Has P2P Influenced Your Music Tastes?

Whatistehmatrix asks: "About 5 years ago, when I first found out about KaZaA, it was somewhat 'underground' and had less than 1 million people. I soon discovered there was an unbelievable amount of music open to me. Instead of getting the music I always heard on the radio, I always sought out the music that was previously unavailable to me [Japanese pop & rock, overseas techno, etc]. Well, fast forward to today, and I actively buy CDs from groups I fell in love with from the songs I found on P2P. I was wondering, if any of the Slashdot community used to/still uses P2P programs to try out music that isn't heard on the radio, to expand your tastes in music from different countries & cultures?"

Comments

Not at all

[Homology]

I've never used Kazaa or similar P2P programs as they where ripe with security problems. I'm old fashioned enough to quite simply go to a music store and listen for my self, and buy it if I like it.

Re:Not at all

[eyeball]

I've never used Kazaa or similar P2P programs as they where ripe with security problems. I'm old fashioned enough to quite simply go to a music store and listen for my self, and buy it if I like it.

All the power to you. That's fine if you like the kind of music that comes on CDs. I worked in record stores 15-20 years ago, and got really sick of most music. Now I'm discovering (and purchasing when possible) tons of music via alternative media channels -- p2p networks, blogs, podcasts, word of mouth, and streams.

3500 oggs

[davidsmind]

Way back in 2003, I searched for *.ogg with giftd and downloaded 3500 of em in one night. It took about a year before I had listened to them all and now I have an incredibly different perspective on music.

Club Music

[DemENtoR]

Acctualy, a lot of music I hear in clubs, that I couldn't find in stores here in the US. Or what you can hear on your radio station sometimes past midnight on the weekends, when they're broadcasting @ a club (at least it seams to be the trend on here in the area on the pop stations). I was able to find on P2P networks, and I also found a lot of new artists producing electronic music, that I never heared of. And polish music (let the jokes come), Kazik, etc..., (for those in the know), stuff I wasn't able to listern to since I moved here.

yes.

[rogabean]

I still pull a song or two here and now from P2P to check out a band a friend may have mentioned. It opened me up to alot of things I may/may not have bought before without hearing it.

Typically if I hear about a new band I do this:

1. find that band's website and see if they offer any downloads...

2. if none.. then I'll swing over to google for a quick search...

3. if none I'll jump on a P2P network and grab a file or two... listen and decide.

Then it's either off to purchase the CD or off to iTunes (typically both..as iTunes is typically lacking in my tastes). Besides I love having the original CD/Case.

Re:yes.

[Paladin128]

Me too... I remember about 6 or 7 years ago, living in the dorms, and Napster had come out. I first downloaded a bunch of stuff that my dad used to listen too when I grew up, and started remembering how good it was. Then I got even more experimentative, searching by genre. Within two years, my collection of a dozen CD's was about 100. It's close to 300 today, and still growing.

All in all, I've spent more money BECAUSE of Napster than I would have without it. Now I don't download a whole lot; I just trade MP3's and OGG's with a bunch of friends, and I buy the CD if I like it enough. (Why do I buy the CD? First, I like to support the artists. Second, MP3's sound like crap, and OGG's aren't THAT much better. Fine for listening to at work on my head phones, but at home on the hi-fi, the flatness and loss of harmonic complexity is God-awful!)

It's all about community

[oO Peeping Tom Oo]

I've found networks such as Fasttrack and Gnutella lack a sense of community. There isn't much chatting going on. I've personally been influenced to listen to/buy new artists through the soulseek network. Through its use of chatrooms and using "user lists" as a method of browsing, soulseek has opened my eyes to many new artists (most being on non-evil labels).

Re:Streams

[tommertron]

I find music streams to be much more useful for discovering new music (here's one from a couple of weeks ago that I immediately went out and bought).

I totally agree. However, I also found a lot of good music by reading about an artist in a magazine, or hearing about it from a friend, and going and downloading a song or two of theirs. Kazaa is basically useless for finding music now, thanks to the sabotage of the music companies, but I'd be willing to shell out 99 cents or two at iTunes to find out if I like an artist.

Of course, these days I just tend to borrow a friend's CD and rip it to my computer... which is worse than the Napster days, when I'd download one or two and buy the album afterward. So, sorry RIAA, looks like your tactics are kind of backfiring... (on me anway.)

Very much so, yes!

[thecampbeln]

I liked a few tracks off of the "Bend it like Beckham" soundtrack, so after finding the track title on IMDb and searching for the artist (B21 in this case) I ended up with a ton of results in addition to the track I was looking for (remixes he'd done, etc.). I ended up downloading a bunch of the tracks and I have to say I enjoy a bit of the Punjabi Hip Hop scene! I NEVER would have been exposed to this if it wasn't for P2P.

