Spotify Is An Enemy of Sustainable Arts

Obviously he can hear those differences even if you’ve tuned them out, ...and he was far more polite to your narrow POV than you were to his reasonable perspective.

I don’t need to wake up, ...but I do need to yawn.


Cat

 

More verbal diarrhea.

Elvis Presley's RIAA Certified Album Sales More Than 146.5 Million Units

I'm glad my words "I don't pay for air" have stuck in your craw.

Your words have all the impact of a belch in a hurricane.

 

Without insanity and repetitive circular arguments? That probably turns this 147 thread to a 3 page thread lol

 

Don't mistake Debbie Gibson's career fizzling out with lack of talent. She's a mighty fine singer - her vocal talents go way beyond Swift's for sure - and a mighty fine songwriter. Out of the Blue and Electric Youth contain some of the finest pop music you'll ever hear. She wasn't so good at aligning her own music with current trends and faded after her third album was a bit of a commercial miss. Taylor Swift's longevity I'd guess is the result of having a horde of producers on board positive about selling her work to the masses.

 

Pretty sure this forum exists primarily because of "difference between pressings" that most people "cannot hear", so uh, you're welcome Gentle reminder that there are also those here who can hear the difference between the same CD from different pressing plants.

Just FYI.

 

Bach, Handel, Haydn Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Verdi, Brahms and Mahler would all like a word.

 

This, x1000

I like a good album, but the veneration the format gets around here and elsewhere is bizarre and definitely over-egged. It's one format of many, not the be-all and end-all of music.

 

Well, last time I checked I pay slightly less for my internet connection than a few years ago and I got double the speed.

 

Did it? I bought hundreds of great albums since the early 2000s.. do I see dead albums?

 

Yes I know. Weren't The Beatles one of the first bands to throw away the concept of an album = singles + fillers?

And I do understand things evolve. Streaming now makes it possible for artists to release more smaller releases (singles and EP) more often without much extra cost and effort, so artists can "keep the momentum". I just think it's too bad because I like the album concept. Really curious if the album will really die, or make a comeback in the future like vinyl did.

Edit: I know of a band who just recorded a full-length and signed with a label just after mixing was finished. The label basically said: thanks for the album, we can now release 12 singles.

 

Yes! It’s inevitable

I think that was tried with Moby Grape’s first album back in the 60’s. It did not work out well


Cat

 

Koda Kumi, in Japan, back in 2005, did a 12 singles project where she released 1 song every week for 12 weeks. It performed pretty well and they were then collected as a “greatest hits” package, so essentially an album of sorts … but not the traditional marketing concept.

The trend in Korea – and to an extent Japan – at the moment seems to be to focus on EPs and singles as well. I’m not sure if that’s entirely down to streaming but I suspect it’s driving a lot of those decisions. In my mind it’s a good model for popular music, as Schnitz likes to say, it deftly avoids those questions about filler and it keeps product moving more frequently and bands relevant. When you’ve got your Adeles who like to release one album every 5 years it starts getting stupid, I think.

 

Streaming is the enemy, new music is crap, "opinions I don't like = insanity", "I don't like where the thread is going, so hey Gort, shut down this thread"

Pure SHTV heaven.

 

Elvis is obviously still iconic, but is he selling to anyone under 40 (50??).

Unlike the Beatles with the reissues/remastering/cirque de soleil/paul's, ringo's touring and general media work Elvis doesn't get much media attention these days. I would say his day is over, which is not to dismiss his previous status.

 

Streaming is good for streaming companies. Streaming is cheap for consumers. But the music and musicians looses.

 

Just because you can’t discern and appreciate differences doesn’t mean others can’t. Don’t be silly.

 

Yes. You have to wake up and leave your bubble of self reinforcement. Things don’t revolve around your limited point of view. Time to clock in, your supervisor needs you to focus on your job and not post all day long. Phillip!

 

It is an algorithm. Maybe a sophisticated algorithm, but an algorithm nonetheless.

