Also, maybe solo singing by shepherd boys and cow-herders, while roaming vast grass lands in hot summer. There were some great singers who wrote fantastic lyrics that go for hours with hardly any instrumental music. I knew they did it for their own pleasure.
when someone bought a CD in 1995, the artist earned roughly $2 from that single sale after label splits. Today, to earn that same $2, around 50 people need to stream the entire album front-to-back.
No. To earn that same $2, the guy who played the CD 50 times would today need to stream it... 50 times.
The U.S. doesn't have enough of a cohesive entertainment culture anymore to really have even a weak notion of national pop music. The Internet keeps everyone in their bubbles. So if you're looking for U.S. Top 40, it's gone-that's what no one cares about except people who want to write articles about music.
It's the sunset of a long process of fragmentation in pop that's at least been there since the rock-vs-disco in the 70s.
I wouldn't say it's bad unless you don't use YouTube and/or Bandcamp. That's where I find most of my new stuff these days.
10729287•1h ago
I dreamt so much about unlimited streaming access back then. 30 years later I realize it was a chimera that broke a lot of my will to dig into music and spend time on more rewarding albums. I’m just sick of the non stop novelty.
MP3 era was the best for this. Because a lot of music was then easy to get, and communities on the Internet were great. Streaming is just mass consumption, or I just don’t have the discipline to restrain.
Well, I’m now back to my very own library, supporting bands by buying their stuff on bandcamp or spending time on random old records I slept too much time on.