My wife recently paid for the ad-free Spotify family subscription so our kids could use it without having to hear inappropriate ads. I don't like giving companies money for things I can obtain alternatively IYKWIMAITYD* but I do appreciate no more ads for right-wing Canadian podcasters going through well-deserved divorces.
* I meant checking them out from the public library, of course.
* I meant checking them out from the public library, of course.
All of the TV that I watch is DVDs checked out of the library. It's occasionally annoying that a number of the hot shows are never published on DVD, but I've found some enjoyable shows that I wouldn't have otherwise tried.
I've been playing Music League for some mostly younger people I met on Discord, and that uses Spotify. Every week, we each select a song, according to a prompt, then we all vote on the songs. You can only submit songs on Spotify, and sometimes the ones I want aren't there, so there's some research involved.
I'm sitting out this round, because the prompt was songs released in 2023, and it's too much work to pick one. Next round is songs from outside the Anglosphere: if anyone wants to make a suggestion, I'm open to it.
In the 'songs with the word baby in them' round I went with the German version of Where Did Our Love Go -- no more babies than the English version, but they stand out more.
Anyway, annoying lacunae aside, Spotify has a lot more music than I'll ever need, and stuff like the Supremes singing in German.
songs from outside the Anglosphere
You could prompt a debate about what constitutes the Anglosphere with Jim Pepper's original version of Witchitai-to (which is absolutely great, and I would argue fits the spirit of the prompt): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2YeEUlyhQw
Further to 5, despite the general warning, "don't read the comments" I often find the comments on youtube videos of old non-mainstream music quite nice, and that's a good example.
Given the near-monopoly, it would be appropriate for the government to open their books and see where all the profits go, as a prelude to price-setting.
However, I wonder whether this holds water:
Spotify sets a sum to cover all the royalties paid each month, and each artist's share of that pot is calculated according to their share of streams... What's new about Spotify's payment model is that it makes music a zero-sum game, putting an artist like 75 Dollar Bill in direct competition with Ed Sheeran. The more streams the big artists get, the less everyone else makes.
Depending on the methodology by which they determine that monthly pot's size, it could turn out that this is effectively a more fixed X-pennies-per-play rate, with the monthly cap just being a cash control. I can't imagine the pot hasn't grown significantly as their business has multiplied, so the question is how much.
I'm also not clear if the rates are set by contract with the publishers, or if they're piggybacking on the legal mechanisms for sampling and replays, in which case there might be a legal rate minimum.
I'm also not clear if the rates are set by contract with the publisher
The article makes it sound like that's the case.
Whether or not you share that view depends on what you understand the music industry to be. Two-thirds of all the music that's streamed is controlled by the 'Big Three' record labels: Universal, Sony and Warner. They've done very well out of streaming: Universal made $4.8 billion from it in 2021. But as the authors of Spotify Teardown point out, Spotify's 'very existence remains dependent' on the Big Three's willingness to keep making their music available. This has allowed them to dictate their own terms: . . .
Also, treating this as a general music thread. I really haven't been listening to much for a while, but lately I've been entranced by this Gretchen Peters cover of an old Mickey Newbury song (and I'd be very grateful if somebody know what song is referred to in the title "The Night You Wrote That Song"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Punabc8yEWk
8: Yes, but there could be some contract-statute interaction not being discussed.
(Oh, also open the books of the Big Three.)
6: I read a couple of months back that YouTube had engaged a lot of resources to clean up their comments, and you know what? It's working! At least for the bits of YouTube that I look at -- odd music videos -- they are surprisingly wholesome. Lots of "greatest band ever" or "so underrated" or personal memories of why a song is important to the commenter or, often, was important to a commenter's departed friend/family member.
And so now I have kind of a go-to for tech stuff that someone is whining about: If YouTube can clean up their comments...
The Big 3 used to be the Big 5 because they never figured out an effective response to digitized, east to copy, downloadable music. I scanned the article but was put off by the author's references to "xxx made $2.4 billion ..." where "made" [contrary to general usage in the USA] appears to refer to gross revenues rather than profits. But sometimes might mean profits.
11: Great, next they can do something about their advertising where Epoch Times crams "it's SO trendy now to be transgender" into the first 5 seconds.
