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Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

theguardian.com

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Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#11

Post by winternett »

j7ake wrote: post #6
winternett wrote: post #4

Big industry and Ai companies are flooding the Internet with low-grade music. This is their tactic to holding far better independent music out of view, because if indie music took over, there would be no going back to big industry music. Coupled with social apps like TikTok & Instagram and streaming companies like Spotify not allowing indie artists to grow without paying serious ad money, the larger industry is activ…

I hope companies like http://www.unitedmasters.com will help change that trend!

They've been around for a long time now, just another digital distributor that charges artists to upload music... They're also owned by a major industry entity, the same ones I'm posting about... Hardly a game changer. Major labels strangle independent artists and frustrate them to the point where they'll desperately sign weak big industry contracts and then get popular, but ripped off. The whole industry needs a major reorganization from it's current exploitation model.

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#12

Post by tsunagatta »

winternett wrote: post #4

Big industry and Ai companies are flooding the Internet with low-grade music. This is their tactic to holding far better independent music out of view, because if indie music took over, there would be no going back to big industry music. Coupled with social apps like TikTok & Instagram and streaming companies like Spotify not allowing indie artists to grow without paying serious ad money, the larger industry is activ…

> When people go to sites like YouTube and Spotify, it's very difficult to find an artists best work, these sites do everything to steer listeners towards big industry music, rather than helping independents to grow.

I dunno, personally, I was introduced to some of my favorite underground artists purely through Youtube recommendations. People like Sewerslvt, The Caretaker, Ecco2k, Astrophysics, Kero Kero Bonito, and some dark ambient projects like TOWERS/TOWERS. Maybe now that AI’s out there this won’t be possible anymore but for the time being at least, I feel like music discovery on YT is pretty good.

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#13

Post by doublerabbit »

bruceboughton wrote: post #8
Foreignborn wrote: post #5

Has anyone built a screenless music player for their kids, or perhaps other projects that allow safe, independent exploration without a phone? I'm interested in creating something for my children to discover music beyond my own collection. My kid doesn't have a phone, and so doesn't really have any autonomy in finding and playing music (as the article points out). I recall DIY projects with NFC-enabled printed albums…

Yes, Yoto! It’s not just for (kids) audiobooks, they have music cards too. And you can upload your own MP3s to their blank cards, or use it as a Bluetooth speaker.

Yoto! looks interesting. My nephew got a Voxblock [0] for Christmas and loves it.

Practical and easy. It's not interactive and you can buy an wide collection of audio books (made with recycled cardboard) and listen to it with headphones

[0] https://voxblock.co.uk/

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#14

Post by winternett »

tsunagatta wrote: post #12
winternett wrote: post #4

Big industry and Ai companies are flooding the Internet with low-grade music. This is their tactic to holding far better independent music out of view, because if indie music took over, there would be no going back to big industry music. Coupled with social apps like TikTok & Instagram and streaming companies like Spotify not allowing indie artists to grow without paying serious ad money, the larger industry is activ…

> When people go to sites like YouTube and Spotify, it's very difficult to find an artists best work, these sites do everything to steer listeners towards big industry music, rather than helping independents to grow. I dunno, personally, I was introduced to some of my favorite underground artists purely through Youtube recommendations. People like Sewerslvt, The Caretaker, Ecco2k, Astrophysics, Kero Kero Bonito, and…

I find most of my music on YouTube as well, and many artists are making ground, but they hit a ceiling. I'm an indie musician myself, so I'm speaking from experience. When you see an indie musician's music on YouTube, 9 times out of 10, they're paying money to promote it on the platform. Streaming sites pay very little, so very few artists make that promo money back until they go on tour, and even then, unless you're selling major volumes of tickets and albums, as a musician you only break even if at all behind the scenes.

The thing is, for musicians, if they spend a lot of time on their work, they don't get paid anywhere near what they should, even after years of work, unless they break into the level of being on TV and Radio, most artists don't have health care or even enough to pay rent.

Just because we may know about certain musicians, doesn't mean they are doing well off of their music, tons of musicians secretly have day jobs, while the tech industry makes billions. Modern musicians often sign record contracts and find themselves in a lifetime of debt before they can even earn their first check, this is what most of their listeners don't know.

