Music Industry Sees First Big Gains in 20 Years Thanks to Streaming Services

Thanks to subscription-based music streaming services, the music industry is seeing a significant growth for the first time in nearly two decades. According to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an industry trade group, the global music sales rose 3.2 percent last year, also surpassing those from all physical music formats. The important tipping point in 2015 saw digital services account for 45 percent of recorded music revenue. According to the report, Spotify, Apple Music and other music streaming services brought in about $2.9 billion in revenue. The findings are in line with Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s estimates from last month. IFPI also noted that music on free streaming services such as YouTube has also grown quickly, creating a panic among record labels and artists alike. Billboard elaborates that aspect: In criticizing ad-supported services, the IFPI joined a growing list of trade bodies and music company executives to criticize YouTube for paying royalties that are relatively low when considering its popularity. The report argues YouTube distorts its negotiations with labels by hiding behind the DMCA "safe harbor" rules that limit the liability of online intermediaries from the infringing actions of their users. The result, the IFPI argues, is YouTube can use an "act first, negotiate later" that "fundamentally distort[s] the negotiation process."

Comments

Steve Jobs

[hcs_$reboot]

was a visionary leader.

Re:Steve Jobs

[Viol8]

You think selling music online was his idea do you? It wasn't even Apples idea. Fanboy, much?

Re:Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure wasn't. But what company actually made it work?

Re: Steve Jobs

[slazzy]

Spotify seemed to make it popular.

Re:Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

there's value in offering existing services in more useful ways but god dammit steve jobs isn't a "visionary" any more than your typical hedge fund manager.

Re:Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure wasn't. But what company actually made it work?

Since this article and report is specifically talking about subscription streaming services being the key success factor, the answer to your question is not Apple.

Re:Steve Jobs

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Not only do I have to agree with that, but I have to point out that Steve Jobs specifically mentioned something about users wanting to pay to own the music they pay for during a Keynote. I can't remember which one though, but it was in the first few years of iTunes.

Re:Steve Jobs

[cayenne8]

Not only do I have to agree with that, but I have to point out that Steve Jobs specifically mentioned something about users wanting to pay to own the music they pay for during a Keynote. I can't remember which one though, but it was in the first few years of iTunes.

Well, to be fair, Steve Jobs was likely still in the mindset of the older crowd, thinking back when they grew up, that music put out back then was actually worth buying and owning, to be replayed over and over....

As opposed to the drivel that's come in the the past 2+ decades, which is largely disposable at best...so, sure people would rather stream, listing to something a month, then forget about it.

Re: Steve Jobs

[Pumpkin Tuna]

Spotify didn't make "selling music online" popular, because when you use Spotify, you aren't "buying" anything. You are essentially paying money to listen to the 2016 equivalent of FM radio. The music isn't yours when if can be gone any time they want it to be.

Re:Steve Jobs

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

As opposed to the drivel that's come in the the past 2+ decades, which is largely disposable at best...so, sure people would rather stream, listing to something a month, then forget about it.

So most new listeners are Italian?

Re:Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

So was Hitler.

Godwin point. /thread

Re:Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Music was better back in your day? Whoah bullshit. No it wasn't It was on average the same. I don't care what time period you're talking about. Good music will always be made as long as people love it.

Re:Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandcamp, of course

Re:Steve Jobs

[dave420]

Easy, granddad. You do realise that two decades ago people your age now were saying the exact same thing? You are not even being original with your complaining.

Re:Steve Jobs

[cayenne8]

Easy, granddad. You do realise that two decades ago people your age now were saying the exact same thing? You are not even being original with your complaining.

Well, not so much.

I actually did and still DO like most of the music from before my time...back to and before when Rock and Roll began.

But in the 90's...things really started to go downhill and I think the fact you still see little kids wearing AC/DC t-shirts and the like instead of big fans of the modern big group (are there any?).

Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

Post!
Well, if they are using estimates similar to the calculations used to determine damages,
then they should be investigated for extortion....

I'm no fan of the music labels

[Viol8]

But if youtube send us those damn ads we have to sit through until "skip" comes up, or worse the ones where you have to wait for the whole thing to finish, the least they can do is cough up the money to the labels or individual musicians if self published.

Re:I'm no fan of the music labels

[Anonymous Coward]

Which they do since those artists monetize their own videos.

Re:I'm no fan of the music labels

[adolf]

Youtube has ads?

Since when?

Re:I'm no fan of the music labels

[Viol8]

Since you were holidaying on Pluto it would seem.

Re:I'm no fan of the music labels

[adolf]

Naah. I jest.

But I have been blocking ads since long before Youtube had them -- ffs, I've been blocking ads for at least 20 years. I was shocked when one day I fired up a new PC that wasn't fully configured and found an ad on Youtube, and that was (apparently) years after they started.

Nowadays I don't think about it much, except when I get a new portable device. Youtube ads are already blocked at my router, including on Chromecast (which involves sandboxing 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, but I don't miss Google's DNS).

And no streaming service is making money yet...

[Rinikusu]

Right now, the industry is being subsidized heavily by VC money.

Napster was a visionary leader

[jfdavis668]

Too bad the music industry fought like hell to stop the very thing that would eventually make them rich, again.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[careysub]

There has been a long tradition of the music industry (even before it was the recording industry) of fighting any technological innovation since it would disrupt their current business model. Industries that make money by controlling access to other people's creativity are like that.

