Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

bananas

(27,509 posts)
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 06:36 AM Jul 2014

Spotify, Pandora and how streaming music kills jazz and classical

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/20/its_not_just_david_byrne_and_radiohead_spotify_pandora_and_how_streaming_music_kills_jazz_and_classical/

It’s not just David Byrne and Radiohead: Spotify, Pandora and how streaming music kills jazz and classical

More musicians are taking aim at the rates paid by Spotify and Pandora, and warning whole genres are in danger

Scott Timberg
Sunday, Jul 20, 2014

<snip>

There are distinctive qualities to jazz and classical music that make it a difficult fit to the digital world as it now exists, and that punish musicians and curious fans alike. To Jean Cook, a new-music violinist, onetime Mekon, and director of programs for the Future Musical Coalition, it further marginalizes these already peripheral styles, creating what she calls “invisible genres.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, or Beats Music, she says. “Any music service that’s serving pop and classical music will not serve classical music well.” The problem is the nature of classical music, and jazz as well, and the way they differ from pop music. They all make different use of metadata – a term most people associate with Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations, but which have a profound importance to streaming services. Put most simply: Classical music and jazz are such a mismatch for existing streaming services, it’s almost impossible to find stuff. Cook realized this when she got a recommendation from a music lover, and found herself falling down an online labyrinth trying to find it.

Here’s a good place to start: Say you’re looking for a bedrock recording, the Beethoven Piano Concertos, with titan Maurizio Pollini on piano. Who is the “artist” for this one? Is it the Berlin Philharmonic, or Claudio Abbado, who conducts them? Is it Pollini? Or is it Beethoven himself? If you can see the entire record jacket, you can see who the recording includes. Otherwise, you could find yourself guessing.

<snip>

Jazz offers similar difficulties, she says. Say you want to find recordings by pianist Bill Evans. You can find a bunch of them — but nothing linking him to “Kind of Blue,” perhaps the most important (and, in vinyl and CD form, certainly the bestselling) recording he was ever a part of. Evans shaped that album profoundly. You won’t find John Coltrane — another key voice on that session — there either, since it’s a Miles Davis record.

“Listing sidemen is something that is just not built into the architecture,” says Cook. It’s not a small problem. “I can’t think of a single example of a jazz musician who was not a sideman at one point in their career. We’re talking about a significant portion of jazz history that can’t get out.” It also makes you wonder — what are the chances that sidemen, or their heirs, get paid when things are streamed? And what do potential music consumers do when they can’t find what they’re looking for?

<snip>

So far, Wang’s solution has been to drop out. It’s nearly impossible for artists to withdraw, but as a label head, he can pull all of Pi’s music off Spotify. After three or four months on the service, two years back, he received a royalty statement of about $25 for all of it, and decided it just wasn’t worth it.

“What we found when we got out of Spotify — after these dire warnings — was that our sales went up; they absolutely jumped.”

<snip>


15 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Spotify, Pandora and how streaming music kills jazz and classical (Original Post) bananas Jul 2014 OP
It's possible to "kill" music? Dawgs Jul 2014 #1
With the same logic... Dr Hobbitstein Jul 2014 #2
Right? And do people really use streaming services to "search" for music? cyberswede Jul 2014 #11
Pretty much spot on... Dr Hobbitstein Jul 2014 #15
If classical music and jazz can be "killed"... Nitram Jul 2014 #3
I think you didn't read the article frazzled Jul 2014 #6
I think you didn't understand the article. Nitram Jul 2014 #13
Wow, did you even read the OP? eggplant Jul 2014 #7
Yes, I read the entire OP. Nitram Jul 2014 #14
K&R. Overseas Jul 2014 #4
if jazz keeps dying mopinko Jul 2014 #5
Wrong headline for an interesting issue. Music isn't being "killed" but there is an issue with gtar100 Jul 2014 #8
Complaining about the software is a cheap trick... Chan790 Jul 2014 #9
Side effects and agendas unrepentant progress Jul 2014 #10
“Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.” - Frank Zappa corkhead Jul 2014 #12

cyberswede

(26,117 posts)
11. Right? And do people really use streaming services to "search" for music?
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 11:07 AM
Jul 2014

If I want to find a specific recording of a specific piece of music, I use something other than a streaming service.

 

Dr Hobbitstein

(6,568 posts)
15. Pretty much spot on...
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 04:31 PM
Jul 2014

Just set a genre, and let it go. I will say, however, that using streaming services has brought me to actually search for albums or artists that I've heard on there and liked... Stuff I would have NEVER heard just listening to the radio...

