3 ms·

i don't know without being re-born in an alternate universe, but i think there's a reasonable argument that i would simply give up on music - or just stick to a

i don't know without being re-born in an alternate universe, but i think there's a reasonable argument that i would simply give up on music - or just stick to a relatively small collection of classical and jazz standards. finding the good stuff is quite time-consuming; i wouldn't buy enough to do it and i'm not impressed with pandora (not that i can listen to it any more); radio doesn't cut it (except for radio 6 - i guess that would get even more middle age male listeners, but then that's free anyway ;o). in other words, as i think others have said: downloading is the new radio. [updated: i'm not convinced this is a good-faith conversation, but if you're really curious, and not just wanting to say how you would do things - after asking what downloaders do, and saying you are not one, then dismissing my response - then i work like this: get a recommendation; grab an album; add it to random shuffle ("radio"); eventually notice certain tracks; become fans of those bands.]

jamesmcn 14y ago
I've got to agree with this. I had a small collection of classical and jazz CDs until I arrived at college in the mid '90s where I encountered physical and later digital music sharing. My musical horizons expanded dramatically then, and then again in the last decade as even more obscure and more interesting music has become more browsable. Services that try to tell me what my Facebook "friends" like or what is "popular" are deeply uninteresting to me. I would never pay money for them. At this point, I mostly avoid commercial music except for a few artists that I know well (mostly early '90s "electronica"). The risks around file trading are too great. Instead, I stick to music that I've found on Soundcloud, youtube or in the various music production forums I hang out in. As soon as you sign with a major label, I don't want to hear from you. If your idea of customer service is suing your actual and potential customers, then you can go fuck yourself. If you are thinking about starting a music discover startup that tries to shove the same crap down my throat, I also don't want to hear from you. There are plenty of people who apparently do, but I don't.
majormajor 14y ago
Interesting—personally, I find filesharing to be a really crappy discovery mechanism these days. It's ok as a "this was recommended to me by a friend, do I actually like it" vetting mechanism, but Youtube has surpassed it for that for me. Someone can drop a youtube link on a page or in a forum post, and I can click it and get the music streaming to me right away. Filesharing was the new radio thirteen years ago, when the alternative was MIDI downloads or nothing, but I'd say Youtube serves that role today for the majority of listeners. (Well, actually, if we're talking the population as a whole, radio is still radio—it and traditional TV are both still doing far, far better than internet pundits predicted five or ten years ago.)
- trafficlight 14y ago
  That's where private trackers like What.cd shine. Discovery is incredible. I can see what's new and popular from the last 24 hours, I can see all the similar artists for a specific artist, or I can download a curated starter 'collage' (as they call them) of a specific genre.
  - voltagex_ 14y ago
    And then spend the next year frantically trying to recover your ratio...
    - trafficlight 14y ago
      You gotta be a little careful, but I make sure to download everything during the freeleech events and to seed forever.
majormajor 14y ago
To address your update, since it's after the edit window for my initial response: Downloading used to me what I'd do to check out new music after getting recommendations (because I don't have the patience to listen to the radio, where there are a bunch of commercials plus songs I don't like). Sometime in the last few years I stopped because I noticed I could find stuff from almost all the artists I was being recommended on Youtube and the like, and it was a quicker way to do on-demand listening of them than downloading a whole album. The difference in our workflows is that I want to evaluate new stuff more immediately. I'm fairly impatient, and I'm also personally not a big fan of cross-artist radio-style random shuffle. As for private trackers, I just don't care enough about music these days to go seek those out or worry about an upload ratio (I got kicked off of one about seven years ago for that reason, since I downloaded a bunch after joining as was catching up too slowly for their tastes...).

jamesmcn 14y ago

I've got to agree with this. I had a small collection of classical and jazz CDs until I arrived at college in the mid '90s where I encountered physical and later digital music sharing. My musical horizons expanded dramatically then, and then again in the last decade as even more obscure and more interesting music has become more browsable. Services that try to tell me what my Facebook "friends" like or what is "popular" are deeply uninteresting to me. I would never pay money for them. At this point, I mostly avoid commercial music except for a few artists that I know well (mostly early '90s "electronica"). The risks around file trading are too great. Instead, I stick to music that I've found on Soundcloud, youtube or in the various music production forums I hang out in. As soon as you sign with a major label, I don't want to hear from you. If your idea of customer service is suing your actual and potential customers, then you can go fuck yourself. If you are thinking about starting a music discover startup that tries to shove the same crap down my throat, I also don't want to hear from you. There are plenty of people who apparently do, but I don't.

majormajor 14y ago

Interesting—personally, I find filesharing to be a really crappy discovery mechanism these days. It's ok as a "this was recommended to me by a friend, do I actually like it" vetting mechanism, but Youtube has surpassed it for that for me. Someone can drop a youtube link on a page or in a forum post, and I can click it and get the music streaming to me right away. Filesharing was the new radio thirteen years ago, when the alternative was MIDI downloads or nothing, but I'd say Youtube serves that role today for the majority of listeners. (Well, actually, if we're talking the population as a whole, radio is still radio—it and traditional TV are both still doing far, far better than internet pundits predicted five or ten years ago.)

trafficlight 14y ago
That's where private trackers like What.cd shine. Discovery is incredible. I can see what's new and popular from the last 24 hours, I can see all the similar artists for a specific artist, or I can download a curated starter 'collage' (as they call them) of a specific genre.
- voltagex_ 14y ago
  And then spend the next year frantically trying to recover your ratio...
  - trafficlight 14y ago
    You gotta be a little careful, but I make sure to download everything during the freeleech events and to seed forever.

majormajor 14y ago

To address your update, since it's after the edit window for my initial response: Downloading used to me what I'd do to check out new music after getting recommendations (because I don't have the patience to listen to the radio, where there are a bunch of commercials plus songs I don't like). Sometime in the last few years I stopped because I noticed I could find stuff from almost all the artists I was being recommended on Youtube and the like, and it was a quicker way to do on-demand listening of them than downloading a whole album. The difference in our workflows is that I want to evaluate new stuff more immediately. I'm fairly impatient, and I'm also personally not a big fan of cross-artist radio-style random shuffle. As for private trackers, I just don't care enough about music these days to go seek those out or worry about an upload ratio (I got kicked off of one about seven years ago for that reason, since I downloaded a bunch after joining as was catching up too slowly for their tastes...).