The music industry convinced itself that its CD era peak revenue period from 1994 to 2000, when a few generations of music lovers were rebuying their entire music collection in the superior CD format, was their "natural revenue level" and any decrease from the anomalous high point was due to "Piracy! Piracy I say!" rather than the inevitable technology-driven business cycle, seen several times before. They then spent the next decade feverishly fighting digital music, the upcoming format that would replace CDs, rather than working on consumer-friendly ways to exploit it, driving their own revenues into a ditch by pissing off the next generation of music consumers with lawsuits and DRM.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Napster back before they were sued. Downloading music sucked up so much of my time in finding songs I wanted, downloading them, then checking it was actually music I had downloaded, was the song I wanted, was the full length version (and not some hacked-up version missing the last third of the song), and wasn't a live version that I told my wife flat-out that I wish the music labels would just open up their catalogs online and let me buy the songs I want for one dollar. I figured that even though a complete album would sell for less than the cost of a CD, the label was still making more money than they otherwise would have since there was no packaging to create, shipping to pay for, or middlemen who had to get their cut. Years later, along comes Steve Jobs and Apple with iTunes selling songs for .... one dollar. And the labels spent all the those intervening years fighting against exactly that when they could instead have been making money hand over fist just by making their catalogs available online and charging a reasonable price.

And no, my conscience never bothered me about downloading music off Napster. The music I wanted wasn't for sale in the store and I'd already purchased all that music three times in my life at that point anyway: once when I was a teenager with nothing else to spend money on, and then again when my house was robbed and my music collection stolen (yes, happened twice). So, I figured they'd already made enough money off me and they weren't willing to sell it to me, anyway.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[MightyMartian]

To bad that no matter how much the music industry profits, the artists are still getting screwed.

Ah my, but what was old is new again.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[Anonymous Coward]

Napster had some very rare content back then, I still have some crappy 128k bitrate music that I can not find better versions of anywhere.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[gsslay]

Yeah. Look at the millions that Napster fed back to the artists who performed the music.

Wait... they didn't do that, did they? They took the music and gave back precisely nothing.

It's the perfect business model. Let someone else bear the production costs. Visionary indeed.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[houghi]

The fight has been going on longer than CDs. It has been going on longer than the Music Cassette. It has been going on at least since sheeted music was sold.

And piracy has been going on as long as there has been some sort of restriction. This goes back to very early in the German (Bavarian) beer brewing industry in 1200 or so.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[spire3661]

Napster broke the monopoly on music. Up until then you had to buy a whole album for one song. Napster was the market correcting itself. The industry brought it upon themselves. If a kid in a dorm can obsolete your business model in a 3-day coding spree, your business is not viable.

Re: Napster was a visionary leader

[Anonymous Coward]

Powwwwwwww. I like it.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty gay theory you have there, Chief.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'm pretty sure you could buy singles before Napster, and you normally got at least one extra song thrown in for free. You just couldn't get ANY single track you wanted but then back in the day often the songs not released as singles were less than stellar.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[Quirkz]

A friend of mine spent a semester in Japan and came back with a "Best Techno of '93" compilation from some club (Juliana's Tokyo) he'd been to. Double album, so maybe 50 songs total. I had a copy on tape and listened to it daily, and then lost it during the move after college in '97. I would have gladly bought a copy, but it wasn't for sale. Since it was a compilation I could occasionally find one or two items if the artist had their own album, but many songs weren't available at all. Eventually I turned to Napster, and finally tracked down the missing 30 or so of the 50 songs, ending up maybe one short of the complete album.

About the time Napster got sued and went under I was organizing some files and accidentally over-wrote my entire music folder, losing everything. I tried again with some other tools, but never had as much luck with the obscure ones. I'm probably still missing 20 of them today.

Re:Napster was a visionary leader

[dave420]

You don't seem to understand. Artists make very little from album sales. Sometimes literally nothing. Artists rely on live shows, merchandise, and maybe licensing their name/image to be used on products. Everything else goes through the record company, which takes the lion's share.

So yes, Napster did give a lot back. It gave great exposure to many artists, who then found large audiences to buy tickets to their shows and merchandise.

A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

Now they might try putting out music that didn't suck. Seriously, today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.

Re:A suggestion

[stealth_finger]

Now they might try putting out music that didn't suck. Seriously, today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.

Nah that would require some effort, better to just reuse the same old crap that just keeps on selling. There's always a fresh new batch of thirteen year olds every year.

Re:A suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

You jest, but if that's where the cheapest margin is they'll regurgitate forever.

Re:A suggestion

[AmiMoJo]

There is plenty of good music being made, but that's not what sells. Association with some other media is where the money is, e.g. being used in a movie or being fronted by a celebrity.

As usual, the industry is trying its best to commit suicide. YouTube is popular because the main consumers of their crap are kids with no money who in years past would have turned on the radio. Spotify is popular because their parents buy them a subscription to keep them quiet, just like they used to pay for MTV.

There just isn't very much more blood in this stone.

Re:A suggestion

[Christian Henry]

Now they might try putting out music that didn't suck. Seriously, today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.

For them to want to do this, their listeners would have to "encourage" them to do so.

Based upon the popularity of shows such as American Idol, this won't happen any time soon. :-(

Re:A suggestion

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

And they should stop destroying music with volume compression (i.e. loudness war). A lot of music lacks dynamic range, it's like they expect people to only listen to music while driving or in noisy environments.

Re:A suggestion

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

And yet, given the popularity of porn, you'd expect people to be fornicating in the streets.

Re:A suggestion

[Progman3K]

autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.

I'm a sentient wad of chewing-rubber, you insensitive clod

Re:A suggestion

[bluefoxlucid]

The amount of double-think is astounding. They're selling precisely what brings in the most money, continuously, in a constant and reliable model, and you're criticizing the model and saying it's going to destroy them.

