Spotify Is An Enemy of Sustainable Arts

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Rosskolnikov, Mar 7, 2019.

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  1. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    That's not really true. There was a lot of skepticism about the damage file sharing was going to do, sure, but also plenty of belief that it was going to totally undermine the record industry. Folks in the the industry just had no idea what to do about it. I know because I was working in the tech and new media world then, and I had friends in the record business I was consulting with in the '90s. I wrote a story for the New York Times on MP3 file sharing, this was before the launch of Napster, and at the time file sharing was mostly going on in colleges, which is where there were young people with access to T1 speed data connections, (in the home market, most people were still on dial-up). I remember the business editor said to me, "These kids aren't really going to take down the music industry, are they?" And the paper cut the story enormously and ran it deep in the business section. So that attitude was out there among cyber skeptics.

    But my friends at the record companies were wringing their hands trying to figure out how to keep the horses in the barn and, if that didn't work, how to get people to pay for networked music. There were a lot of internal legal constraints inside the companies. And concerns about protecting distribution and business relationships that were making money.

    I also had a lot of friend who were internet entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to build businesses delivering network music to people.

    The problem wasn't that no on predicted the change. The problem was that in those wild west days, consumers had no willingness to pay for online content. Consumers just wouldn't do it. It seemed too emphemeral, like buying air. And you couldn't convince them to. Paid content on the internet didn't work for almost anybody back then -- magazines, newspapers, books, no one was making charging a subscription for content work. Newspapers would put up pay wall and sell subs only to take them down a few months later.

    Then there was a generational change. A net native generation came of age. Network usage shifted from LANs to cellular (where bit torrent piracy wasn't a factor). Netflix came along and convinced people that paying for content online was OK. And paying for content subscriptions online took off, not just streaming music. All kinds of news and entertainment business began to find that consumers were willing to pay. You know, Spotify launched 13 years ago. Pandora launched 14 years ago. But it took 10 years for a paying market to actually develop for these businesses and for the market to start growing at a rate that could more than offset the decline of the physical media market.
     
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  2. Howard Bleach

    Howard Bleach Imperial Aerosol Kid

    Location:
    green bay, wi
    But these things are inseparable to people like me and--I would imagine--to the majority of people posting on this forum. I guess we're all "stuck in 1982?"

    And as far as a "quality of experience," streaming loses again: A dedicated listening room with a good system and a sweet original pressing is dinner at Peter Luger Steak House; Spotify is drive-through Arby's.
     
    showtaper, Rocky's Owner and Vaughan like this.
  3. Freedom Rider

    Freedom Rider Senior Member

    Location:
    Russia
    I agree.:thumbsup::agree:
     
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  4. Exotiki

    Exotiki The Future Ain’t What It Use To Be

    Location:
    Canada
    That makes two of us :righton:
     
  5. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    When I sit in my dedicated listening room streaming a 16/44.1 file from Tidal through the same DAC I listen to CDs through via the same hifi system I listen to CDs and LPs through, the experience of listening to the music is identical to the experience of listening to the music from a CD. The audio quality is the same or better, the music is the same, the stereo is the same. I'm sitting in the same room listening to the same music in the same resolution on the same system. The quality of the musical experience is the same. I understand that there are extra musical elements of the experience of playing records that people value, but they ARE extra musical. There are people who are fans of records or CDs and collecting, not just fans of music. And there are people who are just fans of music.
     
    Ódoligie, goodiesguy, Zeki and 11 others like this.
  6. Howard Bleach

    Howard Bleach Imperial Aerosol Kid

    Location:
    green bay, wi
    ...until the following thoughts pop into your head: I wonder who engineered this? Is that Red Garland on piano? What year was this recorded? What master am I listening to? Is this still side 1? What do these guys look like? Who did the band thank in the liner notes? Is that a hidden message in the cover art? Where do I break up my w33d?

    Passive listening. Minute rice. Drive-through Arby's.
     
