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Record labels have been doing similar things since the 1950s, building musical acts on-demand by combining skilled, anonymous "session musicians" with an attrac
by prova_modena 4y ago
Record labels have been doing similar things since the 1950s, building musical acts on-demand by combining skilled, anonymous "session musicians" with an attractive, marketable image or performers that fit the current trend. The most famous example from the 1960s is the Monkees, but this dynamic played a huge part in the development of a surprising number of famous pop bands and musical personalities. Massive public backlash against the perceived inauthenticity of this approach caused record labels to be much more cautious from the 1970s onward, but it's never gone away. Spotify's main "sin" here seems to be that they aren't as skilled as the big labels in manufacturing authenticity/buzz around their most promoted artists.
- iostream24 4y agoOr rather that they are actively seeding each genre with content they don’t have the pay royalties on and giving preference to this content unless directed specifically otherwise, and the real sin here is not divulging that you’ve been hearing generic house brand “music” and pretending that it’s all equally valid content. This will become more obvious as algorithmic music takes over background music tasks. Spotify is evil in the sense that any other monopoly with perverse incentives trying to appear mellow and not monopolistic is. Netflix specials are labeled as such, and they put some effort and money into them, they aren’t cynical garbage like the Amazon knockoffs of Amazon listed merchants are, which fraudulently purport to be the same.