Re:A suggestion

[bluefoxlucid]

This needs to go on the list.

Re:A suggestion

[DNS-and-BIND]

That's what just slays me about listening to old music on Youtube. Singers like the Andrews Sisters, or the Statler Brothers, or even someone like Willie Nelson, (here seen in his extremely rare "young" look) damn all of them sang every note without autotune, or lip-synching, or any external help whatsoever. It's baffling, how could they have done that? I suppose it's just part of the culture that the West has lost, along with young people being able to be exposed to opinions that disagree with their own without fainting.

Re:A suggestion

[houghi]

What is wrong with decent Polka music instead of what them hippies make and call music?

Now get of my lawn.

The thing that has changed is not the quality of the music. There was always rubbish. Even the classics where called rubbish.Abba? Pure shite! Rolling stons? Noise. Hendrickx? Raping the national anthem.

What has changed is the amount of music that people have or own. My grandparents had about 20 records.My parents have about 80 and they were the people with a LOT of music in their time. I own about 200 records and 200 Cds and that was considerd a lot before the Intertubes.

Now people have 128GB of music easily, up untill several TB. As the amount that people spend compared to their income will probably not change a lot, there are two ways this can go:
1) Lower prices
2) Pirating
And one does not exclude the other.

Imagine people spend 5% of their disposable income on music in the 60ies, the few records they bought made it possible.
As 5% is 5%, with more music, something needs to give and the easiest to give is quality. People want clearly qantity over quality. Be it music or clothes or anything.

Because if YOU want quality, it is still available. You just need to spend time looking for it. People are not willing to do that. So if you do not have good quality music, blame yourself, not others.

Because they make good money right now, so why change?

Re:A suggestion

[Megol]

LOL! Try to realize that people once complained about Mozart creating crap music and then realize whatever kind of music _you_ prefer actually is still created! In essence you think you are the arbitrator of what suck and not, just as every generation have thought the "new" kind of music worse/more immoral than the thing they grew up with.

Re:A suggestion

[Mr D from 63]

There is plenty of good music being made, but that's not what sells.

I kind of like that the revenues from recording and sales are dropping while the revenue from live performance is increasing. Fans are turning out the see the truly good performers. If you are a studio band, and cut good music, that is fine, but it doesn't warrant the huge rewards we've seen in the past, IMHO.

There are some tremendous talents out there touring, I think more than there were 10 to 15 years ago. You just have to search them out.

Re:A suggestion

[Merk42]

For them to want to do this, their listeners would have to "encourage" them to do so.

Based upon the popularity of shows such as American Idol, this won't happen any time soon. :-(

Which, less than two weeks ago, finally ended after 15 seasons. So maybe now it will happen....hahahaha.

Re:A suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, just today I heard some vapid pop song that i guess was "supposed" to be romantic. The chorus went something like "If I wake you up at 3am, please let me ride" I think that it could only be romantic to 10 year old preteens and prostitutes.

Re:A suggestion

[AmiMoJo]

You didn't understand what I wrote, did you?

Read it again. Note how I'm talking about their efforts to get YouTube to pay more. If they force YouTube to pay more, YouTube won't be able to offer the music for free (ad supported). Web ads don't bring in much money. Certainly not as much as the subscriptions.

Note how I also mentioned that association with other media is what sells these days. So trying to shut down that association but being asshats with copyright and preventing use on the most popular platforms is stupid. We have already seen just how stupid they can be by splitting their catalogues between multiple streaming services. They are still trying hard to drive people away and towards piracy or ad-supported platforms where they get less money.

I'll even give you an example. A few years back my toilet was blocked. The usual methods didn't work so I googled. A YouTube video came up suggesting hot water and dishwasher tablets. Works a treat. The video used Queen's "We are the Champions" to celebrate the unblocking, and it reminded me of the song so I went and listened to it and the label and Queen got paid. Since then the video has been taken down on copyright grounds, so if I were searching today they would get nothing.

Just like MTV, just like Napster, just like iTunes and Amazon, just like Spotify they are trying their best to fail. The only reason they are making more money now is that they are at the upward part of the cycle where they come to accept the new technology, before the next thing comes along and they fight it for a few years before giving in and accepting a new revenue stream.

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

Now they might try putting out music that didn't suck. Seriously, today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.

Nah that would require some effort, better to just reuse the same old crap that just keeps on selling. There's always a fresh new batch of thirteen year olds every year.

Yet one of these days, someone will come along and catch everyone with their pants down (esp Miley Cyrus) and change things - I hope.

There was a similar tine in the early 1960's when music was in a real doldrum.

Re:A suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff

You're talking about a nearly insignificant fraction of "today's music." Why is it relevant? Look into the kind of music you like, not the stuff that you don't like. Obviously the heavily-advertised music like what you're talking about, isn't going to be for most people (that's why it needs to be pushed so hard), but then on top of that, you're also not going to know about most music that exists (not only because it isn't pushed, but also because there's simply more music being made than any one person has time to hear).

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

As usual, the industry is trying its best to commit suicide. YouTube is popular because the main consumers of their crap are kids with no money who in years past would have turned on the radio.

Funny you should mention Youtube. I go there to ocatch some old stuff I remember, and some stuff I didn't hear before.

What is interesting is that there is enough older music that is fresh to me because I didn't hear them when it came out.

Some hidden gems: Album Pop goes the world by Men without Hats. Everyone was so used to their "Safety Dance" song, they got typecast. PGTW is a concept album, with some treats on it like Ian Anderson doing flute on one of the songs.

