Best Ever Albums

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Arthurknight — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:17:45 GMT

Author: Arthurknight

Posted: 12/10/2022 05:17

MadhattanJack wrote:

But the context here is much less dramatic than that — we're really only talking about how you might see your listening statistics and think you've lost something, whether it be "coolness" or maybe just that ephemeral feeling of belonging to a certain musical genre or trend or "movement," because you've been drawn into listening to too much unrelated stuff... even though that might actually be a good thing, objectively speaking.

I think this is a more reasonable position, albeit a much narrower criticism than your previous message suggests. I would preface though by saying that Spotify’s algorithmic recommendations are considerably less intrusive than its critics often imply; it’s very easy to not engage with it at all. Some friends of mine who swear by “discover weekly” argue that it trains itself to your taste moreso than changes it, but I remain sceptical and actively avoid it completely.

But if we’re focusing our scope from “everyone” to the people who are in the know, who care, I can see how acquising even a little bit to having your music programmatically fed to you changes how you engage with it. You didn’t find that artist, you didn’t dig for it, it was just put into your ears by no-one. In such a world what you listen to doesn’t connect you with a community.

I do think this is a very outside-looking-in perspective though; this is not as prevalent a problem as it may appear. A more prescient criticism of Spotify’s ubiquity — a ubiquity represented by the advent of “wrapped day” — is how they and major labels fuck over musicians at every opportunity. In my view, music becoming a “service” changes very little for the listener — or at least what it does change can be easily resisted — but irrevocably crushes the livelihood of artists the world over.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

MadhattanJack — Fri, 9 Dec 2022 03:07:35 GMT

Author: MadhattanJack

Posted: 12/09/2022 08:07

Arthurknight wrote:

I'm not so sure I do posit that, though. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you might become less invested in the music, and being less invested could lead to you treating the music as having less intrinsic value, and at that point you might experience something that could be described as a "spiritual disconnection," though that's not what I would call it. I'd probably go with something like "the kid-in-a-candy-store effect."

But the context here is much less dramatic than that — we're really only talking about how you might see your listening statistics and think you've lost something, whether it be "coolness" or maybe just that ephemeral feeling of belonging to a certain musical genre or trend or "movement," because you've been drawn into listening to too much unrelated stuff... even though that might actually be a good thing, objectively speaking.

As for me, I've done the free trials on Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and Spotify, and honestly, it was really nice being able to root around in there and listen to all those albums I either hadn't heard before, or hadn't heard all of, or hadn't heard in years. I could probably gripe about how all my activity was being logged and data-mined and fed into some obtrusive algorithm, but that didn't really bug me so much. (And for what it's worth, Apple Music doesn't even seem to bother with the algorithm, they basically just tell you what to listen to, so at least Spotify is better than that.)

Quote:

Those of us here will continue to collect physical formats, talk about speaker specifications, make gimmicky lists and write articles for nobody about our favourite niche artists, but these instrumental differences in engagement have little to no bearing on the capacity of music (or art) to engender the sublime.

You're almost certainly right about that. At the same time, I do think it depends a lot on the person, and in particular, how effective the streaming service might be at drawing the person away from something they might perceive as sublime or transcendent, if that's what it's trying to do — algorithmically or otherwise.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Skinny — Thu, 8 Dec 2022 01:16:40 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 12/08/2022 06:16

craola wrote:

embrace the dork, skinny. there's nothing cooler than a dork who don't mind.

Oh, I don’t mind. I’m extremely secure in myself. Not insecure at all. Not me. No siree! Here I am, just going about my day, all carefree. So secure.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Arthurknight — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 19:14:04 GMT

Author: Arthurknight

Posted: 12/08/2022 00:14

MadhattanJack wrote:

But again, your tastes haven't changed, your perception of music itself is what changed. I'm also not saying that it's better to be a hipster snob and reject streaming services and only listen to hot-pressing vinyl on 70's-era hi-fi gear. I mean, sure, that's what I do, but nobody should treat me as some sort of exemplar.

I'm sorry jack but this diatribe is a bit much don't you think? You posit that people using spotify represents a kind of total spiritual disconnection with the music they're engaging with, but that very argument has been recycled repeatedly, most recently before Spotify when people switched from CDs to direct download mp3s. Likewise, this was a commonplace criticism of people who didn't play "their" music in the car but absentmindedly chose a radio-station at random for background noise. While an apt descriptor for many a Spotify user, this characterisation has had capital for years and represents a kind of unwillingness to accept that to most people music just isn't that important.

I for one started using Spotify mid-last year after our government started aggressively blocking torrent sites and I had become dissatisfied with the iTunes -> Apple Music transition. I still have my local files library and I still buy digital albums off Bandcamp, because, unsurprisingly, Spotify doesn't have everything. However, I've actually really enjoyed making playlists on the platform, both because it has encouraged me to listen more broadly and because it's given me that sense of ownership you prize so highly in your vinyls (but yes, nothing will beat stumbling upon a rare favourite in a record crate).

The reality is that very few people proportionally deeply care about music like we do. Due to the intragenerational ways young people specifically engage with music nowadays being substantively different – having been brought up with the internet from a young age; everything being a fingertip away an absolute given to them – It can feel to us like something has been lost. It really hasn't.

