Believe it or not, this is a very difficult subject matter for me to write about. Because as music streaming permanently cements itself firmly into our culture, and after more than a decade, I can truly see how the quality of playlists has declined. There is literally no care that is put into most playlists that are being promoted today! As a die-hard music fan and musicophile, it kind of makes me feel bad for saying that, as it could be misconstrued as me saying everyone’s musical tastes sucks ass, and my taste is better than everybody else! However, anybody who followed my blog for a long time know that’s not where I’m coming from! The reality is today, over the years I think we now have three (unexpected) major problems we have within the music streaming industry, in regards to it’s use:
- First, in the context of classic music, we still have huge problem of not enough of the older generation are interested in learning how to use music streaming, or choose to stay in their comfort zone by being comfortably computer ignorant. Please don’t react in a negative way to my statement. It’s NOT an attack on the character of older people. But, the fact that we all know how expensive music is, and that most older folk are on fixed incomes, why are some of you still waiting for stores like Target to get that CD you wanted since 50 years ago, when you can listen to it on YouTube? At this point, the only reason why an older person would get mad at reading my prior statement, is because they actually have no idea the plethora of of musical enjoyment you can experience by using streaming services. And to stay being offended is just stupid and silly. If people of my generation would make the effort to use streaming services, we’d have more playlists created by us, and for us. Perhaps our classic culture would not be as forgotten as it is now. Oh f&ck it, what’s the sense of our classic music being on these services, if our memories of them are wiped clean from memory? Because we don’t listen to them anymore?
- Playlists have now become a racket. I saw someone on twitter mention something I didn’t even think of. That was huge streaming service paying musicians to create music for the expressed purpose of putting them on playlists, and misguiding the public by making them appear as being the hottest tracks. Now, on the surface, they’re not breaking any laws, or breaking any sort of moral conduct (technically). However, we can look at this in two ways. The first way is services like Spotify could potentially make more money by putting together a team to write and produce their own songs and make money. I guess there is nothing wrong with that either, however, that also means that well known professional veterans in the business would be cut off from making money if their music are not on promotional playlists. Realize that any playlist that are created by services like Spotify, will be immediately followed by several thousand people in a matter of days, just because it’s Spotify.
- The last problem I think are many of the most popular music blogs. Many of them (if not most of them) are not musically diverse, or lack articles of classic music (regardless of the genre). If someone were to ask me how would I describe the music coming from some of these music blogs today, I wouldn’t know how. Honestly. Many of these artists/bands I hear from these music sites such as BandCamp, sound like they were in a drug induced creative moment (for lack of a better term). The nerve of those artists at BandCamp to think that music fans should be paying upwards of $15 for some of their work. While the internet has leveled the playing field for artist, and made them “equal opportunity,” on the other hand, it opened the flood gates for people who have absolutely zero professional talent. Don’t let me even get started on the rap genre.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of talent out there, they’re just incredibly hard to find now. Not only that, with the changes in algorithms in both search engines and social media, I’ve noticed that a few legitimate music blogs are no longer easily found either! The truth of the matter is, unless you’ve been using streaming since its inception, a lot of people wouldn’t even know where to go! I think my old self rule still applies today. Depending on where you’re getting your playlists from; if a playlist has more than 75 songs in it, its more than likely not worth listening. Playlists needs to be manageable, and easily consumable. No one has the time to listen to a 5,000 song playlists. It’s more than likely that playlist is just a marijuana fueled album dump. In fact, do you realize that even services that allow you to create stations from songs you’re listening to, don’t put that many songs on a playlist (unless you have unlimited or infinity turned on). Bottom line, I guess playlist are still a vital way to find new music on the scene. Just remember to be selective and diversify the sites you visit, unless you really dig the site you’re on. Like mine!! 🤣