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  7. juss100

    juss100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Can I ask a n00b question? To get the same quality experience can I just connect my AMP straight to my soundcard and all the work will be done in the amp, or do I need to convert the digital sound first? What audio program should I use, because I feel that Musicbee tries to replicate what an AMP does and messes the sound before it gets to my AMP or my DAC. Also, I want to buy a new AMP but I don't really no what to look for in terms of being good for use with spotify as well as traditional hi-fi stuff and I've failed to find good info on the internet, to be frank.
     
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  8. Exotiki

    Exotiki The Future Ain’t What It Use To Be

    Location:
    Canada
    Well you came to the right place! You could connect straight to your sound card but usually they are pretty low quality and external DAC could help push your system to sound the best.

    Topping and Schit make some great neutral sounding DAC’s. They connect through the USB port on your device and bypass your built in sound card.

    Then I would use foobar, it is really customizable and they’re is no “fake
    Amp” being used: it’s also free and is generally really great.
     
  9. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    You'd be better off having the conversation here:

    Audio Hardware
     
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  10. Exotiki

    Exotiki The Future Ain’t What It Use To Be

    Location:
    Canada
    Agreed, although I was just trying to help
     
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  11. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    First of all, if I'm really listening, I'm not thinking about all that stuff like what the performers look like or who engineered that. If I'm thinking about that stuff, my mind has drifted from the music and the performance and I'm not really paying attention to the music. You're a musician, I would say to you, if someone is listening to your record and thinking about where it was recorded, you as a musical performer have lost their attention. I don't read liner notes while I'm listening to music. Second, most of that information is available online and more, there's actually often precious little information about that sort of thing available on a record jacket, I can call that up on the web after the listening is done. Third, like I said, the musical experience is the same. All those things are extra musical elements.

    I spend a lot of time thinking about some of those kinds of things you mention. When I was a middle school kid I used to spend my weekend in the library microfilm room reading old magazine articles about popular music. I was a dweeby kid. And I grew into a dweeby adult. I read scores, books about music, books about musical engineering, all that kind of stuff. It's not that I lack interest in all that meta information. It's that it's not music. It's information about music. It's not part of the experience of hearing the music in the moment. And actually more of that information is more easily available today with a Google search than anything I used to get back in the day reading liner notes or magazine articles. In fact, I almost never look at the packaging of the CDs I buy anymore, and they pretty much don't have any liner notes anyway. I don't know what you think is missing. I can go stream Joe Lovano's I'm All for You and when I'm done I can go Google "Lovano All For You" and find out where it was recorded, when it was recorded, when it was released, I can read reviews of the album and contemporaneous interviews with Joe Lovano. There's actually way more access to way more of that information online vs. on a record jacket.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
  12. sleeptowin

    sleeptowin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham
    wouldn't all that be on Wikipedia? which could be found from the device you are playing the music from.

    does side 1 /2 still exist?
    do people even do liner notes anymore?
     
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  13. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    I go asynchronous USB to my DAC -- which is a cheapie, a Musical Fidelity V90 that I bought specifically in order to integrate streaming into my home hifi just to kind of try things out when I first got into streaming -- and then from the DAC to my preamp, using Tidal to play 16/44.1 FLAC. I tried Qobuz and the sound was better including the non-MQA high res stuff but the Qobuz library was totally insufficient for my needs.
     
  14. Daven23

    Daven23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hyde Park NY USA
    Without Philip, Rocky would have no one to zing so I agree. I’m enjoying this
     
  15. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    Yes, of course people do liner notes. :D

    Still, your question itself seems to miss the point. I'm sure all the information is online, but so what? That only applies if you reduce everything to the status of metadata. But it's so much more than that. I think you're struggling to appreciate what it means to have a collection, or we're having difficulty articulating it adequately.

    Hell, to sit and enjoy a passion without the need to be connected the whole time and looking at a screen constantly is a plus in my book! But no screen is going to fully translate what it means to read a booklet, or to look at an album cover.
     