Also (though I'll get flack for it I'm sure), the original Russian version of the Tatu disk (remember, the two Russian "lesbians" who sung "All the things she said"). Anyway, the Russian version of their album is 10x better then the English (and I don't speak a lick of Russian - pun kinda intended >=).

Course the RIAA hasn't seen any revenues from this "exploitation" (ever try to find Punjabi Hip Hop or Russian releases in Tower Records?!)

P2P: The Music Cornucopia

[15973]

P2P is a great way to listen to music that wouldn't otherwise be available. I've been able to track down songs from every corner of the planet, as well as tracking down those hard-to-find classics. Say what you want about the legality, but how am I supposed to buy an album if I don't know the name of an artist/song/album?

Yup

[MBCook]

Yes, definatly. While I didn't seek out forms of music specifically, I would sometimes download other things from people's collections when I found they had something else I wanted. It was this way that I found a few of the bands that I listen to.

But more importantly, if I heard a song I liked and didn't know what it was, I could find out on the 'net and download it. But whenever I did that I would try to get other things by the artist to find out if I liked them. I bought more than a few of my CDs after finding music this way.

While the iTunes price isn't bad, it still discourages expirmatentation the way Napster and Kazaa used to let you. I think the idea of 5 or 10 cent music (as in that article that I think was posted here a day or two ago) would fix that problem for me. I think that would be about ideal without actually being free. Plus it would force the services to try to compete on a level other than price (the difference between 9 and 10 cents isn't a very good reason to switch services, so to get new people they'd have to have a better catalog, less DRM, better quality, whatever).

Re:Yup

[YrWrstNtmr]

Being able to experiment was one of the central themes of the old model of emusic.com. $15/month, all you can eat, no DRM. You could preview and try something new without actually spending $$ on that particular track/album. Too bad they got bought and changed the price/download model.

No, but music taste has diversified

[failedlogic]

I've found that, with the exception of some J-POP, my music taste hasn't changed dramatically only diversified a bit.

I like maily rock, metal, blues, jazz and other misc types. I've found that using the Internet and P2P, I've been able to hear albums which are either really hard to find or that I would never have heard before. Simply using Amazon and looking at what other people have bought, I've found really helpful. When I used Kazaa, I browsed other's shared files, and often went and bought a few albums afterwards.

I've also found that using internet radio, has been really helpful. Canadian radio stations suck because of CRTC regulations (and I can't get Satellite radio ... though a US P.O. Box is tempting now...). Internet radio offers much more diversity in content.

Re:Streams

[merdark]

I agree. But often, after hearing a good group on a stream, I'd download a couple of the songs via p2p to find out what the 'other' songs on the cd are like. The previews at places like Amazon are good, but often they are simply too short, or are non-existant (in the case of new/rare groups).

If I liked the group, I'd go buy the CD. I bought more CDs during that time than I did my whole life. Of course, after the RIAA decided to kill streams in the US with licensing fees, and then started suing customers for checking out music with p2p, I stopped buying CDs in protest. So far my silent protest has not had any impact, other than to give them more ammo against p2p because 'oh, their profits are down... must be because of p2p'.

Also, with the copy protection schemes becoming more prevalent, it looks like I will never be buying new music.

The only exception I make is for groups not tied to the RIAA. There are very few of these unfortunately. :(

Absolutely YES

[justanyone]

I'm a white, upper middle class suburban 37 year old male and never would have listened to rap or dance mixes had it not been for P2P. Likewise Mel Torme, who has some incredible vocal talent that I was previously unaware of.

Since the cost of the music was near zero for the friend of mine that grabbed it online, I could see if I liked it. Testing it out and seeing if I like something is a valuable thing - used to be (I hear) that record stores would let you do that. They don't do that now, I believe (though I've not been into a record store in 10 years).

So, I did make aesthetic decisions about groups based on P2P experiences, some positive and some negative.

I should mention that I'm a lot more likely to vomit down a record exec's shirt than ever purchase a CD again. But, I only really listen to the radio anyway (and at that, NPR), so they haven't lost any money on me.

One thing I'm wondering about is something my friend mentioned - that he download the stuff directly from napster and that was over 6 years ago. The statute of limitations on theft in Illinois is less than that. So, he legitimately now owns all the songs he got then. I'm not sure if he's right, but it was a funny perspective.

Re:Streams

[ShamusYoung]

For me it wasn't even discovering new music, but new genres of music - I was never into techno until Kazzaa. I discovered some of it was really quite good (lots of it is also crap, and much of it is impossible to find outside of the 'net) and I built up a good collection before the whole thing went to crap. A lot of that stuff is indie, and isn't on any label, so I wasn't hurting the RIAA's bottom line at all.

But they just couldn't let a good thing last. Bastards.

Piracy in general helped me find my musical tastes

[SocialEngineer]

I never really listened to a whole lot of music before music piracy. I had one or two CDs, a couple tapes, and that was it.

A friend at school started passing a collection of mp3s on a CD around at school. I copied em' to my HDD, and gave em' a listen.

