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Amen. One underinvestigated aspect of streaming is "people" (and I'm talking about my kids here) don't know what they are listening to, it's super easy for them
by avip 7y ago
Amen. One underinvestigated aspect of streaming is "people" (and I'm talking about my kids here) don't know what they are listening to, it's super easy for them to skip/change, and lots of what was "relation to artist/album" is lost.
On the upside, streaming is sup for discovering new music.
- tzs 7y agoIt might be easier to discover new music with streaming, but I'm not sure one discovers music of as high a quality. Back in the album days, an artist needed a song or two or three on the album that would would have wide appeal and be easy to quickly like, so that they might become hits. These would get played on mainstream radio, and based on them people would buy the album. They would listen to that album for those songs, but because it was a pain to skip around on an album they would listen to the whole album. Artists could put deeper, more complex songs on the album. Songs that people might not instantly like. Songs that people only come to appreciate after hearing many times. Songs that eventually become people's favorite songs on those albums. With streaming, a lot of people will just jump to the newest hit from another artist instead of listening to the less immediately accessible songs from the previous artist whose hit they just checked out.
- freehunter 7y agoOn the other hand, it encourages artists to make songs worth listening to. I've purchased way too many albums because I liked one or two songs only to discover every other song on the album was complete trash. But at that point it was too late, they already had my money. People who jump from hit to hit will always do that. Don't worry about them. People who seek new and interesting music are immensely helped by risk-free streaming.
- elevenbits 7y agoI use streaming radio to find songs that are similar to a song I like, then look up the artists for some of the new songs that caught my attention. This allows me to find both new songs (immediate win), but artists whose other songs may influence my musical tastes (longer term win).
- lonelappde 7y agoImagine if records were still the best known music technology today. You'd buy a record ad half of it would be ads. People would make paper templates to tape to records to block ads.
- runarberg 7y agoI actually discover most of my music on the radio, then at the record store (including online stores like Bandcamp). I hardly ever discover good music while streaming.
- tempguy9999 7y ago> lots of what was "relation to artist/album" is lost I've literally no clue what this means or why it might matter. I love music, but it comes off an album and is produced by an artist. I could not care less about the album, or the artist (other than to pay them for their work). What is this 'relation' thing and what is it's relevance?
- chkaloon 7y agoMaybe you're being facetious, but here goes anyway: Many times albums were created as works themselves, with songs as components. Rock operas like Pink Floyd's The Wall and The Who's Tommy as obvious examples. Each produced great singles, but the album was the creation. Even less cohesive albums were created with a song order in mind, so listening to them as a unit was the artist's intention. A small example: ELO's "please turn me over" lyric at the end of Mr. Blue Sky, telling you to turn the record over.
- tempguy9999 7y agoThanks for the answer. Not remotely facetious and your suspicion that I was suggests we may be too far apart to understand each other. The fundament of it for me is I like particular tracks, not albums, not artists, not genres (although I have preferences in each). I listen to what I like, I skip what I don't. I couldn't care less about the artist's intention, song ordering or anything - they are so peripheral I have never thought about them. That's all. I think what put my back up about the original post was "...super easy for them to skip/change, and lots of what was "relation to artist/album" is lost". I don't expect everyone to necessarily understand the musical tastes of others, but should always respect them, which this quote seemingly didn't.
- lonelappde 7y agoIt's like going to Amazon and getting paragraphs instead of books. Or how we get just headlines instead of deeply informative news articles. If you are going to get defensive about someone pointing out something you didn't know, that might be a sign of insecurity.