221–230 of 237 posts
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It's probably better to say that lofi is a genre or type of instrumental hip hop. You wouldn't listen to e.g. Endtroducing... on the lofi girl stream.
You definitely would have played Endtroducing when it was relevant in places lofi hip hop is played today, used to be played in coffee shops, hairdressers and ad agency lobbies constantly
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There are 33k broadcast stations in the USA [0], and 11k people employed as disc jockeys [1] There were 12k broadcast stations in the 1980s [2] Given we can assume little to no automation, or at least a DJ human making sure the equipment didn’t break, and 8 hour shifts, that suggests 36k people were employed as radio DJs in the 1980s if we only count their time on air, assuming a 24 hour broadcast. If we include thei…
Nice analysis, but maybe still missing some things. e.g. it's not clear that "DJ" here is professional radio-DJs vs dancehall/wedding etc. which tend to be small single-person businesses in an entirely different function. A good radio-DJ might be hired to fill a key block of time in a major metro. They may select to play a local band's new song during evening rush hour and suddenly 3 million new people know about it…
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I find that the Spotify algorithm is great if you ignore all of the Spotify-branded recommendation junk, and just use the 'Keep Listening/Autoplay' feature. 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.
A lot of that music is now payola, placed into those "organic" autoplays via Spotify Discovery Mode, which requires artists and labels to take a 30% discount on royalty rates for their music to be played in this context.
I think that further underscores my point of having a varied playlist, since you're only eligible for Discovery Mode if you have >25,000 listeners.
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…
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…
I understand it’s trendy these days to shit on Spotify but when I read about this practice it kind of seems like a non-story. Spotify are adding low cost tracks to their curated playlists (which are usually quite boring) to save themselves some money. If you don’t like this practice just don’t listen to their curated playlists. There are so many better user generated playlists out there.
the initial release of Discover Weekly 10 years ago gave everyone such uncanny recommendations that it was a cultural event, people were talking about it, it was written up in major newspapers. Apple Music had just released a few months before and was a serious threat to Spotify, so Discover Weekly changed the trajectory of the company.
It was also technologically interesting because it was one of the first times that a recommender system incorporated deep learning (on the actual song audio) in addition to collaborative filtering.
It was really amazing! Now instead, they are shoveling whatever garbage costs them the least. Depressing.
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> Music has become "flatter" in a sense which in theory is good. But if everything is unknown, it's much harder for utterly unknown geniuses with bad marketing skills to break through. Man, I read stuff like this and it's just so far out of touch it blows my mind. Let me introduce you to the internet. You'll never run out of geniuses if you actually make an effort.
Right, but you aren't really acknowledging four realities: 1 - 90% of everything is crap. 2 - > if you actually make an effort so now I have to be the curator! But I don't have time to sift through the 90% of crap. That's the point somebody else used to get paid to separate the creme from the top. You may have and unlimited amount of low value time to dedicate to listening to thousands of artists and tens of thousand…
Top 40, billboard, and the grammys aren't representative of contemporary music quality or the depth of talented musicians out there. It's not a secret and every musician knows it. Pearl Jam '96 grammys. It represents the consumers of music.
If you can't be bothered to watch or listen to some kexp live, audiotree live, tiny desk. Or listen to internet radio. Or read any of the numerous music publications. Or dig through related artists on a streaming platform. Then it's a problem with you the consumer of music, and makes you really no different than all the other people that make those top 40 charts what they are. It has no bearing or makes no comment on the overwhelming amount of good music we have today and how accessible it is.
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I understand it’s trendy these days to shit on Spotify but when I read about this practice it kind of seems like a non-story. Spotify are adding low cost tracks to their curated playlists (which are usually quite boring) to save themselves some money. If you don’t like this practice just don’t listen to their curated playlists. There are so many better user generated playlists out there.
the curated playlists used to be incredibly good. the initial release of Discover Weekly 10 years ago gave everyone such uncanny recommendations that it was a cultural event, people were talking about it, it was written up in major newspapers. Apple Music had just released a few months before and was a serious threat to Spotify, so Discover Weekly changed the trajectory of the company. It was also technologically int…
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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…
> We can support musicians we like by adding them to our personal playlists and playing their music every day. We can also just buy their albums like ye olden times. Buy tracks for $1.29 like ye slightly less olden times! If you have disposable income, buy albums! It's easy and also fun.
A growing number of artists don't make albums anymore, either physical or something that can be purchased. I don't understand, but their choice. However, I only buy albums (preferably physically, will accept flac download), so they won't be getting money from me.
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> I mean, some of the best sounding albums of all time are 50+ years old That is.. arguable
The Dark Side of the Moon will be 52 years old next month.