aclason
My Digital Music Collection
Last Songs Played
Similar MOGs' Top Songs This Week
Posts
There's an interesting article on Salon right now about some of the problems with online reviews:
http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2007/06/13/user_reviews/index.html
Reading the article confirmed my belief that online reviews are a nut that's yet to be cracked. While the internet continues to promise a way for online reviews to actually help us make choices (musical or otherwise), it's an unfufilled promise.
This is rampantly apparent to me every day as I use the currently existing tools (including Mog) to make musical choices. Here are a few ways that technology is trying and failing to help me:
Itunes/Amazon: "everyone thinks it's great"
Why it fails - Most reviews are by fans who own the album, and thus are glowing. If everything's great, there's no differentiator. Popular items get more popular because they're popular, not because they're good.
Mog/LastFM: "that guy you trust recommends it"
Why it fails - Difficult to find a mog you truly trust; Matches in your taste in the past don't guarantee matches in taste in the future; Closed system tends over-promote particular artists.
Pandora: "if you liked that, you'll like this"
Why it fails: Matches your current tastes, rather than introducing you to new sounds. Promotes similar music, doesn't promote adventure or branching out.
Metacritic: "they're the critics' darling"
Why it fails: Popular music criticism is incestous and favors the avante garde over all else. (Have a look at the top albums so far in 2007 on metacritic if you don't believe me.)
In the end, none of the above tools has provided me too much more assistance than I used to get just walking in to Aomeba and looking what they put on their display racks at the front of the store.
What's clear from the Salon article, though, is that there are plenty of people still working on this problem, and we'll undoubtedly see an entirely new generation of online review schemes come out in the not-too-distant future. I suspect the next generation will combine at least 2 or 3, if not all, of the schemes above.
To say it another way, how long until iTunes, Mog, Pandora, and Metacritic merge?
From last month's New York Times article by Jeff Leeds:
"Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD’s for the first time. So far this year, sales of digital songs have risen 54 percent, to roughly 189 million units, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. Digital album sales are rising at a slightly faster pace, but buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1.
Because of this shift in listener preferences — a trend reflected everywhere from blogs posting select MP3s to reviews of singles in Rolling Stone — record labels are coming to grips with the loss of the album as their main product and chief moneymaker. "
(full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26music.html?ex=1332561600&en=7a34accc8988c811&ei=5088)
The article goes on to predict the death of the album, and the rise of the digital single. I agree. I think it's only a matter of time. Sure, some artists and fans will continue to produce and listen to albums (radiohead is not about to abandon the format, I reckon). But already, some artists are jettisoning the whole concept of the album.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, long term. On the positive side, I think eventually we'll see an end to the padding of CDs and albums with b-grade material that was made possible when CDs first hit the scene.
But the rebirth of a Singles Culture could also mean more second-rate novelty records, and could mean the musical equivalent to a shift to sound bites. With listeners holding their itchy thumbs forever above the next track button on their iPods, artists will be forced to record shorter songs, with stronger hooks, and (sigh) with less subtlety. In other words, music for the instant gratification, short attention span generation.
Can this really be our future?
Comments
it's back to the future. before the LP, 45rpm singles were the predominate way people bought music. digital music is inherently track based, so a return to singles makes a lot of sense.
Yup, it's the end of the album as we know it...and I feel fine. :)
Seriously, though, I do find now that I when I get a new album, it goes right into my iPod and I don't really start listening to it until individual tracks start popping up in shuffle mode. I actually kind of prefer discovering my music like this, believe it or not. I think it reminds me of the good old days when radio didn't suck so bad. Eventually I get intrigued enough to go in and listen to the whole album all the way through, at which point I often delete the tracks I don't like, anyway.
Obviously the above scenario means I'm still getting albums, but that's only because I work in the biz and get CDs sent to me at work all the time. Left to my own devices, I'm far likelier to download individual tracks off iTunes than I am to buy a full album. And like I said, that's fine by me. The mystique of the album is something of a myth; very, very few artists consistently produce LPs that hold up from beginning to end. The format was originally meant to be just a way of compiling singles; hence the term "album." Most pop music is better digested in 3-5 minute morsels than in a 45-minute sitting.
So I say, bring back Singles Culture. Albums will still have their place, but I think a lot of bands would actually happily admit that they like releasing work in a more piecemeal fashion, without the pressure of making a Big Artistic Statement every 2-3 years.
I'll tell you, I love albums, but I believe in singles,too.
In the pre-album days of Hip-hop it meant quality control. If your first single sucked, you didn't get to make another. The result was good singles.
