Fake music on streaming services

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Fake music on streaming services

Post by Sam Inglis »

This is an interesting and rather alarming article about how labels and streaming services are manipulating playlists to promote royalty-free content, so that they can keep more of the money.
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by Drew Stephenson »

Interesting indeed. And also rather supports a statement I've made on here a few times that most people really aren't that bothered about music. It's just pleasant background noise and one track is interchangeable with another.
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by MarkOne »

Everything about this article is so utterly depressing.

I know I’m getting old and that’s fine, but when did society at large fall so utterly out of love with music?

When I was a kid everybody in school was passionately into one music scene or another.

I’m in my 60s and still get excited finding new acts and songs. But I wonder where it will end?

Maybe AI generated content that satisfies the search parameters, will be all that my great-nephews generation will have access to when they are adults. And for them, that will probably be fine.
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by Drew Stephenson »

When I was growing up with had 3 channels of TV (with a fourth newly launched) and it felt that the programming was either targeted at my parents or kids.
Video game consoles were very few and far between (I think maybe two people in my year group of 100 had one maybe?), the internet and social media didn't exist obviously, and portable electronics meant a calculator.
Music was what we had.
At the boarding house everyone piled into the common room to watch Top of the Pops on Thursday evening, and most of tuned into the chart show at the weekend. Normally with fingers poised over the record button so that we could kill music with our home taping... :roll:

It's just not like that now.
TV, streaming, internet, social media, gaming, are all huge, huge markets; music is just a much smaller part of the leisure ecosystem.
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by tea for two »

This has taken genres to its next step.

For instance "Yatch Rock" genre of mid 70s to mid 80s. There's even utube playlists for "Yatch Rock"
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe ... wQKDZtEsp1

I would say as modern life is getting more and more hectic with people feeling the pressure the squeeze,
people are turning more towards meditation, being in the moment, chilling out.
There's apps for these as Calm.
utube has sprung tonnes of self help and meditation "gurus" also asmr.

Music companies, record companies have cotten onto this.

**

Incidentally as is probably known there were in 90s
Chill out albums.
KLF even released an album titled Chill Out
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWebqCRw7o4

Also 90s Pure Moods compilations
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F6t7ohOBSq4

Godfather of Lofi beats music minus vocals is 1993 album Jazzmatazz by Guru hiphop and Jazz Soul friends
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TDrzQwq8dz4
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by ManFromGlass »

I was hiking in the woods and bumped into a neighbour going the other way. I had to do a double take because for a second I was hearing this ethereal music and thought maybe I was dead, dying or dreaming. It was amusingly unsettling because it was the woods. The woods should sound like the woods.
Seems she walks with her music playing quietly through a speaker probably in her fanny pack. But in the woods?
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by ElGigante »

Indeed, it's indicative of a larger trend in societal attitudes towards the arts and consumption/support of it. It's largely passive, few are actively seeking something different or "fresh" to challenge their (curated) palette. Easier to just click on the "suggested content". Which also has economic consequences for all concerned, as the article so succintly points out.
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by awjoe »

The industry's always been interested in making money, not in making good music. If they can make money without attending to esthetics or ethics, that's just as good for them. Back in the day when music was marketed on 45s and LPs, the best way to make money in the recording industry was to have artists making high-calibre, new and innovative music. They don't have to do that as much anymore - they can sell lots of music without involving creative writing and performing. We weren't more discerning back in the day of the LP, we were just luckier.

A better-informed person than myself could make a parallel to the way Brits, for instance, ate better, nutritionally speaking, during the war than before or after. An historical accident, pretty much. Sometimes life serves up the good stuuf, sometimes not so much.

There will always be people who love music though, and they will seek out and be passionate about the good stuff.
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by Mike Stranks »

MarkOne wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:34 pm ... I wonder where it will end?

Maybe AI generated content...

I've just finished reading 1984. (I don't recommend it, principally because extended chunks of it are mind-numbingly tedious and boring...) But popular songs for the masses are churned out by (sic) machine...
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by Mike Stranks »

Mike Stranks wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:30 am
MarkOne wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:34 pm ... I wonder where it will end?

Maybe AI generated content...

I've just finished reading 1984. (I don't recommend it, principally because extended chunks of it are mind-numbingly tedious and boring...) But popular songs for the masses are churned out by (sic) machine...

... and see the latest comments by will,i.am about the future of popular music...
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Re: Fake music on streaming services

Post by icestormrollchordice »

This article confirms the existence of something I was subconsciously aware of. Though it doesn't surprise me one bit that corporations would take all necessary steps for more easy wins, the fact that they can pull it off so seamlessly is quite sad. They got zero opposition! This is the result of how most people won't ask twice whether the background tunes are composed or generated. The important thing is to not disturb them in the middle of their serotonin-generating activities that are watching a YT or TikTok video.

I remember when Kerry King spoke against RATM for their (what he deemed to be) attempts to weaponise music and sell certain propaganda to kids, but this is much, much worse. Nowadays is so freaking easy to sideline music as something that should only add to the flow that there's very little mystery to "what works/sells." 

At the end of the day, the people who make a living by creating such tunes will end up with the short straw here... I guess only social media platforms can uproot this tendency by severely changing their policies, but that's wishful thinking...
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