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There seems to be a lot of anger around Spotify these days, often misplaced I reckon. One of the biggest impediments to new artists making a living from recorded music is not the existence of Spotify and other streaming platforms, rather it's the massive and growing library of existing music, some of which is excellent. But it's not impossible. My neighbor manages his music career himself. In 2024 he went from having…
As in, put on a playlist, then finish it without having repeat on. I find some of my favorite music from the following tracks. It helps if you have a very varied playlist - it discourages just playing tracks from the same artists.
Yeah, this article misses the mark. The author definitely frames the issue of AI-generated music and stock music in Lofi Hip Hop through a Spotify-centric lens. While they acknowledge that lofi originated and gained popularity outside of Spotify's control, particularly mentioning YouTube channels, it's BS to act like Spotify is the be-all and end-all of this (or any) genre. Disclosure: I've never paid for a Spotify a…
For those on Youtube, check out OGDONNINJA. He has a channel of literally thousands of old-school underground boombap hip hop tracks, in their dusty and 12-bit glory.
I would highly recommend that folks read Liz Pelly's Mood Machine , which is referenced here via the Harper's excerpt, not just because it shows artists' perspectives on the long tail model that tech pitched to them, but because it can be read as an indictment of the platform model that increasingly dictates how we engage with art and society at large. Pelly's account really gets to the heart of the problem: these pl…
The "post-radio" world is a weird one. An algorithm selecting songs for streaming audio just isn't the same as the kind of curated-for-genre/channel experience that radio used to provide. Sure songs would get overplayed, but radio also did a pretty good job of keeping that absolute tripe off the air. Good radio stations would also surface good local bands and cater to regional tastes. As much as I love the fact that…
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The "post-radio" world is a weird one. An algorithm selecting songs for streaming audio just isn't the same as the kind of curated-for-genre/channel experience that radio used to provide. Sure songs would get overplayed, but radio also did a pretty good job of keeping that absolute tripe off the air. Good radio stations would also surface good local bands and cater to regional tastes. As much as I love the fact that…
I couldn't disagree more. Most radio stations only played the most blandest junk music, even from great artists. Seems they would rotate the top 3 songs even from the absolute most popular musicians. I must have heard Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden >500 times on the rock stations in Stockholm. The Prowler? 0. Maybe some 3am DJ could play some cool songs on occasion, like you said. There was always very little variet…
>The Lofi style itself is nothing new, Lofi beats bear a striking resemblance to instrumental hip hop of the 90s and 2000s. Lofi IS instrumental hip hop. Dilla was doing this in the 90s.
Dilla is still the greatest to ever do it.
I would highly recommend that folks read Liz Pelly's Mood Machine , which is referenced here via the Harper's excerpt, not just because it shows artists' perspectives on the long tail model that tech pitched to them, but because it can be read as an indictment of the platform model that increasingly dictates how we engage with art and society at large. Pelly's account really gets to the heart of the problem: these pl…
The "post-radio" world is a weird one. An algorithm selecting songs for streaming audio just isn't the same as the kind of curated-for-genre/channel experience that radio used to provide. Sure songs would get overplayed, but radio also did a pretty good job of keeping that absolute tripe off the air. Good radio stations would also surface good local bands and cater to regional tastes. As much as I love the fact that…
Historically radio worked because their was actually money in the advertising, but also because radio was inherently regional. You could license content at a rate that made sense for your station's reach.
Now it's trivial to broadcast over the web to a huge audience but the floor has fallen out on monetization. Podcasts and streaming both work because they don't rely on licensed content, but music can't make the jump.
> For Japanese soundtrack producer Nujabes, the “lofi” sound wasn’t an aesthetic choice. It was an artifact of creating such forward thinking music with the dusty equipment from 20 years ago. I trying to figure out where the author got this from? Audio hardware/software hasn't changed that much in 20 years, and Nujabes' lofi aesthetic seems intentional. According to Wikipedia, it originated from an effect button on R…
He was using old equipment such as the MPC60 and SP1200. The SP1200 in particular has a "sound" due to its 12-bit architecture. And when Nujabes was writing said music in the mid 2000s, that gear was 20ish years old. MPC60 was 1988, SP1200 was 1987.
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Yeah, can't wait to go back to Sony installing rootkits on my playback device to make sure we don't pirate their CDs.
Sony being bad doesn't mean Spotify isn't also bad.
Lo-Fi hip hop already sounds AI generated. It’s music for bubble tea shops.