"In the 21st Century", a song done toward the end of their pop run is interesting as well. Actual lyrics that make sense in their serious songs.

Also a great place to pick up Phillip Glass stuff, and I've been fascinated by Annie Lennox/Eurythmics lately,

Re:A suggestion

[swb]

What's funny is that it makes you realize how much actual *talent* was involved in making bubblegum tracks.

I'm sure the bubblegum acts used a lot of studio musicians and certainly as much production as was possible in the 1970s but it sure seems like it involved a lot more musical talent. Even if they bands themselves weren't writing the songs, they at least seemed able to play instruments and make music.

My son subjects me to awful contemporary pop music and it's surprising how much of it appears to lack much in the way of instrumentation. Quite often it's *just* a simple beat with repetitive rapping type lyrics, which often seems more like yelling than singing.

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

Now they might try putting out music that didn't suck. Seriously, today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.

For them to want to do this, their listeners would have to "encourage" them to do so.

Based upon the popularity of shows such as American Idol, this won't happen any time soon. :-(

I have to have something listenable to encourage me to listen.

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

That's what just slays me about listening to old music on Youtube. Singers like the Andrews Sisters

Talk about coincidences! You might have seen this, but I'll share in case you didn't https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The apple tree song, with Shemp from the Three Stooges is in it as well.

But yeah, the inabilty to hold a note is no impediment if a person is "hot" enough today. The odd thing is that autotune has the same effect on me as running fingernails on a blackboard does. We're supposed to like it?

Re: A suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wake me up at 3am, your ass is gonna be riding In an ambulance to the hospital.

  Fuck outttta here. After a long dab session, I'm ghost and snoozing hard. Nothing wakes me up.

Re: A suggestion

[Type44Q]

What is wrong with decent Polka music

Know why most Mexican music sucks so incredibly a badly? It's because they were largely influenced not by Spanish musicians but by goddamned German missionaries who taught 'em how to brew decent beer and play fucking horrible music.

Re: A suggestion

[Type44Q]

Yeah, that old corollary to cultural relativity... thing is, it no longer applies; people are getting dumber, the music is becoming simpler and far more repetitive, the lyrics less and less intelligent... just another fucking attribute of the current Decline of Western Civilization.

Re:A suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet one of these days, someone will come along and catch everyone with their pants down (esp Miley Cyrus)

Miley Cyrus can be caught with her pants down on nearly any day.

Re: A suggestion

[jratcliffe]

Yeah, that old corollary to cultural relativity... thing is, it no longer applies; people are getting dumber,

Except they're not.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

Re:A suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there's a crap-ton of great new music out there.

Radio is dead in most markets (thanks Mitt Romney!), nothing truly new gets airtime, and streaming services are exacerbating the problem of bad music, they track everything, so new music is written that will sound like what's already popular, based on the number of plays a song has. A problem as old as music but now on steroids.

Thanks internet!

So if you're using streaming to find new music, you may be disappointed.

I'm a musician (at least at night), my music collection has two rooms in the house plus a lot of disk space. I seldom use shuffle for digital files, I listen with intent, so I'm sure I'm not the norm, but here's how I find new tunage:

- Great artists whose music is no longer "pop" are still putting out music, maybe recorded themselves. They'll have a website and self promote the best they can.
- I DVR all the late night talk shows, depending on the host/guest, I'll skip to the band at the end. Mostly not my thing, but I've been surprised a lot.
- Everyone is on youtube, often with "official" videos, or even better, board mixed live performances, you don't need to buy to try.
- Liner notes. Who wrote the song and played the parts? Look those people up. Jazz fans have always done this.
- Amazon, youtube, et al, offer recommendations based on your searches. Yeah, mostly bad, you have to dig, but is surfing for music really a chore?
- If you live in a big enough city, there are still record stores with knowledgeable people working there.
- If you really like an artist, you'll probably read/watch an interview, and they'll probably tell you who they listen to, or influenced them.
- Online communities. I listen to everything, and there is always some website with a good message board dedicated to a style.
- Local live music. You have great singer-songwriters and bands in your town. Trust me. (Also, hire me!)

Streaming doesn't work for me, my musical tastes are too broad, I'll play punk/jazz/red dirt country/mariachi/rock all in one sitting, but I still find enough good stuff to buy a dozen or so CD/vinyl records a month.

We're in a golden age of music, if you care enough and avoid anything corporate and don't mind searching a little.

Re:A suggestion

[bluefoxlucid]

You said there's plenty of good music that's made, but it's not what sells; and then claimed their stuff-that-sells isn't selling and that not selling will destroy them. You actually made a market argument where they're providing the most-profitable product and that's going to destroy their profits.

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

LOL! Try to realize that people once complained about Mozart creating crap music and then realize whatever kind of music _you_ prefer actually is still created! In essence you think you are the arbitrator of what suck and not, just as every generation have thought the "new" kind of music worse/more immoral than the thing they grew up with.

The idea that Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus might be be revered as an equal to Mozart is pretty amusing. While Mozart is not may favorite classical composer - I'm more likely to be caught listening to JS Bach or Rameau or Glass - there is a immense difference between any of the classical Masters and today's pop music. The Masters understood and played music. They were not chosen because of their physical looks. Their music was composed by humans and not a selection of "hooks" assembled by a computer. And they didn't have to worry about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... turning into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This was a modern day pop idol, with absolutely no talent whatsoever. Aside from this sentence, it should be a crime to compare Ashlee Simpson and all of the rest of the autotune crowd to Mozart.

I like a lot of dfferent types of music. You could catch me listening to Viking Death metal now and again, but it has to be good. This shit is just that - shit. For your penance, you have to listen to both clips, say ten Hail Mary's and make a good act of contrition. Go forth and sin no more.

