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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

#341

Post by karaterobot »

At any stage in the process, from sheet music, to home taping, to Napster and beyond, we could point at the previous era's panic and say "ha ha, those old fools, sheet music didn't kill our vibrant music culture", and then go on to assume that, quite likely, nothing ever could.

And yet it sure seems like something is broken in the music industry in 2023. It feels like right now would be one of the least certain times in history to be a talented, dedicated musician who wants to make a living, let alone get rich and famous.

So, something changed. I think the tendency for many people is to just say that the reason for all this is the greed of the non-artistic, non-consumer parts of the music industry, but certainly it has nothing to do with me or my choices. I think that's probably self-serving position, and if we really looked at it we would find ourselves uncomfortably in an ecosystem where consumers demand immediate fulfillment of their desire, the industry rushes to give it to them without thinking about the future, and artists either adapt, or get replaced.

I did a lot of home taping. I did a lot of bittorrenting. Now I pay for Spotify, but haven't bought an album (physically or digitally) in years. I think I might have helped kill the music industry, and that's probably a bad thing.

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

#342

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

I agree that music quality has gone down a lot, and that people don't pay much for music anymore.

To me, that doesn't look far from the "home taping is killing music" prediction.

It was another technology that did it, but with less money coming in, less great music did get created.

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

#343

Post by wilsonnb3 »

karaterobot wrote: post #341

At any stage in the process, from sheet music, to home taping, to Napster and beyond, we could point at the previous era's panic and say "ha ha, those old fools, sheet music didn't kill our vibrant music culture", and then go on to assume that, quite likely, nothing ever could. And yet it sure seems like something is broken in the music industry in 2023. It feels like right now would be one of the least certain times…

> It feels like right now would be one of the least certain times in history to be a talented, dedicated musician who wants to make a living, let alone get rich and famous.

In recent history perhaps.

For most of history making a living via music was very difficult and the current state is sort of a reversion to the historical norm after the recorded music boom distorted things for a century or so.

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

#344

Post by vunderba »

mschuster91 wrote: post #174
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.

> 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. Thing is, there are objective metrics about quality. One aspect is "loudness war" aka compression, where subjective loudness gets increased at the cost of dynamic range [1], another (in)famous aspect is the increasing use…

Eh. You can make the same argument for synthesizers, samplers, drum machines or anything that allows you to use midi to control instruments. At that point, you're not having to play it, so isn't that technically cheating?

Note I'm not making a point for or against either way, just pointing out that this argument taken to its logical end covers a pretty broad domain of the music industry.

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

#345

Post by vunderba »

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.

If you're gonna make that argument than music peaked during the contrapuntal period and anything post-baroque is simply romantic drivel.

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

#346

Post by MichaelZuo »

jononor wrote: post #336
MichaelZuo wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did you really read just the first sentence of my comment?

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

#347

Post by vunderba »

jacquesm wrote: post #48
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need something new every day Neither do I, but I'm also not going to spend decades - or even years - listening to the same thing week after week. Not to mention that my music tastes are much more varied than they were years ago.

That's fine, not everybody is the same in this respect. I can drive people absolutely nuts by listening to the same piece a few hundred times in a row. Recently: Miriam Stockley, Perfect day (1999, sorry).

That's a good song, it has some interesting harmonic similarities to Howard Blakes walking in the air.

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

#348

Post by analog31 »

Granted, this discussion is about the recording industry, but just as an aside, don't overlook local live music. I'm a jazz musician. The bands I play in don't record. It's not worth the cost. We play in smaller venues, where the stakes are not high enough for "business" to intrude on our playing.

Each band plays a different style. More than one jazz band in my locale is playing creative original music, including one of my bands.

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

#349

Post by bigbillheck »

samstave wrote: post #321
bigbillheck wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. This is 100% purestrain revisionism.

Uh, I had to goog this... but this doesnt map. So explain thyself ;; " this involve a significant revision of fundamental Marxist theories and premises, and usually involve making an alliance with the bourgeois class " - uh... explain me... to me?

Your understanding of the music industry of the 60s and 70s is at the 'not even wrong' level.

Let's start with this to set the context: > But we dont have revolutionary music such as led zepplin, pink floyd, etc in the current crop.

And then when it comes to Led Zeppelin and this: > none of the above sought facade public images as much as every single 'influencing' pop-stars today.

I'm not sure what 'facade' is doing there, maybe you meant to use a different word, but I'm also not sure how you can look at Led Zeppelin after the early 70s and say they weren't seeking a public image.

Then there's Pink Floyd and this: > Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced.

From which I'm going to guess that you've never actually listened to the lyrics to 'Have a Cigar'.

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

#350

Post by cubefox »

brightlancer wrote: post #333
cubefox wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you have a better explanation, why you don't just provide it to us? That's like saying to a scientist: I don't believe your explanation is the best we have, but won't provide a better one myself. Very easy.
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