Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#191

Post by oarabbus_ » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

vpilcx wrote: post #104

oarabbus_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with your poignant "getting to know an album" statement, but I fundamentally disagree with your general point of your issues with streaming; I think it's a boon to have such a wide selection of music at your fingertips. An asymptotically infinite, for practical purposes, amount of music. That being said, I really appreciate your perspective, and everything you said about physical media, the radio,…

> The younger generation has no concept of listening to a song you "don't like" 50 times, simply because you listened to the album you purchased 100 times. I'm not below the age of 25 but this seems like a really archaic statement. This is basically equivalent to "Kids these days have no idea what it means to have to watch commercials and shows you didn't want to watch to get to that show you were really looking forw…

The statement is not archaic. It is an inevitable consequence of technological progression. Your comparison between advertising commercials and songs of a favorite band is a very poor comparison and doesn't make any sense. It makes as much sense as comparing your favorite beer to having to split a bill at a restaurant i.e. a completely invalid comparison.

It would be more like saying "kids these days have no idea about waiting for a dial-up modem" which would be true.

Or the prior generation saying "kids these days have no idea about the excitement of having a pen pal and waiting weeks for a response" which would also be true.

Or saying kids these days don't know the sense of accomplishment of being adept at reading a map. Also true.

Or kids these days don't appreciate having to memorize a friend's number and having to speak to their friend's mom first. Also true.

Or kids don't appreciate how when you used to travel to a foreign country for vacation, you were 100% gone and unreachable from your contacts back home. Also true.

Every generation feels this way. I don't see why anyone should get upset at this truth.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#192

Post by EVdotIO » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #96

Bayart wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music has always been extremely formulaic. That's its very nature : using tropes we're accustomed to to provoke an emotional reaction. But it certainly is less formulaic now than it was a few centuries ago.

Less formulaic now? Pop music is becoming more repetitive. [0] People like Max Martin producing an amazing amount of hit pop songs leads me to think it's more formulaic. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_tjFwcmHy5M

Max Martin is also a fantastic musician, originally a singer (this is arguably the most important part of pop), and has a deep understanding of music. From a harmony standpoint, his stuff tends to be a bit more interesting than most pop tunes. The dude is beast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin_production_discogra...

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#193

Post by satyrnein » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

comprev wrote: post #103

I don't use streaming services because I disagree with their insulting revenue for the artists. Fortunately I've always been one to seek out more underground artists, and platforms like Bandcamp have been amazing. Not only do the artists get an order of magnitude more revenue, sellers can offer merchandise and physical media (vinyl, CD, cassette) too. These often include a digital copy. Due to the closer connection b…

I'm not sure why it would be an order of magnitude more money. Bandcamp takes 10-15% while Spotify takes 30%. So potentially 90 cents on the dollar instead of 70. Unless you're including other factors?

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#194

Post by satyrnein » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #158

comprev wrote: post #103

I don't use streaming services because I disagree with their insulting revenue for the artists. Fortunately I've always been one to seek out more underground artists, and platforms like Bandcamp have been amazing. Not only do the artists get an order of magnitude more revenue, sellers can offer merchandise and physical media (vinyl, CD, cassette) too. These often include a digital copy. Due to the closer connection b…

What IS the revenue agreement? This seems to be the most closely guarded secret in America.

The services have straightforward agreements to their suppliers, which are typically labels or distributors for most popular music. The complaint about the artist's eventual earnings is often actually a complaint about the artist's deal with their label.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#195

Post by strogonoff » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

Multiplayer wrote: post #186

strogonoff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just earlier this month I discovered some stunning new music. I paid its producer $10 for the album, $9 (minimum price) to gift it to a friend, and $9 to gift it to another friend. That day the artist earned $28, minus Bandcamp’s cut, from me alone. Even though that musician enables free listening via Bandcamp, he does not distribute his work under Creative Commons or a similar license, which radically reduces the ch…

Link please? I think curation of music is a large part of the ultimate answer to recreating the relationship we used to have with music. If you think it's "stunning" I want to hear it!

Glad you asked!

https://robertrich.bandcamp.com/album/neurogenesis

Slow abstract soundscaping like this would not generally be my kind of jam, but my ear welcomes the lack of typical equal temperament inharmonies. I reckon this album is among the more accessible examples of just intonation and microtonality (title track puts JI on show especially).

I wouldn’t classify Robert Rich as someone who desperately needed my financial support, but I really liked the music and know a couple of people who could possibly appreciate it.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#196

Post by bamboleo » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #49

Streaming music sucks. It might seem weird but I don't like it. The first music I ever 'owned' myself personally were songs I taped off the radio. After that I started pirating music the same way I would collect songs on the radio, after that I started buying CD's, today I buy songs and albums from artists and producers directly. Building playlists on a streaming service is not the same as building a music collection…

Classic "old man yells at cloud."

Nobody is stopping you from picking an album and setting it on repeat. Everything you could do before, you can still do, just without heading out nor opening your wallet.