Re: A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

Yeah, that old corollary to cultural relativity... thing is, it no longer applies; people are getting dumber,

Except they're not.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

They may not be, but today's pop music is not geared toward emotionally mature adults. It's geard toward children. Whether the overly sexualized performances are remotely good to have pre-pubescent children watch is in question though.

By the way - is Twerking supposed to be sexy? It always reminded me of a woman trying to shake off a bit of crap that's stuck to her ass cheeks.

Re:A suggestion

[Quirkz]

I've done this a little. I've also enjoyed seeing the music videos to old favorites where, either it's been so long I'd completely forgotten them, or maybe the particular song never got much airplay, and I'd never seen it at all. It adds something new to an old favorite.

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

My son subjects me to awful contemporary pop music and it's surprising how much of it appears to lack much in the way of instrumentation. Quite often it's *just* a simple beat with repetitive rapping type lyrics, which often seems more like yelling than singing.

Yes, actual real professional musicians. There was an exceptionally interesting bit about modern Pop music on Studio 360 a few weeks ago. http://www.wnyc.org/story/hit-...

Present day pop music is indeed a factory. Computer generated, and people "pick" the songs they will have hits of. Zero creativity, and one funny part is how two separate "artists" picked the same music to do. As well as today's op music, with it's multitude of hooks with no music meat in between, you have music made for ADHD people. And that's no joke.

Re:A suggestion

[Rakarra]

But yeah, the inabilty to hold a note is no impediment if a person is "hot" enough today.

I can't believe I actually miss Randy Jackson, judge on American Idol, and his "sorry, that was a little pitchy, dawg."

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

But yeah, the inabilty to hold a note is no impediment if a person is "hot" enough today.

I can't believe I actually miss Randy Jackson, judge on American Idol, and his "sorry, that was a little pitchy, dawg."

Confession time! I've watch a lot of auditions for the Idol and Got talent shows, and enjoyed him as well as most of th others. Except Posh Spice, she just didn't bring much to the table.

Re:A suggestion

[Areyoukiddingme]

And they didn't have to worry about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... turning into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I always thought the squeaky scratchy voice thing was intentional when a female singer did it. It goes with the jet black dyed hair and the skin tight black leather pants. She thought she was being edgy, or something. Maybe I give her too much credit. The audience evidently didn't agree with me.

Re:A suggestion

[Areyoukiddingme]

...just as every generation have thought the "new" kind of music worse/more immoral than the thing they grew up with.

Hey, I'm GenX and I happen to like dubstep. Sure a higher percentage of it is crap, but that's because a higher percentage of everything is crap these days. There is no editorial control of any medium anymore. The upside of that is someone other than the anointed few can reach the masses. The fairly significant downside is that any old crap gets published.

Re:A suggestion

[dave420]

You should look for music you like. If you expect your music to be spoon-fed to you, don't be surprised when it's anodyne slop. There are amazing artists out there who are releasing music not at all like you describe.

Re:A suggestion

[dave420]

You are making sweeping generalisations of an entire generation of artists. Think back to any time in history - was there a time when all musicians produced similar music? When they all thought alike? When they all shared a precise level of skill? Of course not. Your argument makes no sense, and appears precisely like the argument of someone feeling incredibly lost in a once-familiar territory. The problem might not be with the musicians (who apparently all started to become identical), but with you.

Older people have been complaining about the music of younger generations since music began.

Re: A suggestion

[dave420]

Massive generalisations ahoy, granddad!

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

You should look for music you like. If you expect your music to be spoon-fed to you, don't be surprised when it's anodyne slop. There are amazing artists out there who are releasing music not at all like you describe.

Umm, I do look for music I like, dunno where you got the idea I didn't.

Perhaps my having an opinion is what bothers you?

Re:A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

You are making sweeping generalisations of an entire generation of artists. Think back to any time in history - was there a time when all musicians produced similar music? When they all thought alike? When they all shared a precise level of skill? Of course not.

Okay, speaking of sweeping generalizations, it is pretty important to understand that I am talking about Pop music, not every single artist out there today.

Your argument makes no sense,

That's because you are making up an argument for me to have, then attacking it.

and appears precisely like the argument of someone feeling incredibly lost in a once-familiar territory. The problem might not be with the musicians (who apparently all started to become identical), but with you.

Older people have been complaining about the music of younger generations since music began.

You managed to steer the argument to the old geezer strawman. If you read my other posts, you'll see that I listen to a lot of different music. Many forms of music that are made today. You can catch me listening to folk music progressive rock, metal music, modern and old classic some hip-hop, and even industrial, - But that isn't even a point, because it just shows my taste in music is relatively wide, and there is no accounting for that.

But I do detest the modern version of pop music. Endless hooks, like pouring the entire container of salt on your dinner, Autotune - jeezuz, can't they find a person who can hold a tune. In the end, it's pretty people singing computer derived hooks sounding like they are singint through a kazoo. And it's so repetitive that all the songs sound incredibly similar.

And if some people like it - fine. My original point in this anyhow was that I have a lot of money to spend. But I won't buy shit and call it filet mignon. Anyhow I hope I addressed where you tried to lead this argument. Make up more shit I was supposed to have said so you a knock it down, and I'll just let you speak to the hand and ignore you.

Re: A suggestion

[Ol Olsoc]

Massive generalisations ahoy, granddad!

Instead of gratuitous insults, how about some discussion? Prove your points.

Or have you demeonstrated the alpha and omega of your abilities?