3.2: How young are the younger people? I want to suggest "Prejuicios" by Arbol but the lyrics aren't for little ears.
All of the TV that I watch is DVDs checked out of the library.
We were doing this for awhile before the rise of streaming, but the number of dodgy DVDs was just too high.
songs from outside the Anglosphere: if anyone wants to make a suggestion, I'm open to it.
Residenté's self-titled album, now ~5 years old, is my favorite ever non-English recording, with a really broad array of styles, incredible energy, and at least one song that's kind of a (post-Peppers) Beatles lift.
The Hardcastle and McCormick virus destroyed so many DVD players.
16: I don't know if he's still a favorite, but Newt was a huge fan. Fastest rapper by words per minute in any language, at least so Newt tells me.
Mulatu Astatke's song "Tezeta"? Or pretty much anything off of that Ethiopiques volume
14 30s mostly, I think. I got my daughter to play too, and she's kicking my ass. Some people listen with kids in the car . . .
I listen to FM radio and Taylor Swift albums.
Some NYT auxiliary web-columnist had a list of Dylan covers by women. The Nina Simone cover of Just Like Tom Thumb is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCax2FMDNbg
And I didn't know I liked Marianne Faithfull, but her cover of It's All Over Baby Blue convinced me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrJVloID8k
I like Miley Cyrus's "You're Gonna Make me Lonesome When You Go" and the Indigo Girls' "Tangled Up In Blue", so maybe I should check out that whole list.
I'll have to listen to those, and I really like The Roches cover of "Clothes Line Saga" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk2WywfgAx8
Miley really only has one good song of her own (Wrecking Ball, I guess Party in the USA is also ok but it's autotuned so far out of her range that she literally can't sing it, so I don't think it really counts as her song), but I love her voice covering actually good songs.
25 isn't true, but I don't know the name of it.
We Can't Stop is my favorite Miley Cyrus song, although I also like Flowers a lot.
I'm pretty good! I've been out of work since February! I'm eating a ton of sour cherries!
30.1 - by choice? If not, I hope the situation resolves in your favor quickly.
31 - I'm mostly well! I went to the market this morning and bought some banana flavored makgeolli. I'm excited to try it, it sounds so horrible! (I started making my own makgeolli at home a couple of years ago, and earlier this year I went to Korea and became enamored of 1) peanut makgeolli and 2) banana milk. When the weather cools down I'm going to try making my own disgusting fruit flavored makgeollis.)
Eat more. Don't let them put sour cherries in beer.
And I didn't know I liked Marianne Faithfull, but her cover of It's All Over Baby Blue convinced me.
I liked her album of Kurt Weill songs (for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-3bTQu3NGI&list=OLAK5uy_kyrbU2sKZsXJw04AukXZjza8kQAHnk9n0&index=1 )
(and, of course, Nina Simone's cover of "Pirate Jenny" is the best)
||
NMM to National Geographic.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/28/national-geographic-staff-layoffs-report
No more staff writers, all freelance. No more physical magazines. "The quality won't suffer", they say. This so Disney can juice its quarterlies. Fuck everything.
|>
It's hard to tell if the people in the pictures are still alive anyway.
I get most of my music through Pandora, which I assume has roughly the same issues as Spotify. Cassandane is definitely more of a music buff than me. We've been to dozens of live shows and every one was her suggestion except maybe one.
I use the library mostly for cult classic movies I've never seen before, like The Thing and Conan the Barbarian. It's hard to find them streaming and I'm too lazy to hoist the black flag these days.
During my bout of Covid, I could tell that something was unusual because I realized that I had put on winter gloves indoors and was building a mound of blankets. Hope that stage is quick for you, it lasted a day or two for me
Or make like an MBA and warm yourself by a mound of burning national institutions.
I think I need to work on my core. The chills went away with one blanket but my abs hurt when I cough.
Clearly the best Miley Cyrus song is I Can't Wait to See You Again. I think Stanley and I even discussed it at length back in [googles] circa 2007?! sheesh.
The latest song, I Can Buy Myself Flowers, is truly a disco anthem. It's not the best song ever, but I can almost convince myself that it could plausibly be actually 40 years old. Listen to the harmonizing and chords and back up! The vocals aren't quite 70s ish, and it's probably too electronic to actually pass, but it's heavily inspired.