  16. Exotiki

    Exotiki The Future Ain’t What It Use To Be

    Location:
    Canada
    I wish we could go back to the days of lots of info about how the artist felt, the time period, the inspiration, recording, and release. I miss LP back’s coated top to bottom in that kind info. It paints a picture of things to come and primes you to start the album. Even better if it comes with a info insert and lyrics on the inner.

    When I play a album, I only listen and look at what’s provided. I’m not surfing Wikipedia to get the info the label was too lazy to provide
     
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  17. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    If one's interest is in the information, then how you get the information doesn't matter very much -- online or on a record jacket, who cares? The info is the same.

    I think we all understand that collectors get some kind enjoyment out of the process of collecting and of having and holding the physical stuff. What collectors don't seem to understand that that those of us who aren't collectors get the same enjoyment and have the same engagement with the music as they do -- including sitting and just listening to music without a screen or an album jacket in front of us. And we can also get the same information and knowledge and more, all without collecting stuff, the collection of which gives us no pleasure and the ownership of which may see to us to be a burden.
     
  18. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Most of the new albums I buy have very minimal liner notes. I by a lot of avant garde jazz that doesn't sell in large quantities and mostly the goal in packaging seems to be to keep the cost down --- they're digipaks and they don't even come with any inserts, and all the same information that's printed on the inside of the digipak is available on the artist/label Bandcamp site or other of their websites. Actually, usually there's more information available there -- press release info maybe some notes from the artist. Anna Webber's Clockwise is a very interesting album in which Webber build these jazz pieces taking inspiration from famous classical percussion pieces of the 20th century. But you won't get the composer/leader's very interesting insights into her working process from any documentation that comes with the CD. You will get a little of it if you go to the record company website where there's far more info about that than what is in the minimal liner notes. If a listener is relying on liner notes today for information about the music, that listener is likely not getting all the info that the artist or label is making available.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
  19. juss100

    juss100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I have a fiio DAC which I bought for use as a headphone Amp, I don't know if that'll really be sufficient for now. Something that bugs me is I can't go to TIDAL or Amazon HD because they just don't have as good a catalogue as Spotify, which is of primary importance to me - so upgrading my DAC may or may not be wasted effort I guess. Thanks for the insight into what you use!
     
  20. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    This is so true. I happen to be a fan of liner notes and album artwork and owning the physical catalog of my favorite artists, but I can’t afford to own, nor do I have the space in my home to own, physical copies of every album I’m interested in. The other day I used Spotify to listen to the Complete On The Corner Sesssions by Miles Davis, a pricy physical box set I missed out on when it was in print, and, while I kind of wish I had the cool little metal box edition of that set (I do have the metal box editions of several other Miles sets), as you note, when I close my eyes and listen to that album on Spotify, the experience of listening to it is basically indistinguishable from listening to an actual CD of that set.
     
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  21. juss100

    juss100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I bought this CD the other day and can honestly say that I spent more time browsing the booklet than I did listening to the CD. Not one of her best at all.

    Then I found that video featuring her and Rihanna and realised that the internet does, indeed, trump pretty much all else.

    [​IMG]
     
  22. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Yeah, I understand the frustration. I keep a Tidal subscription and a Spotify subscription, the latter in part because my wife uses it but in part because of the better library. Most of the stuff I'm interested in, at least from those labels that do stream, is available on Tidal in at least 16/44.1, but not all. If Spotify would just add a 16/44.1 lossless tier it would be a killer app.
     
  23. Hermes

    Hermes Past Master

    Location:
    Denmark
    Anybody who thinks Wienerschnitzel is funny is suffering from false consciousness!
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
  24. Spin Doctor

    Spin Doctor Forum Resident

    It's possible that you enjoy your music the way you always have. And that's cool. What I really don't get is the "enjoy your music the way I do, or your're wrong mentality." (which is pretty pervasive around here, BTW.)

    When exactly did you write and approve the Universal Music Listening procedure? Because I was not on the distribution list. And for that, I am thankful.
     
  25. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    wakesnakes?!!! (I probably don’t want to know.)
     
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