Re:A suggestion

[Rakarra]

But yeah, the inabilty to hold a note is no impediment if a person is "hot" enough today.

I can't believe I actually miss Randy Jackson, judge on American Idol, and his "sorry, that was a little pitchy, dawg."

Confession time! I've watch a lot of auditions for the Idol and Got talent shows, and enjoyed him as well as most of th others. Except Posh Spice, she just didn't bring much to the table.

I like music, I've even liked American Idol and watched something like 10 seasons, and, especially since Simon Cowell left, I feel like Jackson brought very little to the table. Especially during the season when he was a mentor; that was an unmitigated disaster because he mentored those kids SO badly, and the judges were so bad that they couldn't give good critiques either, so when a bad singer got voted off by the public, they'd be blindsided by it and not understand why it happened. "America got it wrong!!"

Killing music

[rfrenzob]

I seem to recall somewhere that the RIAA said that the internet was killing music...

Re:Killing music

[Anonymous Coward]

(Posting A/C because of some awesome earlier comments that needed to be modded up)

People (and organizations) need to be given the grace and space to step away from a position that they previously held. Microsoft famously called Linux (specifically the GPL) a cancer; today I can run Ubuntu on Windows 10 with Linux for Windows Services. At the time, the RIAA was afraid of the Internet. Times (and facts) change; and their previous position isn't valid anymore (let's ignore the fact that it may not have ever been valid). So they change.

I don't know about you, but my personal views on many things have changed over the last 15 years. I'd rather be judged for my current views than my views in the past - and I'd rather be a person capable of changing my viewpoint rather than sticking to an old one. If I want that for myself, then I obviously must give it to others.

As John Maynard Keynes purportedly said, “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”

Re:Killing music

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but my personal views on many things have changed over the last 15 years.

Yeah, but 15 years ago you didn't point a gun at peoples' heads, or purchase a machine that is still pointing guns at innocent people today.

These people bribed Congress for weird laws (e.g. DMCA, copyright extensions, etc) and those laws haven't been repealed. Maybe they should have been required to post a bond with their bribes, to pay for lobbying to repeal DMCA. But they didn't do it and they still aren't paying for it. Until they deal with the consequences of their prior evil, they should be treated as evil.

Why should cleaning up this mess be our expense? I didn't bribe anyone, did you? No. RIAA and MPAA should be held financially responsible for whatever hookers and cocaine are needed to get people like Orrin Hatch to say "oops, I changed my mind." Until they come up with the fees, the old position is still the law and therefore their effective position. Their old position is a constraint imposed upon everyone by law. It's not merely a position.

I guess what I'm saying is: people are entitled to change their minds, but if they make laws and then don't undo the laws, then you shouldn't give them the same leniency as you'd give others. Microsoft simply isn't in the same league of evil as RIAA.

Youtube hiding from RIAA behind the DMCA

[BarbaraHudson]

So, the music industry, which until now absolutely loved the DMCA because they could hide behind the "good-faith" clause, is now upset that someone else is doing the same thing? Go cry me a river, then look up "Law of unintended consequences."

Re:Youtube hiding from RIAA behind the DMCA

[HideyoshiJP]

Go cry me a river

It’s like they’re a mirror
A mirror staring back at them.

Re:Youtube hiding from RIAA behind the DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

They also had radio estimates to hide under to claim how popular/valuable a song was. Not anymore. Online streaming pays more then radio royalties and yet they claim digital steaming is too little, despite being a similar concept and actually tracks listener usage patterns for more better.

Re:Youtube hiding from RIAA behind the DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is that more like "in a mirror, darkly"?

There is only one group missing out on royalties

[fustakrakich]

The artists who create the material. Like most people who have to actually work for a living, they are too submissive in negotiations, especially now that self publishing is comparatively trivial to past times when physical media was required.

Crowdsource.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to crowdsource a band of thugs to give the IFPI offices (esp. those at the usual lobbying sites like Washington, Brussels &c) a visit and make a few black eyes. Really. I crave for that.

Re:Crowdsource.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you want to hire a hit-man, but you don't want to hire him for a lethal hit.

Sounds like a great way to get caught hiring a hit-man and convicted of same, IMO. Dead men tell no tales. Victims of a good roughing-up sure as hell do, though.

Re:Crowdsource.

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Dude, what did the Federation of the Pornographic Industry do to you?

Economically sensible services work... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix also proves it - Price it right & "you build it, they will come" (pun intended alluding to "the Field of Dreams").

HBO also long ago PROVABLY demonstrates that if/when you give folks a service that eliminates a pain (interruption via ads), it works...

This increases when ads infect you (as they do online via openbid ad networks being abused by malware makers of all kinds) - folks do NOT want ads - period - for many reasons (intrusiveness & threat to their security/privacy).

* I.E.-> It's better to pay a small fee than break the law too... even though the wealthy make laws via politician puppets & political parties they 'own'.

APK

P.S.=> Per my subject: So does THIS - You all KNOW what I think of ads + WHY (& I held off releasing my program for almost a decade out of respect for webmasters trying to make a living while providing a valuable service - but not SO valuable I was willing to sit around doing nothing about something that steals your speed/bandwidth AND more importantly, your privacy & security) -> https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... ...& it works doing far more for far less complexity in moving parts for exploit or breakdown + less resource consumption & isn't 'souled-out' to advertisers to NOT work on all ads + not blockable by ClarityRay/BlockIQ (more efficient) using what you already natively have... apk

Re:Economically sensible services work... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Legit question for you, APK:

Does your software work within a pfSense install? Because that's where my blocking is going soon. (I'll still keep NoScript around on the client-side, though, for obvious reasons.)

