lol could be
i wasn’t making a bigger point other than “the technologies that we know of prob wouldn’t exist without capitalism so me blaming capitalism for an issue with a technology is sort of a catch-22” etc.
did i malaprop catch-22 there, i haven’t read the book
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:39 (two years ago) link
xp
monoculture didn’t even die, look at the fucking articles
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:40 (two years ago) link
it's diminished though so i can at least understand what people mean when they complain about 'death of the monoculture'
― ufo, Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:41 (two years ago) link
also wouldn’t monoculture dying be
a good thing
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:42 (two years ago) link
or at least not an unequivocally bad thing
yet literally everywhere you go, ppl are talking about the same shit everywhere
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:43 (two years ago) link
The monoculture is dead, you have the option of being a MCU fan or a Synderverse fan.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:44 (two years ago) link
adele album’s gonna save the monoculture
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:44 (two years ago) link
i'm far too young to be able to know exactly how things were pre-internet but yeah it doesn't exactly seem like the diminishing of the monoculture was close to a bad thing
― ufo, Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:46 (two years ago) link
The non-royalty streaming music complaints come down to the misery of choice - not having the curated new release rack of a good record shop (or even MP3 blog) and being able to afford one album a week to keep you from being overwhelmed.
Streaming video (and the blockbuster reign over theaters) has a similar problem. The 'golden age of TV' could be the golden age because there was one great show for everyone to watch and talk about every week and now it's a hassle trying to keep up with individual series and what service they're on.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:50 (two years ago) link
i think whiney’s point was that it makes it harder to be a music critic when there are no narratives and no monoculture. streaming “hollowed out the middle class” of music critics
― flopson, Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:51 (two years ago) link
man the thing that depressed me most about getting hired as a music critic was being required to write about the big names all the time, fuck that
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:52 (two years ago) link
I read that as hollowed out the middle class of musicians.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:52 (two years ago) link
burden of choice is a myth imo. having choices is nice
― flopson, Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:53 (two years ago) link
The two ideas aren't mutually exclusive.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:54 (two years ago) link
narratives… still exist, idk, though i think as a failed critic who doesn’t want to write about most narratives i feel like i’m the wrong person to take this temperature
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:54 (two years ago) link
streaming “hollowed out the middle class” of music critics
― flopson, Saturday, October 16, 2021 5:51 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
also, i gotta say, something has been happening at the publications themselves that caused this at least as much as if not more than streaming music
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:57 (two years ago) link
Having access to (almost) all of history's music is great but it does devalue the finds and make the average listener work less hard at appreciating an album when they have nothing invested in it/it's easier to move on.
Being, generationally, on the cusp between "you get to listen to what the one good record store in town stocks and maybe two hours a week of decent college radio" and shifting into that universal access was great, being on either side of that divide permanently would have been much worse.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 00:58 (two years ago) link
not having the curated new release rack of a good record shop (or even MP3 blog) and being able to afford one album a week to keep you from being overwhelmed.
i don’t relate to this at all. when i bought cds and records, the number of albums I bought were limited by my being poor, and were far below an amount that would have “overwhelmed” me. it was even below the amount that satisfied me. i think that feeling is mostly misplaced nostalgia. now i use streaming for most listening, i still don’t feel overwhelmed. i just listen to the music i feel like at the given moment
― flopson, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:00 (two years ago) link
but there just doesn't seem to be much passion about anything anymore
― Dan S, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:03 (two years ago) link
xp Right, free streaming is the 'be overwhelmed' part there because you're no longer limited by the supply chain or poverty. This makes cycles shorter (for individuals and culturally, I thinks humans derived a lot of meaning from cycle syncing with others), which arguably makes music cheaper emotionally.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:03 (two years ago) link
but… why would i want to be limited by the supply chain or poverty
― flopson, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:07 (two years ago) link
You probably wouldn't? The idea is that the current situation has drawbacks just like the old. Unlimited choice is not an unfettered good.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:12 (two years ago) link
i get the logic of abundance devaluing music on an abstract level but in my experience it was the opposite. the limewire/napster and especially soulseek era really cracked the wide world of music open for me when i was young in a way that made me value it more. when i discovered ilx i think at 17-18, i would download the albums being discussed on all the active ilm threads and have my mind blown
― flopson, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:17 (two years ago) link
No ILX option?
― Hannibal Lecture (PBKR), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:20 (two years ago) link
Xp I still do
― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:23 (two years ago) link
easily the NFL
but it depends on how exactly it would end, and i cannot predict where its fans/bettors would redirect their energy
― mookieproof, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:24 (two years ago) link
xxxp I'm from an earlier period. I just remember being restricted in the 80s by student poverty, eagerly listening to KUSF and trying to choose between LPs by US bands I loved and bands from the UK that were intriguing to me. That made the whole experience of discovery exciting
― Dan S, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:24 (two years ago) link
again, i was hoping streaming music would end artificial scarcity
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:26 (two years ago) link
discovery is still exciting to me having nearly the entire history of music readily available idk
― ufo, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:29 (two years ago) link
For sure. Everyday.
― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:39 (two years ago) link
there is always going to be scarcity in streaming as far as a lot music is concerned - modern classical (cage, feldman, rzewski, pisaro, so many others), experimental, erstwhile electroacoustic music, japanese deconstructed blues etc
― Dan S, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:46 (two years ago) link
― mookieproof, Sunday, October 17, 2021 2:24 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
yeah, like, for the amount of violent energy it generates it seems at least a little contained?
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:52 (two years ago) link
re: music, not having to work to discover it anymore and having everything at my fingertips has made it all seem slightly less interesting somehow
― Dan S, Sunday, 17 October 2021 01:56 (two years ago) link
the music that i’m into that has retained some aspect of scarcity is house/techno. where like, i’m constantly listening to mixes and trying to find a track but there’s no track list, or it’s a white-label or vinyl-only release, or more often it’s unreleased or just secret. i can see it being fun for some types of ppl, the challenge to ID a track. but it kinda annoys and discourages me, and i resign myself to ‘oh well i should just appreciate the ephemeral connection between me and this song and not covet it’. also it takes a lot longer for that stuff to end up on streaming (and plenty of it never shows up) so i still occasionally buy or slsk stuff
― flopson, Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:14 (two years ago) link
secrets are cool i just hate when they cost money
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:16 (two years ago) link
I sat in the front row with my 11-year old niece at a Broadway performance of Mamma Mia. One of the performers coasted on his knees up to the front of the stage and sang directly to her at one point, so I can't hate Broadway Musical Theater
― Dan S, Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:25 (two years ago) link
ppl hate broadway only bc they are secondhand or firsthand embarrassed about it. i feel this way but i do not think it should die bc of it
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:26 (two years ago) link
i think all true crime media should stop on principle bc it feeds a really strange cultural desire, and like many ppl i hate my favorite murder, but also… i’m not like aggro about how it’s evil and should end
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:30 (two years ago) link
i don’t even like horror movies that are based on true stories
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:33 (two years ago) link
NFL option seems kind of random Also isn’t theatre a UK thing originally
― calstars, Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:39 (two years ago) link
When I complain about the death of the monoculture and narratives, I'm not, like yearning for "Achy Breaky Heart" and like three major labels in bed with the radio stations so they make sure every Mariah Carey song is number one. I'm yearning for the days when popular music was — for better of worse — unavoidable and therefore somewhat of a trans-demographic shared experience. In 1984, everyone heard Kenny Loggins and Rockwell and Nena and Lionel Ritchie and Cory Hart and Julio Iglesias.
In 2021, I would be willing to bet hard money that there are grown adults on this website full of absolute music freaks have never **heard** billion selling monster successes like BTS and Bad Bunny and Lil Durk and Wizkid. Instead of one "music scene," its now 5000 competing stan armies and a whole insular, micro-targeted bubbles that never touch.
As far a narratives go, again, its like 5 artists who are followed like the royal family and then everything else seems to be either projection or guessing or clout-chasing or playing catch-up. Twitter is a tiny slice of the universe that offers little more than absolutely blinkered insanity (YEPPERS YEPPERS CARLY RAE JEPPERS) and total myopia to how everything functions outside of it (cf. XXXTentacion) and is also basically 5000 competing stan armies and insular bubbles that never touch.
Obviously there's clearly a lot WRONG and BAD with getting Smash Mouth or whoever shoved up your ass three times a day, but as someone who likes to think about music, its just a loser's game trying to keep up with everything. It becomes homework and it's not fun. The narratives we get are basically about who is woke and who is cancelled, and that, again, only affects Twitter users and has little to no effect on the other 90% of the population.
It was just ... more fun ... when you could follow this shit like sports and talk to your grandma about Boy George. Whether that is good or bad for art and commerce is for everyone to decide on their own, but that aspect of culture is dead, never to return, and I miss it!
― licorice in the front, pizza in the rear (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:41 (two years ago) link
SNL
― adam t. (abanana), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:48 (two years ago) link
YEPPERS YEPPERS CARLY RAE JEPPERS is an instant classic
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:49 (two years ago) link
thank you for expanding whiney as i agree with most of that
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:52 (two years ago) link
the other side of that is that none out of BTS, Bad Bunny, Lil Durk and Wizkid would likely have the same level of monster success without that shift
― ufo, Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:54 (two years ago) link
its just a loser's game trying to keep up with everything. It becomes homework and it's not fun.
― When Young Sheldon began to rap (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:56 (two years ago) link
In 2021, I would be willing to bet hard money that there are grown adults on this website full of absolute music freaks have never **heard** billion selling monster successes like BTS and Bad Bunny and Lil Durk and Wizkid.
I used to spend a significant amount of my time and money in pursuit of new music, did college radio for years, Napstered and Limewired the shit out of stuff, took road trips just to hit record stores, etc.
Now I'm 47 and have heard BTS because my 6 year old loved them for a bit, have heard of Bad Bunny but don't know if it's a band or a person and no idea what type of music it would be, and have never heard of the last two.
― joygoat, Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:57 (two years ago) link
I like this and I like that, when it’s cold I wear a hat
― brimstead, Sunday, 17 October 2021 02:58 (two years ago) link
--Carly Rae Jeppers
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 17 October 2021 03:00 (two years ago) link