The only thing that concerns me about streaming is that music might disappear in the future. Everything else is just your own nostalgia, I don't miss having to listen to my father's tapes on repeat.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#197

Post by magicalhippo » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #187

magicalhippo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of great music out there, here's some of what I enjoy but Bandcamp has so much more... https://delvonlamarrorgantrio.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-kex... https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/the-heat https://firebreatherdoom.bandcamp.com/ https://thesoftmoon.bandcamp.com/album/criminal https://dakhabrakha.bandcamp.com/album/the-road https://wizardrifle.bandcamp.com/ https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/our-birth-…

The fact you are giving me band camp links only strengthens the point im saying. Rock is on life support at best, if all you have are bandcamp links to indie bands. People arent going to go through everything on bandcamp to possibly find a gem. I clicked a few of those links they sound like any band from the last 20 years. New rock sounds for 60 years were mainstream music and accessible and progressive. That is no l…

I guess I took your "new" a bit too literally. My point was simply that I think there's a lot of great music out there being made as we speak.

Does it sound similar to what was made 20 years ago? Certainly not everything, but that's where I am with my tastes at the moment.

> The fact you are giving me band camp links only strengthens the point im saying.

I gave Bandcamp links because that's where I get all my music from, and because I think it's better for the artists to share Bandcamp links than to say Spotify.

> People arent going to go through everything on bandcamp to possibly find a gem.

That's why they have Bandcamp Weekly[1] and such, but of course there's lots of other ways.

> Rock is not a major genre any more.

Major as in there's not a lot of really big acts, ala say Kiss or Van Halen, then sure. Is that so surprising?

The affordability of audio recording and the internet means its much easier for smaller acts to find an audience. This leads to more variety, as people can make and find various niches.

Is that a bad thing?

[1]: https://bandcamp.com/?show=412

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#198

Post by ubercow13 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #188

ubercow13 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you make a list of the greatest bands/artists of the latest 10 years and compare it to any decade since pop music got going, it doesn’t compare Ah, a classic meme: https://old.reddit.com/r/lewronggeneration/

I definitely agree with the GP. Here’s a list of top ten songs by year: http://www.billyjamesmusic.com/erasongs.htm This is an old meme because it’s been arguably been true since the 90’s. According to that list, the sixties, seventies and eighties clearly beat the nineties in my biased opinion. Part of it might just be a genre shift: The only rock songs that made the cut in the 90s were one each from Meat Loaf, Aero…

Hmm, yes I think if you interpret GP saying 'greatest bands' to mean the most popular charting artists, it's more agreeable.

>I think there’s a paradox where more excellent music is being produced every year, but genre fragmentation and the sheer diversity of it means the stuff that bubbles to the top gets more and more generic.

This is very true and likely part of it. Streaming services and the proliferation of headphones probably exacerbate the effect.

I think the genre/taste aspect is significant. Yes, rock is a great genre, but maybe it is not really possible for a great rock band to achieve mainstream appeal or even critical acclaim just on the back of good songwriting and great musicianship today, because that is not novel or interesting like it was in the 70s.

Personally I find just the sound of Sia's voice makes her much more interesting than a lot of the more generic rock songs from the 70s in that list.

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#199

Post by reducesuffering » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

errantspark wrote: post #19

denimnerd42 wrote: post #2

> Defense of the Ancients is up 38%. interesting error calling Dota 2 "Defense of the Ancients"

IIRC, the only reason it's not called that is some inane IP bullshit. "Dota 2" officially but Defense of the Ancients 7.25 in the hearts and minds of anyone who's been around for the past decade and a half.

You mean Warcraft 10.25?

Re: Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

#200

Post by tayo42 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #197

tayo42 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact you are giving me band camp links only strengthens the point im saying. Rock is on life support at best, if all you have are bandcamp links to indie bands. People arent going to go through everything on bandcamp to possibly find a gem. I clicked a few of those links they sound like any band from the last 20 years. New rock sounds for 60 years were mainstream music and accessible and progressive. That is no l…

I guess I took your "new" a bit too literally. My point was simply that I think there's a lot of great music out there being made as we speak. Does it sound similar to what was made 20 years ago? Certainly not everything, but that's where I am with my tastes at the moment. > The fact you are giving me band camp links only strengthens the point im saying. I gave Bandcamp links because that's where I get all my music f…

> Major as in there's not a lot of really big acts, ala say Kiss or Van Halen, then sure. Is that so surprising?

This is what I mean, popularity of rock is dead compared to what it is has been. There is no innovation in genre, nothing is captivating. There is no new and modern sound to rock. Those bands did something different. There isn't an audience anymore to support that kind of band and there is nothing worth supporting like that out there.

If your going through bandcamp looking for indie bands that play 40 person bars with an audience of 3k likes on facebook, your not the typical listener. You seem to be either really into the scene or sound. metal fans might think there's new metal bands are good, but most people of have heard metal, the small differences between bands arent enough to captivate a new large audience.

Like for me, I don't want to hear another band that sounds like blink182, or nirvana or pink floyd or disturbed or anything other style I listened to death already. Rock now doesn't provide anything fresh.

> its much easier for smaller acts to find an audience. This leads to more variety,

Idk if you can make that assumption, there might be more punk bands then ever before but if they all sound the same, who cares?

> I think there's a lot of great music

I think your thinking of something different then I am. I'm not saying everyone out there are talentless hacks. Like jazz or like I said in the other post disco, some of it is even enjoyable and might have a gem or two. There are lots of talented musicians, but they're not really evolving the genre.

People will always be making music but that doesnt mean the genre is thriving. Maybe bands needs to go underground for a bit for a new sound to emerge. Or the 4 person band with a guitar and drums is going to go the way of jazz bands and younger generations grow up listening to rap and electronic.