If your answer is "no", then I would urge you to consider the possibility, and to think deeply about what your software does and why it does it that particular way.

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[known_coward_69]

30 some years ago most people only listened to the radio and never bought albums. music streaming is the same thing. except for a few decades, most artists have made money by touring and playing live. i don't get this infatuation with the idea that some people should release a work of art and then be able to sit home and collect money off it.

Idiots

[kbg]

The funny thing is that they could have been making the same profits for the last 20 years if they had just stopped fighting the Internet and started streaming services and Internet downloads. Just shows how stupid these morons really are. Even I knew 20 years ago that trying to fight online music was totally futile and the only solution was to embrace it.

Re:Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you didn't make any money off streaming music! Pot, kettle, black!

Re:Idiots

[chilvence]

WTF does that retort even mean? I wager the vast majority of people all realised the same thing, but you aren't just going to try and break into the industry when there is a massive incumbent power and you already have a job that pays just fine. Everyone expected the industry to have, I don't know, an inch of common sense, and take care of itself. When it turned out they didn't, everyone was happy to let Napster eat their breakfast, so who was going to give a shit about trying to make money off it then? Besides any of that, who the fuck should be making the money in the first place, the musicians themselves maybe? Smartass.

They beat me to it

[stealth_finger]

I was going to post a quip along the lines of now they found some more profitability how are they going to rape it such extremes it dies a slow agonising death that they can blame on piracy but yeah, try and squeeze youtube out of everypenny, yep that'll do it.

Youtube is music's best friend

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube is probably the easiest place to go check someone out to find out if they're any good, what they sound like, etc. Every single musician who ever sells anything, has to first give out a sample (somehow; it doesn't have to be youtube but it has to be somewhere) or else I never know if they're worth buying.

If the music industry thinks we're going to start buying music unheard, they're fucking crazy. It didn't matter how many times I read "Colour Haze is awesome," I had to hear it first before I got all their albums.

Re: Youtube is music's best friend

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy music unheard all the time, the key is that it needs to be an established artist.

rephrasing

[argStyopa]

"Greedy fuckers in music industry grudgingly admit that maybe the sky not falling as predicted; predict that sky will fall due to 'that darn Youtube needs to pay us more' despite $billions in music industry growth."

Does that about sum it up?

Re:rephrasing

[Anonymous Coward]

something something protect artists something freedom something youtube theft money something money something protect

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[fustakrakich]

It's a seller's market.

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[inode_buddha]

News to me. 30 yrs ago I went to the record store every chance I could because I didn't want to wait for my favorite stuff to be on the radio. Had a decent collection at one time.

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[invid]

30 years ago people were buying cassettes, not albums, and while lots of people were making mix tapes and passing them around, we still bought some of our cassettes from the actual music industry. If you liked a band the radio would only play one or two of the biggest hits from their album, you had to buy the cassette if you wanted to hear the rest.

It supplements routers/firewalls, BUT... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: ... DNS, firewalls (software or hardware), even antivirus & other appliances demonstrate HUGE security vulnerabilities (of which I enumerated ~400 in the past few years alone to various champions of that tech here) - I can rattle off that many easily IF /. wouldn't suppress how much I can post in 1 shot (ac users are restricted thus, & yet I see "registered 'lusers'" like KGIII post novellas in their posts).

Especially complimenting filtering DNS & firewalls (complimenting one another) - even hardware solutions.

* Layered security is "where it's at" in case of such failures, & covering as much as you can, via software + hardware methods is the best thing we have going for MANY threats or annoyances.

APK

P.S.=> That good enough for you? IF you wish, I can put out a list of security vulnerabilities in router type hardware (cable/dsl modems, routers, firewalls, you-name-it) that would make your head spin... just ask! apk

Re:It supplements routers/firewalls, BUT... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just curious about whether it integrated with a pre-packaged "router" distro like pfSense, and I wondered if your approach to filtering would integrate with it. I'm sure a purpose-built piece of software would be simpler to set up and maintain than a generic filtering proxy via Squid or the like. And with a less-generic piece of software, the security-sensitive surface is much smaller, too.

I'm going to be running an old Core2Duo mobo I have laying around as my router as soon as I get it put together, so hardware vulnerabilities are going to be pretty well-known and unlikely to see much success for an attacker. Core2Duo 2.5GHz, 4GB DDR2 (and 2 open slots if I find any spare sticks later), and a couple of good Intel GigE NICs makes a hell of a gateway/router.

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[Anonymous Coward]

No, It's a RIAA market. The artists don't get jack shit from streaming services or CD sales. The only time an artist makes anything is from concerts. My son has been in several bands, several music CDs, opened for top bands, award winning music videos, etc. The only money was touring the country doing concerts, and that barely covered expenses. They haven't seen a cent from CD sales, because after the RIAA and retail outlet took their share, nothing was left. They do it for the passion of the music they make.

Just you wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

Music Industry/Movie Industry/Entertainment Industry in a nutshell:

Announces to the world: RECORD PROFITS! SALES ARE UP! :D

Tells the government: WE ARE LOSING BILLIONS TO PIRACY. WE ARE GOING BANKRUPT AND DYING HERE. HALP. D:

Just in time to screw it up

[ilsaloving]

So streaming has caught on and people are liking it. It's making money. That means it's now the perfect time to start balkanizing the industry with exclusives to specific services, raise prices, and strangle it before it gets any bigger.

I mean, if the music industry is doing well, they won't be able to bitch and moan and lobby gov't to impose more and more draconic legislation to combat piracy.