Nitram

(22,671 posts)
3. If classical music and jazz can be "killed"...
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 08:21 AM
Jul 2014

...then they are not worth "saving." I happen to believe that good music will around as long as there are people who listen to it. I still buy CDs...

frazzled

(18,402 posts)
6. I think you didn't read the article
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 09:38 AM
Jul 2014

It's not that people don't want the jazz or classical music: it's that the streaming format does not mesh well with those genres of music. It's about technology: about a system meant to identify to single-name pop stars rather than garner a sideman on a Miles Davis album.

I live in a city where both jazz and classical music are popular. When we go to symphony, it's usually sold out or near sold out, and not with all gray-hairs. There are young, hip people and people of color as well, and visiting tourists from all over the world. When Riccardo Muti conducts a concert in Millennium Park, 20,000 people show up. Jazz in Grant Park draws enormous crowds, for even surprisingly avant-garde stuff.

Nitram

(22,671 posts)
13. I think you didn't understand the article.
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 12:36 PM
Jul 2014

Compatibility with streaming is not necessary for a musical genre to thrive.

eggplant

(3,893 posts)
7. Wow, did you even read the OP?
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 09:43 AM
Jul 2014

This has nothing to do with the quality of music, but rather the means by which we are able to locate it.

To use an outdated metaphor: A library could have every book ever published in it, but without a solid card catalog, good luck finding anything.

Nitram

(22,671 posts)
14. Yes, I read the entire OP.
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 12:41 PM
Jul 2014

I disagree with the premise. There are many other sources of information about musicians and those who sat in on individual sessions that are easily accessed by those who are interested. Many are not interested, and are perfectly happy without it. When some3one disagrees with you it doesn't mean they failed to read the article or that they failed to understand it.

mopinko

(69,807 posts)
5. if jazz keeps dying
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 09:19 AM
Jul 2014

then where are the funerals. should be a blast.

record labels and popular music were suppose to kill it.

musicians, otoh, are quite mortal, and we should be paying THEM.
and giving them healthcare. oh, yeah, we already did that.

gtar100

(4,192 posts)
8. Wrong headline for an interesting issue. Music isn't being "killed" but there is an issue with
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 10:00 AM
Jul 2014

music classification in these applications. But Pandora and Spotify offer significantly different services, or rather user experiences. Pandora doesn't promise to be an encyclopedia of music in which you can look up and listen to specific recordings. It sticks with genres to build play lists and if you're okay with having no further control than that, it will do its job. You will *not* be able to pick and choose specific recordings. In fact, my experience has been that if want to guarantee not hearing a song, base a station on it. They will dance around it but probably in rare instances actually play that song. Oh well.

Spotify, which I've used only a little, seems to bill itself on being able to locate and provide more specific recordings for artists and songs. That's a tall order and probably more in line with most people's expectations. Now if they aren't paying the artists and producers fair compensation, that's a whole other story.

No deaths here, but probably businesses doing the standard capitalist practice of promising and alluding to great things and delivering a product that is a shadow of its marketing hype. And exploitation of artists by underpayment? Heck, that's an industry tradition.

 

Chan790

(20,176 posts)
9. Complaining about the software is a cheap trick...
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 10:59 AM
Jul 2014

the blame actually lies with industry people complaining such as the label-head...they used these same cheap tricks for decades to drive down royalties and compensation and for jazz and classical musicians by limiting credits...and now that their dog-slop been digitized into metadata that is now being used by music software and it's harming their bottom-line, the dog's have come home to bay.

It's very simple...people like Wang can fix their credits but they're going to have an adverse effect on the bottom line to do so as it's going to increase the amount and number of royalties they're paying out to artists. So they don't...then they complain. A hint: You're not allowed to complain when your own cheating practices come back to bite you in the ass.

Spotify and Pandora are not killing Classical and Jazz music...the labels did that and now they're complaining because they're no longer the main beneficiary of the exploitation resulting from their own bad practices. The artists aren't being screwed...not any more than they've been for the last 60 years at-least.

10. Side effects and agendas
Wed Jul 23, 2014, 11:02 AM
Jul 2014

All technologies have side effects. All technologies have agendas instantiated into them, consciously or not, by their creators. It's Marshall McLuhan for the 21st century. The medium is not only the message, it's the arbiter too.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Editorials & Other Articles»Spotify, Pandora and how ...