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How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

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Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#81
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truthfully, I don't give a shit about AI. It's a tool to generate mediocre garbage, be that writing, be that images, be that music, whatever, and in those tasks, it can largely succeed. If you want a lifetime of generated Lo-Fi to listen to, it will do that. If you want a lifetime of generated hentai to fap to, it will do that too, and the outputs meet your standards, congrats, you are an average consumer of mediocre…

Money flows to the things people want. The real housewives, the view, twilight, etc. Hell people make millions simply playing video games on twitch. But nobody is owed an income for doing something they love. The question you should be asking, is how do you increase demand for the things you value? How do you make people want the thing you have to offer. Musicians, comedians, and other artists who figure out that ans…

The key to doing nearly nothing and getting rich is to start out rich and then invest.

The problem is not being 'owed' an income. The problem comes in when there end up being a class of people that can't make a living doing anything. When this class becomes too large bad things tend to happen. Be it government enabled purges or the masses breaking out guillotines or riots burning entire cities down.

I, an invested member in the continuation of society, would like a rather non-violent world to be in our future.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#82
post #7

AI seems like a scapegoat here when I think the real answer is simply that it was a tired genre that died out like many music fads over the years. (Everyone could learn how to make these with a 10 minute youtube tutorial which flooded the market, independent of AI.)

The problem is actually Spotify was a bit of a market maker here in terms of getting access to peoples ears. AI probably hollowed out the quality of the music for all but the most dedicated listeners as someone who has listened to lo-fi for a long time. Spotify probably also boosted their own preferred content.

The article sounds part whiny and part boosting Wish on the Beat (multiple mentions of their linked playlist) - which I am supportive but also don't believe all the content in the article as a result.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#83

The first two albums by Nujabes, the "godfather of lo-fi," are some of the best I've ever heard. Metaphorical Music and Modal Soul.

Calling it lo-fi is almost an insult - Nujabes is a category by themselves

Yeah, it is nothing like the lo-fi of today. Nobody else has ever made an album quite like Modal Soul and nobody will again.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#85

>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.

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.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#86
post #7

AI seems like a scapegoat here when I think the real answer is simply that it was a tired genre that died out like many music fads over the years. (Everyone could learn how to make these with a 10 minute youtube tutorial which flooded the market, independent of AI.)

I think like anything, the lineage evolves. If we're to call Madlib and Dilla 'lofi', as the wikipedia does, then we can follow that lineage to someone like Knxwledge, who just this week won a grammy for 'Why Lawd?'.

Meanwhile, you have all these people on YouTube that distill something out of that lineage and just make tons and tons of boring versions of it. As more people encounter it, divorced from it's history, the term takes on a new meaning and now the boring version is what the label means.

So I guess you could say the lineage is alive and well while the genre is boring and dead. And I agree, it's not AI's fault.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#87
post #57
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats because there is no answer. Marx and all of the people who developed his theories after him have exhaustively and scientifically proved this. That's really whats happening: its not that people dont have an answer is that they're not admitting to the exploitative nature of private capital accumulation. The main internal contradiction of capitalism leads to the system creating large amounts of wealth but also equ…

So communism it’s the answer cuz Marx?

The answer doesn't seem to be late stage capitalism.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#88
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone could learn how to make these with a 10 minute youtube tutorial which flooded the market That is a strange way to view music to me. Just because people can make music doesn't mean others will enjoy it. It isn't really obvious to me that overwhelming the supply would decrease demand. I mean, look at any extreme pop genre. One would assume that there are more complicated economics at play.

The problem when a creative niche gets flooded with low quality ripoffs is that people end up fed up with the entire genre. Plus even that aside, people often crave change. No genre of music has ever remained entirely static. And all styles of music comes in and out of fashion.

I don't know that much about current music, but I do spend a lot of time listening to LoFi study girl live stream, is that music the genre being discussed here? Perhaps it's just the normal hype cycle and then things settle out? Innovation, enthusiasm, copy cats, burn out, a solid genre for decades?

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#89
post #53

As a long time (actual) hip-hop fan, I do find it quite hard to muster sympathy for this weirdly isolated, and perhaps disposable, genre? Kind of like, okay, how much did you try to build with the origins of the thing you're using to make new music? Reminds me a bit of "nerdcore" hip-hop; which also made little sense because e.g. Del the Funkee Homosapien and RZA were also nerds making VERY nerdy music, but for "some…

I mean, I don't disagree with you, but nobody should have to compete with AI on the biggest market out there. If the genre was dying because it isn't cool anymore, whatever. If more people are listening than ever, but they're just getting AI lofi to avoid paying artists, then it's bad news.

Re: How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop

#90
post #75

Spotify is a blight upon music and it would be better for our culture if it would cease to exist - I have been boycotting these vultures and culture-vampires since day one but apparently I’m a big weirdo Luddite for that. Buy music directly from the artist or on bandcamp, stop supporting Spotify if you give a shit about music

Without Spotify and the rest of the streaming services most of the people would just pirate music. I would probably spend less on music than I do now on Spotify per year.

You would still give more money to artists directly though — most artists get basically nothing from Spotify
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