Divide and conquer

[Second_Derivative]

Now they'll make sure that their catalogs are spread evenly across five or six different streaming services and keep them all fighting against each other. They don't want a unified front of streaming providers pushing back and demanding a bigger slice of the pie.

The media industry learned its lesson back when Steve Jobs dunked on them with the negotiations for the iTunes Music Store. The fragmentation happened to Netflix, it will happen to Spotify and co.

Kill it with fire

[Anonymous Coward]

Our civilisation will not collapse if RIAA dissapears

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[known_coward_69]

kids bought the music. most adults i knew had old collections from their youth and hadn't bought anything for a long time while their kids were buying the music

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[known_coward_69]

that almost as bad as my wife and i having to get up for work every morning and then paying bills at the end of the month

Two questions:

[kheldan]

1. Are the artists actually being compensated properly now?
2. Assuming the answer to #1 is 'yes', is the music industry going to stop whining now?

Re: Two questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

The music industry and "artists" are bitches. It's the producers and computers that make a song. Then they change a bit here and there, can it and produce 100 of the same song with shit lyrics and try sell it to retards. I'll stick to public domain music. Copyright limits the music's quality. I don't see why people worship these conartists and give them fame and millions. Unless they're waiting tables on the side they're not artists, and even then theye no part of high culture. But gansta rap y'all.

Re: Two questions:

[kheldan]

I think your comment is more indicative of your poor (or total lack of) taste in music, than it is of the value of the questions I'm asking, or of any aspect of the music industry that's worth discussing. Tell me, do you pay $20 in a restaurant for a steak then put ketchup on it? Or is it drive-thru fast food all the way for you?

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[Anonymous Coward]

30 years ago people were buying cassettes, not albums

WTF do you think the word "album" means?

The data output can easily... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: My sources have data for hardware OR software solutions. Even data vs. DGA botnets vs. malware makers changing them fast OR they get "snuffed" fast by sinkholing them @ ICANN etc..

* E.G.-> Data's MOSTLY free (God bless folks that take time to do it) + "stripping away" preceeding 0.0.0.0 from hosts (most efficient block method that would be MORE efficient IF MS hadn't screwed w/ hosts VISTA onward in 0 blocking removed) EASILY! Notepad.exe's EDIT menu, REPLACE command can.

I can provide WHERE it is - ask! I used to do what you do on a dual homed old PC via netconfig in Linux (sort of).

APK

P.S.=> Security on hosts via my program supplements Windows' WFP/SFP locking hosts vs. corruption - I tried busting it & couldn't (usermode) - kernelmode = easy too (vs bootsector OR driver type) using Windows' RC recovey tools (Disable command on drivers, fixmbr type on bootsector driven rootkits). Update to hosts does the rest (current data = most important)

Re: The data output can easily... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLOL APK you are a nut, now you are replying to yourself. You know they say when you hear voices, somethings wrong.

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[oldmac31310]

What?

Re:There is only one group missing out on royaltie

[invid]

30 years ago people were buying cassettes, not albums

WTF do you think the word "album" means?

You got me there. Generally when we talked about albums we meant vinyl record albums, but you're right, the word album doesn't specify the medium.

You work for who?

[stanrock]

At the party I said "I work for the "International Federation of the Phonographic Industry". She said "You work in the porn industry?" I said, "No, the Phono industry."

Re:You work for who?

[Anonymous Coward]

At the party I said "I work for the "International Federation of the Phonographic Industry". She said "You work in the porn industry?" I said, "No, the Phono industry."

The porn industry probably has a better reputation than the IFPI....

Re:You work for who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, in the music industry, the fucking takes place after the content is created.

"act first, negotiate later"

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, that sounds a lot like the RIAA litigation strategy... /snark

Re: There is only one group missing out on royalti

[Type44Q]

30 years ago people were buying cassettes, not albums

If only they'd come out with the in-dash record player...

I thought music streaming meant starvation?

[Applehu Akbar]

So the music industry is making a ton of money on streamed content, after all. Those artists who are objecting to getting a billionth of a cent on each streamed play should direct their ire at the nonproducing greedy hog middlemen, not at streaming technology.

Just like every media ever invented.

[Anonymous Coward]

The mpaa and such just slowed the process with the sky is falling bait they took hook line and sinker.
They always have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the money. And a lot of people know this and take advantage.

Re: There is only one group missing out on royalti

[tsqr]

If only they'd come out with the in-dash record player...

Not sure whether you're serious, but Chrysler offered a record player as an option in their cars from 1956 to 1961. The last model had a 12-platter changer.

Something must be wrong with me

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who saw "... Phonographic Industry" and thought, Wha!?? What does Porn have to do with music?

I replied to a legit question... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: From others asking https://entertainment.slashdot... & wasn't me (I don't use pfSense)

* I hope my replies were of assist to them!

APK

P.S.=> You trolls - you're ALL the same - weak illogical off topic ad hominem attacks when info. in my replies shuts you down with solid facts (or since that poster I replied to was ac, you're trying some weird 'setup' it seems - a weak one, saying the ac I replied to was me apaprently)... pretty poor that on your parts! apk

What a load of crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Streaming services merely allows people access to a wider range of musicians/artists and thus allowing the customers to mix-match and find their own tastes.
It's sort of what Steam is like, it allowed everyone access to all the latest games.

Problem is, no one owns the music they 'stream'

Napster

[MoarSauce123]

I remember when the music industry went all berserk on Napster with the goal to kill once and for all any technology usable for streaming and sharing files on line. Some eventually came to their senses and saw this as an opportunity...interestingly, it was tech giants like Apple and Google, not the record companies.