists. When put in that perspective it actually makes total sense why no one will bother paying…

Assuming 100 different styles of music, there can then be 80 paid artists per style? Just 20 bands if a typical 4-piece. That is not so great for those that primarily listen to one or two styles. Today there are nearly 100'000 active bands within the metal genre alone.

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

#337

Post by DropInIn »

rz2k wrote: post #266
LanceH wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviously a standard other than musical quality in play. Today, it's mostly true that everything is available. The music that reaches the masses, though, is defined by production over musical quality. Would we even see or hear from Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, or Patsy Cl…

I don't agree at all. I've found the YouTube algorithms as good for discovering new singer-songwriters as when I used to see live music a few times a week in New York decades ago. Many, or even most, of the women that come up in my feed are no more conventionally beautiful than the people you cite. How mainstream was someone like Janis Joplin? She was on the radio, but she was also somewhat counter culture. The women…

Take a look at which artists get traction on YouTube.... It's extremely biased by beauty, as the algorithm rewards engagement and if nothing else all the creeps wanking while watching on repeat drive the ladies up the figurative charts....

Really.... how have you not noticed?

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

#338

Post by DropInIn »

blowski wrote: post #243
LanceH wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviously a standard other than musical quality in play. Today, it's mostly true that everything is available. The music that reaches the masses, though, is defined by production over musical quality. Would we even see or hear from Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, or Patsy Cl…

Lewis Capaldi, Adele, Meghan Trainor, Jay Z, Drake. I don’t believe any of them made it because of their looks. On the other hand, the Beatles, The Stones, The Monkees, Stevie Nicks, Olivia Newton John - their looks were very much part of their appeal. Same as it ever was. Face it - you’re old.

"Exceptions that prove the rule"

You've heard the phrase before right?

Why could you pick those names so readily? Because they're the exceptions...

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

#339

Post by seabass-labrax »

booleandilemma wrote: post #165
intalentive wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What an HN comment. "Is this song good?" "One sec, let me check how complex it is"

"500 notes per second! Irish dance is the winner!"

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

#340

Post by DropInIn »

libraryatnight wrote: post #298
LanceH wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviously a standard other than musical quality in play. Today, it's mostly true that everything is available. The music that reaches the masses, though, is defined by production over musical quality. Would we even see or hear from Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, or Patsy Cl…

They'd have a youtube channel and 8 million followers, whether or not you'd hear about them is debatable. Mac Demarco is not a handsome man. Lady Gaga isn't winning any pageants, Adele was mocked for her weight,and then her weight loss, Lizzo's whole thing is self love because she gets harassed for her weight. There will always be beautiful people produced and controlled for sale, and there will always be the talente…

"Lady Gaga isn't winning any pageants"

How does she look in her breakout hit? (Poker face)

Yea... that's right, she definitely looks "good".

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