 

Got gross exaggeration and fake straw men? Try logic and seek more balance.

 

This is an interesting question. I recall 80's and 90's pop music as being bereft of anything good. It was one long synthetic drop to the bottom. Horrendous.

Then I go over to Super Deluxe Edition, run by Paul, and I find all the music I hated venerated. You see, to Paul - who is younger than I and grew up in this period - it's all pretty magical.

We can ponder why we feel different about it, but it's easier to just accept that different people like different things, and we're all anchored by our formative years, everything is seen through the lens of what we were hearing when we were 12 to 21 (not to say we ONLY like music from that era).

Has Debbie Gibson's music stood the test of time? For me, no. But then I hated it at the time. Ask someone at SDE, and hell yes. We should simply accept that people have different preferences.

 

One other thought.

What the hell has happened to SHF? It was once full of audiophiles. Now it's turned to lossy, compressed streaming. I guess any segment of music lovers can be bought if the price is low enough. I'm genuinely surprised so many professed audiophiles are willing to accept lossy audio when the price is low enough. But then - I can be dumb sometimes.

 

I’m not anchored to my formative years. Something had to arrive in my formative years and if we’re talking teen pop idols then Debbie Gibson and Kylie and Bananarama were pretty big in the UK at the time and I personally think they sold well and became popular because they were very good, and each for different reasons. Debbie was a great and charming vocalist who wrote brilliant and upbeat songs at the age of 16. Kylie was an ex-soap star with a particularly magnetic appeal and S,A&W really found a style for her. Bananarama had a relatable image and very slick songwriting from Jolley & Swain out the gate.

Pop was definitely never my first love, I grew up with classic rock music and esp. Queen, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Soundgarden, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Yes. I love a diverse range of classical music and Opera. I love a wide range of Jazz. But I also happen to like music with big tunes - a lot (which is what draws me to Japan so often, they know how to weave a lively tune into whatever they're doing and they aren't ashamed to do so). I’m not sure why that’s so dirty to so many classic rock fans - or even modern music fans - but there you go. I think the problem lies more with people dispenses with things that were popular in their formative years because they see themselves as being more adult and mature in their music tastes and it would be an embarrassment to go back and acknowledge that simple, direct songwriting can be as enticing as a long guitar solo or improve, or … The Beatles. I personally like pop artists as diverse as Morning Musume, Girls Aloud, Rachel Stevens, Madonna, Mamas and the Papas, Early Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, Kylie Minogue (up until 2010-ish), Shakira (that is, her more pop stuff), Michael Jackson and I enjoy listening to Now Music compilations from 80s up until 00s. There's tons and tons of quality pop music from the 80s, 90s that I'm rediscovering. There's no "drop" You just have to be open to it as "pop" and not assume it should be anything like Pink Floyd, or like The Beatles or your current "artistic" obsession of choice.

Not saying that you personally need to enjoy Debbie Gibson’s music. You don’t - it’s of a particular taste and if you don’t really enjoy upbeat and slightly cute pop songs then it’s not for you. But as a bit of a fan I do like to bat for her as more than being liked by people for purely nostalgic reasons – just as other’s are trying to bat against the obvious prejudices there are towards Taylor Swift (who does appear to be a credible artist, for sure .. though possibly ultimately outside my preferred styles).

 

I like good audio and I like good music. But, for me lossy encoding does not get in the way of enjoying good music, as long as the artifacts are not too obvious / irritating.

For me, it is about convenience and not money. My portable player supports lossless, but my collection would not fit on its SD card if I would use that. So, I use Lame V2 encoded mp3s. I found that any artifacts do not bother me at that quality level.

And it's not my ears. I worked at a company where we had to check for artifacts in audio and I was the only one of 150 employees who passed the blind tests, so the only one who was able to judge the quality objectively.

I am just very happy that I can enjoy music without being worried if the quality is OK.

 

A loud minority is still a minority.

 

Don't forget the sprinkling of misogyny this morning, as well.

Giving the moderators some credit so far for keeping this one thread alive. So far.