I'm not actually the biggest fan, but I don't hate her either!
43. The first time I heard Flowers I assumed she was covering an old song.
|| The Book of Laughter and Not Masturbating to Kundera |>
Condolences and all, but tbh that was not a masturbation I was looking forward to.
re: Miley Cyrus
I do really like the song she did with Mark Ronson, too. Nothing Breaks Like a Heart It's a well crafted pop-song, with a nice subtle "Jolene"* reference in the vocal and the guitar part, but the thing that makes it for me is mostly her vocal performance.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMrfM711vXI just because I never miss a chance to play the slowed down version
Idiot should have closed the italic tag.
I still try to seek out new music, and some of it I like, some of it I don't. I try to listen to most of the albums that come on the various year-end "Best Of" lists from The Quietus, The Guardian and the Mercury Music awards. The Japanese Breakfast album from a year or so back is one I've stuck with, and the Graham Coxon/Rose Elinor Dougall The Waeve album from this year is one I've enjoyed a fair bit.
This Little Simz track is great, mostly for the tone in her rapping, and also for the 90s Low-End Theory vibe of the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7xzmkpwNoA
This Madison Cunningham cover of a Sam Phillips song is amazing, both her voice and her guitar playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHDlBIC-7zk
although I'm not as much of a massive fan of her own songs (I like them, but they'd rarely be something I'd seek out and listen to).
I've softened on Miley Cyrus over the years. When I'm in just the right mood I can say we have something in common: her father ruined both of our childhoods. Middle school became noticeably harder when "Achy Breaky Heart" came out. I'm just glad Atossa hasn't discovered her as a personality yet. She's had some exposure to Miley but hasn't noticed the name, I don't think.
Inspired by this thread, I put on Spotify when I was running errands, and seeded it with Deacon Blues, because I was in a heavy summer mood. I came across this song - Reminiscing - from the Little River Band, which I've never heard before. The chord progressions are surprisingly complex and interesting, but it's simultaneously cheesy and very 70s, but not in a way that makes me mad.
44: Thanks. I'm feeling better this morning.
The Roches cover of "Clothes Line Saga"
I freaking love that recording. I used to have a Dylan Pandora station, but I think they lost the rights to Dylan for awhile, or something, but it was mostly covers and obscurities like that, as well as similar artists. I think that's the first place I ever heard Prine's "Lake Marie."
For the most part I use Apple Music's custom New Music playlists as my default discovery, and I've 100% found good stuff there, but I feel like lately it's been a lot more off track. It's somehow based on what I listen to, but it can get really sidetracked into giving me a ton of stuff I don't listen to. I don't even know how to characterize it, it's just blah music to me. I think it's that I tend to like only a couple bands/acts (or even songs) in any given genre/subgenre, but the algorithm doesn't know what ties them together (neither do I, TBH). Like, I love Big Thief, but I haven't really heard any Big Thief-adjacent music that I've enjoyed at all.
Glad you're feeling better, Mobes.
I've liked a few of Ted Gioia's music recommendations, recently improvisational steel guitar from Noel Akchote based on Palestrina Madrigals
Loomis over at LGM does lengthy music posts I find interesting, but I almost never like the stuff he likes, even when it seems like stuff I'd like. That's not completely surprising, given that his biggest loves are mainstream country of yore and avant garde jazz (neither is my jam), but when he lists recently-played albums, it's usually 1/3 to 1/2 stuff I do like.
Maybe I need a musical analyst who can look at everything I listen to and explain what, exactly ties it all together.
Loomis over at LGM does lengthy music posts I find interesting, but I almost never like the stuff he likes, even when it seems like stuff I'd like. That's not completely surprising, given that his biggest loves are mainstream country of yore and avant garde jazz (neither is my jam), but when he lists recently-played albums, it's usually 1/3 to 1/2 stuff I do like.
Maybe I need a musical analyst who can look at everything I listen to and explain what, exactly ties it all together.
Maybe I need a musical analyst who can look at everything I listen to and explain what, exactly ties it all together.
Behind the beat?
Don't let them put sour cherries in beer.
Horrible advice. Cherry lambics are great.