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Streaming is secretly fixing your mainstream taste in garbage music
The world's most-streamed artists are a parade of major-label household names: Ariana Grande, Post Malone, Billie Eilish. But hidden below the top rankings, independent artists and labels are taking over a greater share of the music channeling into your headphones.
Why? Music-streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora -- and the quirks of how they funnel music you may never have heard otherwise -- are helping fuel an indie golden age just below the surface.
"If there's one thing that streaming has done for sure, it's created a new independent music industry," said Jorge Brea, founder and CEO of Symphonic Distribution, an independent music company in Tampa, Florida, that's distributed music by Waka Flocka Flame and Deadmau5 in his early days.
The meteoric popularity of streaming has lifted fortunes across the recording industry. But streaming also has been quietly shoring up the indie sector that exists outside the big three major labels. By nudging people to listen to a wider variety of artists, the services are helping more listeners stumble on music outside the mainstream. And by reconceptualizing how we pay for music, the services are helping indie artists and labels bask in streaming's glow.
[...] Since the advent of recordings, fans have paid upfront for tunes by picking and choosing specific titles, whether it was a record, CD or digital download on iTunes. In the streaming age, when you rent an all-access pass to an unfathomably deep catalog of virtually all the world's music, money is meted out to artists and music companies in a different way.
Services like Spotify and Apple Music pool together all the money they bring in every month, and artists are paid out in proportion to how much their music is streamed. That means indie artists don't need to overcome the hurdle of getting your attention before they can convince you to open your wallet. You're helping secure their income just by sampling their work.
"Streaming, slowly but surely, is creating a commercial ecosystem in which more artists are able to make a living — and forcing the biggest-earning megastars on the planet to share a chunk of their annual wealth," the Rolling Stone study said.
But that's not to suggest indie artists' livelihoods are a cake walk. In the streaming age, Saban said, middle-class artists have to work harder juggling their income from publishing, streaming, physical sales and touring -- in an environment where fans expect new material on a regular basis.
"Once upon a time, if you had good physical [CD and record] sales, you could also tour and be a happy, middle-class career artist," she said. But in the lives of midtier indie artists today, "They're all just hanging on with their fingernails to the best of their ability and cobbling together a living."
Even if it's a struggle, indie musicians have more of a shot than ever to break out.
"It was very, very difficult to be an independent label," Brea said. "But now independents are primarily going to be the industry as it continues to grow."
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Friday July 05 2019, @11:08PM (14 children)
Lets evaluate that statement:
Gypsy jazz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY0-l09svK0 [youtube.com]
Composed jazz (a bit too long but should be fine on the first listen):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmOTGungnA [youtube.com]
Modern blues-rock (safe bet):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09RbGsUkRIc [youtube.com]
Metallic swing (probably not but worth a mention):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTu38yuuHo [youtube.com]
Anyhow, I'm cheating with the Jazz examples since they're not really improvised and are fairly melodic or rhythmic.
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 06 2019, @03:10AM (2 children)
1. No
2. No
3. Not very good, would not listen to
4. No.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday July 06 2019, @12:32PM (1 child)
Oh. Check out "contemporary acoustic blues" guys like Charlie Musselwhite, Chris Thomas King and Corey Harris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laWj4OOGo7c [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALU5g6Qqi08 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTGfbYtw1e4 [youtube.com]
For me as someone learning guitar it comes up in fingerstyle and slide guitar circles as Martin Simpson explains and demonstrates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHY74AjKRjI [youtube.com]
But I'm trying to step away from just doing pentatonic right now so you can count me out :D
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 06 2019, @11:38PM
1. Not bad, a bit slow, but fine.
2. Same, actually.
3. Slow, again, but good: nice fingering, good guitar work!
4. That's great: nice song, great guitar work. Thanks!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 06 2019, @03:21AM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PsfcUZBMSSg [youtube.com]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd60nI4sa9A [youtube.com]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h3yd-c91ww8 [youtube.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:06PM (9 children)
Only listened to #4 so far, and I reckon that would frighten anyone who doesn't already like some kind of jazz so far from the scene that they would never even consider returning. If you want rhythm and blues musicians (not to be confused with R&B "musicians"), then recommend Jacque Lousier Trio. Not that shit. You've set the popularity of jazz back a decade with that nonsense.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday July 06 2019, @10:01PM (8 children)
The Classical Jazz Quartet is close enough. Regardless, I wasn't recommending so much as testing the water to see where the blues ends and jazz begins for Gaaark. Between the four links you can draw a Venn diagram of harmony, rhythm and orchestration on the range between blues and rock with swing in-between. And like it or not, the Diablo Swing Orchestra falls in that range.
Anyhow, my followup represent the result: Pentatonic 12 bars acoustic blues and and kin. If you disagree feel free to link something specific.
Jazz was more popular a decade ago: https://news.jazzline.com/news/jazz-least-popular-music-genre/ [jazzline.com]
My impression was that when people say they hate Jazz they mean they hate music school grads aimlessly running patterns around the chord-scale system with no respect to melody, song structure or rhythm. But again, if you think I'm off, feel free to link something different.
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday July 07 2019, @12:38AM (3 children)
"My impression was that when people say they hate Jazz they mean they hate music school grads aimlessly running patterns around the chord-scale system with no respect to melody, song structure or rhythm."
This^, plus the 'big band' sound and the cacophony of 'jamming'.
Too much trumpet and clarinet screeching..... No thanks.
That's why I like old blues: the more 'modern' blues starts getting into that big band sound.
I like one, two guys, steel guitr, harmonica....simple stuff.
The more people, the morel instruments....forget it.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:26AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday July 07 2019, @12:33PM
Mmmmm.... acceptable.
Leave out the drums/cymbals and it would be better.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday July 07 2019, @03:42PM
Yeah a lot of those get pretty messy. But there are exceptions where it works for the piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBupII3LH_Q [youtube.com]
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(Score: 2) by toddestan on Sunday July 07 2019, @05:07AM
Blues is actually fairly easy to nail down. In order to be Blues music, you are limited to a few chord progressions. Don't use those chord progressions? Then you're not Blues.
I enjoy listening to Blues from time to time, but not in large doses as it gets old after a while when it all starts sounding very same-y.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 07 2019, @09:24AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 07 2019, @01:42PM (1 child)
#3, the blues /All Them witches/ was excellent, but is straight up 3/4 blues. The name does ring a bell, but that is the kind of style I like (this is one of the better live bands locally (I say is, I've not seen them for a while, I hope they've not split)) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic_KWguzZGk
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday July 07 2019, @03:23PM
No worries. By the looks of it I've switched #1 and #2 anyhow :D
Testing for electrified / distorted sound while isolating everything else. I figured if you like blues but don't like that song you must be really REALLY into acoustic solo with no orchestration. It worked out fine.
The solo guitar's gain and distortion is way too high. Maybe if it wasn't so damn high in the mix it would have been fine but it completely drowns the vocals and drums...And this is coming from someone that listens to death and black metal 80% of the time.
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