Without that CD, I might have not been introduced to Industrial, and might not have become a solo recording artist myself. I now have purchased hundreds of CDs, and occasionally purchase music from iTunes and Napster (not iTunes so much, though - I've only purchased about 10-15 songs online).

After getting that CD, I got a taste of NIN and KMFDM - And I was thirsty for more. I asked friends online if they would recommend me other artists. Once I got a recommendation, I usually hit Morpheus or whatever P2p client I was using at the time to check em' out if I couldn't find samples legally.

Now, thanks to p2p networks, I am a music fanatic. I listen to classical, industrial, 80s/early 90s metal, blues, jazz, funk, electronic rock, and more. I also am a huge fan of indie artists.

I'm all about doing things legit, so I don't keep the music I download. In fact, I don't download anymore - I can't. All P2P traffic is blocked by my college. We can't even use BitTorrent.

Oh well, it just helps me to stay legal while boycotting the RIAA. I buy used CDs nowadays, anyway. It's cheaper, and since I just rip them to my HDD, I don't need a CD that's going to last forever.

Now, if I could just get my fans to distribute my music on p2p networks ;)

A small note: A year ago IIRC, I was using Limewire to do genre searches. Rather effective way to find quick artists in a genre, assuming people rip their music and edit the id3 tags properly :)

Oh god yes,

[LordMyren]

music plasma saved my life! it shows a graphical map of artists and how they connect to other artists (in way of "genre"). Its some entirely arbitrary linkage and the breadth isnt that great, but its supposedly all based on user inputs.

i find audioscrobbler to be too over-run by the songs everyone has on their playlist. it doesnt really help you discern genre's, which is what is so great about musicplasma. its much more directly peer to peer, but somewhat less useful. you pretty much have to find well done groups, but even well done groups rarely play the music in the group.

Mood + genre awareness has a long ways to go.

-Myren

Re:Streams

[joeljkp]

I tend to gravitate more to sites that offer a "Recommendations" feature based on stuff that I've rated previously. With P2P, you have to know what you're searching for, and streams can get somewhat old (although I agree, I've found some excellent ones).

What I really want is some website that lets me condense all my ratings for everything (books, movies, music, games) and spits out some nice recommendations for me. Maybe even a community site with real people doing the recommending.

I found http://ratingzone.com/, but I don't know it enough to tell if it's trustworthy.

Anyone have any advice?

P2P: zero impact on me

[tverbeek]

I don't collect music over P2P, so it hasn't influenced me one bit. In high school and college I did that home-LP-taping thang that kids used to do, but becoming "executive producer" (translation: I provided the money) for an album made by some college friends changed my perspective a bit. Since then I've been scrupulous about paying for all the music I "own".

I don't listen to commercial radio, either. No explanation for that should be needed, beyond the fact that the music is soullessly pre-programmed and the non-music parts (commercials, jock patter, etc.) are apparently aimed at people with half my IQ. {shrug}

I get introduced to new music these days by listening to community radio. Real people, playing music they like, without regard for genre. I used to think I had eclectic taste in music, but it turns out everything I was listening to was just another kind of rock. Now I listen to and enjoy everything from jazz to folk to world beat to blues to a whole geology of rock and even a little country. And all over that new-fangled wireless broadcasting network invented by Marconi.

If you live in a city, there's probably a small, probably-struggling community broadcaster in your area. If you care about music and open access, try tossing some cash their way. And instead of illegally "sharing" music you like to a broadband-only audience via P2P, why not take a few hours a week to legally share it over the airwaves where anyone in your community with a radio can hear it?

Re:Streams

[AdamPiotrZochowski]

checkout AudioScrobbler.com , they even let you download their database to run own
statistical analysis.

They provide the good stuff:
- most listened track by artist
- most listened track by listener
- most listened artist by listener
- similiar arists to an artist

Although, their database is not too clean, some arists are duplicated, for example
you will find 'prodigy' and 'the prodigy' as if they were separate artists.

but then, audioscrobbler.com provides you with their database, its a project that
runs on Creative Commons license (think open source data), and so far I have not
seen/heard of it being poisened by commercial companies trying to boost some artist's
ratings by submiting fake statistics into the system.

ymmv

--
/apz, "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, "Mind you, my first name is Bad."

Patronize your local college radio station

[jarsyl]

This is slightly off-topic, but for broadening your musical knowledge I recommend you start listening to your local college radio station. Assuming you are in the US, and not too far from an urban area, you've probably got at least a couple stations with hugely varied programming available to you on your dial. A couple of my favorites: WRUW of Cleveland, and WFMU, a non-college indie station in New Jersey. Share eand enjoy.

The Radio System

[Spazztastic]

Theres a major flaw in the radio system. Whenever they play a string of songs in a certain order for that day, if their ratings go up just a little bit, they will play the same exact songs in that order the next day. This is how they attempt to get higher ratings, while also failing to introduce newer bands.