But the 40-45 minute LP can be a good thing, when done right, and cycles happen, so The LP will live and be cool again, in 10 years or so. I like shuffle, and I like to control my playlists, but sometimes it is cool to let go and let someone else put the songs in order.
Well, that was a lengthy and impassioned discussion (look at the previous post on the Starbucks Aesthetic if you are lost).
Just a few more tidbits before we leave the discussion.
First, a very interesting article by Susan Dominus in the New York Times about the Starbucks Aesthetic:
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30712F635540C718EDDA90994DE404482
For those of you who have access to the New York Times archive, this is a really interesting article, talking not just about Starbucks marketing of music, but books as well.
A typical quote from the article:
"There's the faintest whiff of discriminating good taste around everything Starbucks sells, a range of products designed, on some level, to flatter the buyer's self-regard. Starbucks stores don't carry ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,'' the Beatles album everyone's mother could name; they carry ''Revolver,'' a critical darling without the same overplayed name recognition."
Overall, Susan seems to argue in favor of the Starbucks model, with just the faintest hint of sarcasm and disdain (those who read the whole article note the last sentence.)
On the other end of the spectrum is David Hajdu's article in The New Republic, called "How Starbucks Ruined Music":
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060807&s=hajdu080706
I believe you need a login to read this full article, which is a shame, as it's very interesting. A key quote:
"As a class, Starbucks's various compilation CDs are the audio equivalent of those trade paperbacks that impart the hundred and one things a person needs to know to be culturally literate. They provide talking points for potential future interaction with other Starbucks patrons - capital in the social economy of young adulthood. "How cool was Jackie Wilson?" "I know-'Saaay you will!'" "Too bad he died so young - you know, after a heart attack onstage." "Yes ... so young - like Sam Cooke!" "How cool was he?" With each CD, a listener is granted enough to say for the duration of one grande latte, and with luck, enough to earn an exchange of phone numbers. "
Disdainful enough for you?
Finally, there's the Starbucks Music website itself:
The website is telling by how it throws into your face the dozen or so CDs it's really pumping. The latest is a sample of up and coming artists, called Off The Clock. Starbucks describes it thusly:
"Starbucks partners submitted over 800 recordings as part of a first-ever Partner Music Contest. More than simply the best of those hundreds of submissions, the selections rank with today's best new music."
I leave it to you to determine who "Starbucks partners" are. I'll admit to never having heard of any of the artists in the compilation (Trances Arc? Luma? Fools & Horses? Riverman?)
Comments
this reminds me of some of the debates in the opera world about whether the three tenors are a good or a bad thing. my 2 cents- anything that gets people talking about, and exposed to, music is positive. hopefully, someone who only knows nessun dorma will decide to check out the rest of turandot, and once they've opened that door, there's a whole new world just waiting for them.
MOGs That Trust Me (8 of 32)
MOG Meter
Comments
of all of those, i think the trusted source, with the ability to sample, holds the most promise. it's not unlike buying wine. there are som many choices, and distribution is such that it's often impossible to find more than a few big brands at any given store. fihowever, if you can find a store you like, ask their advice, and their their tatses, and how the correspond to your own, you can discover some wonderful wines, and learn a great deal in the process. a willingness to drink your mistakes helps!
my musical tastes are so eclectic, and constantly changing, that it's very difficult to find any one who likes exactly the same stuff. a great radio station, like WFUV , that gives it's jocks freedom to play what they like, can be a great guide. the auto generated stations such as pandora so far are a pale comparison, IMHO . for classical music, reviews can be a great help, once agin, after you learn to trust the source, or at least understand their tastes.
I agree that Pandora is still a pale comparison to a good, independent DJ. In many senses, a great independent DJ (like Bonnie Simmons on KPFA ) beats the competition hands down, partially because of format.
In the case of Bonnie, her show is on every Thursday from 8 to 10 PM. The music is good enough that you can listen to the show from end to end. She talks a little about each song, and the format of a 2 hour radio program gives the listener time to really absorb things, unlike quickly reading online reviews or listening to musical snippets.
As an interesting demonstration of this, Bonnie Simmons has a website of her shows' playlists (http://www.bonzilla.com/), but that site is virtually worthless if you don't listen to the show.
I trust my ears most...I take on-line reviews with a grain of salt..I like MOG , because there are people on here who listen to a lot of records, so if one sticks out, I'd like to get a chance to hear it. The best thing about today's world (sometimes the worst) is that there is very little mystery..If you read about something, chances are you can get a chance to listen to it with a few clicks. In my ramblingest way..I agree with the G-Angel.
On another note..I love playlists, even when I can't hear them.