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#15

Post by winternett »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #10
winternett wrote: post #4

Big industry and Ai companies are flooding the Internet with low-grade music. This is their tactic to holding far better independent music out of view, because if indie music took over, there would be no going back to big industry music. Coupled with social apps like TikTok & Instagram and streaming companies like Spotify not allowing indie artists to grow without paying serious ad money, the larger industry is activ…

Honestly I think this is a weird opinion. Tiny, independendant bedroom producers are BLOWING TF UP every single day becayse 5 seconds of their song becomes a tic tok meme. Its a great time for independant artists, financially, and the tech companies are facilitating it, not hindering it.

>Tiny, independendant bedroom producers are BLOWING TF UP every single day becayse 5 seconds of their song becomes a tic tok meme.

That is a common trope pushed by platforms like TikTok & IG to encourage musicians to work on the platform. TikTok does not help musicians to grow in any way unless they are already very popular (over ~100k followers). If you become a popular artist on TikTok, they invite you to HQ where they assign you a client manager that gives you help in promoting your account, but it comes with a price. Social platforms captures the profit that a musician reaps from using the platform without paying royalties in most cases in reality. The music business now is a broken system of payola if you ask artists that weren't born rich.

TikTok is also on the way out as an option as well, as it is supposedly going to be banned in September this year.

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#16

Post by janetmissed »

Foreignborn wrote: post #5

Has anyone built a screenless music player for their kids, or perhaps other projects that allow safe, independent exploration without a phone? I'm interested in creating something for my children to discover music beyond my own collection. My kid doesn't have a phone, and so doesn't really have any autonomy in finding and playing music (as the article points out). I recall DIY projects with NFC-enabled printed albums…

The most practical/cheap option would probably be an old phone with parental locks and access to a streaming service. It'd be much more functional and cheaper than any dedicated screenless device, and it gives a kid much more autonomy. It's understandable to want to protect kids from predatory algorithms, but music streaming services are probably the least predatory out of all the "big" apps. Also they never stopped making cheap mp3 players, if you want to have complete control over their music discovery

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#18

Post by nothercastle »

empressplay wrote: post #3

MP3 players aren't hard to find (neither are MP3s for that matter), also used CDs, records, tapes etc, and players for same This article seems to be an answer in search of a question

They aren’t hard to find but music discovery is problematic at the 1-5grade. Peers don’t have access so they can’t share music interests. My kid only knows Taylor swift and nothing else. There was a similar article on book discovery failing in the 9 + year old range.

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#19

Post by janetmissed »

winternett wrote: post #4

Big industry and Ai companies are flooding the Internet with low-grade music. This is their tactic to holding far better independent music out of view, because if indie music took over, there would be no going back to big industry music. Coupled with social apps like TikTok & Instagram and streaming companies like Spotify not allowing indie artists to grow without paying serious ad money, the larger industry is activ…

I think this is an out of touch perspective. Big industry music has never been more irrelevant since radio stopped being the main way people discovered new bands. I notice that with my peers (early 20's), I listen to at most 20% of the same music as someone with similar tastes to me, and most of what both of us listen to is independently released from small artists. While industry backed musicians are still the largest artists in the world by sheer numbers, they have never been less relevant.

Also YouTube and tiktok are really good at recommending obscure/independent artists if you actively search for independent music. Like Spotify and YouTube aren't actively promoting and finically compensating independent artists because they are being payed off by the "industry" to suppress what you consider "good" music, they just recommend what's most likely to keep someone on their service and they pay poorly because streaming services don't have an actual business model beyond growth hacking.

Re: Are Kids Losing Their Love for Music?

#20

Post by volteret4 »

Foreignborn wrote: post #5

Has anyone built a screenless music player for their kids, or perhaps other projects that allow safe, independent exploration without a phone? I'm interested in creating something for my children to discover music beyond my own collection. My kid doesn't have a phone, and so doesn't really have any autonomy in finding and playing music (as the article points out). I recall DIY projects with NFC-enabled printed albums…

Maybe an old walkman, discman? the "phisicality" of the music is a good thing we usually forgot about.
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