Kids these days are still playing individual songs on repeat 50 times over, making little playlist (mixtapes) for friends, and wearing band t-shirts as a non-verbal way of trying to find their people at parties. Those of us here will continue to collect physical formats, talk about speaker specifications, make gimmicky lists and write articles for nobody about our favourite niche artists, but these instrumental differences in engagement have little to no bearing on the capacity of music (or art) to engender the sublime.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

craola — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 14:15:22 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 12/07/2022 19:15

Skinny wrote:

lol i just meant that drake and the counting crows (and craig finn and steely dan to a lesser extent) are dorks who make music for dorks

embrace the dork, skinny. there's nothing cooler than a dork who don't mind.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Skinny — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 07:14:31 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 12/07/2022 12:14

lol i just meant that drake and the counting crows (and craig finn and steely dan to a lesser extent) are dorks who make music for dorks

Re: Spotify Wrapped

LTSings — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 04:15:28 GMT

Author: LTSings

Posted: 12/07/2022 09:15

@MadhattanJack Whatever format people want is OK with me. I use Spotify, buy downloads, and sometimes buy CD's too, but I buy more downloads than CD's. And I'm very thankful for Spotify, because if it weren't for Spotify and YouTube I'd be exposed to a lot less music than I am, and I'd be missing out on a lot of stuff I really enjoy, and I'd also be buying a lot less music because I would never have heard a lot of the stuff I buy in the first place without Spotify and YouTube.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

MadhattanJack — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 03:16:22 GMT

Author: MadhattanJack

Posted: 12/07/2022 08:16

LTSings wrote:

LTSings wrote:OK. I couldn't care less about whether anyone thinks I'm cool or not, but I was just thinking that different people might have different ideas and opinions about what is cool.

I think you may be missing the point here a bit. I didn't mean to suggest that subscribing to Spotify was "uncool" in itself, or that it causes people to become uncool; rather it distorts your own perceptions of what is cool and what isn't by degenerating music into a mere service, after it was already degenerated into a mere commodity when physical formats were the only available option. The music industry is ultimately to blame for this, but the question of "blame" has little to do with the perceptual and cognitive distortion. Eventually you reach the point where you no longer perceive the music as having much worth in itself, and after that you stop seeing it as something that defines you and/or your personal aesthetic, and more as a convenient means of distracting yourself from other things.

That isn't to say it's better that music come in the form of a physical artifact, particularly since it's far greener for it not to. It does take an effort of intellect to treat MP3 or FLAC files as if they were physical possessions though, and that's unfortunate, especially since downloads are potentially the best deal for the musicians involved. But it can be done. Whereas, streaming services don't really give you that option — you get a vast selection, but that too distorts your perception of the music's value. There's too much available; you can't get your head around the sheer amount of it, it all gets lost in a huge sea of product. You begin to assume that anything you might become curious about will simply be there, and sure enough it usually is. Everything becomes common, and for most people, "common" is the antithesis of "cool," at least in terms of music and (arguably, other forms of) art. But again, your tastes haven't changed, your perception of music itself is what changed.

I'm also not saying that it's better to be a hipster snob and reject streaming services and only listen to hot-pressing vinyl on 70's-era hi-fi gear. I mean, sure, that's what I do, but nobody should treat me as some sort of exemplar. Still, folks should probably read some Albert Camus or (if you can stand it) Jean-Paul Sartre to help restore their belief in the transcendent quality of music, and perhaps art in general. And every once in a while, yes, absolutely, go out and buy an LP, or a CD, or a cassette, even if you're not sure you'll like it. (Don't buy flexidiscs though, those things are shit.) Maybe it will seem dumb and silly as you're doing it, but sometimes it's that feeling of having it that reaffirms your sense of its real value.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

LTSings — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 01:53:43 GMT

Author: LTSings

Posted: 12/07/2022 06:53

LTSings wrote:
Who determines what is cool?

Skinny wrote: Me.

@Skinny

OK. I couldn't care less about whether anyone thinks I'm cool or not, but I was just thinking that different people might have different ideas and opinions about what is cool.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Skinny — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 01:42:39 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 12/07/2022 06:42

LTSings wrote:

Who determines what is cool?

Me.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

LTSings — Wed, 7 Dec 2022 00:31:45 GMT

Author: LTSings

Posted: 12/07/2022 05:31

Who determines what is cool?

Re: Spotify Wrapped

MadhattanJack — Tue, 6 Dec 2022 23:56:21 GMT

Author: MadhattanJack

Posted: 12/07/2022 04:56

Skinny wrote:

The fuck happened to me? I used to be cool.

You're still cool; the problem is, you subscribed to Spotify.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Skinny — Tue, 6 Dec 2022 15:12:24 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 12/06/2022 20:12

My top five artists:

1. Steely Dan
2. Counting Crows
3. Drake
4. Craig Finn
5. Cam’ron

The fuck happened to me? I used to be cool.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Repo — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 23:56:50 GMT

Author: Repo

Posted: 12/06/2022 04:56

RockyRaccoon wrote:

Repo wrote:

OMG! Your son's the coolest!!! \m/

Lol it's funny, cause all of this happened because he's a super high energy kid so I would put Ace of Spades on and he'd run around to it, cause it's super fast. Then as he got older, he wanted to hear more stuff like that so I started playing all that and he really latched onto Dio, Judas Priest, Sabbath, Ozzy's solo stuff, Metallica, Megadeth, Ministry, etc.

Now he's really getting into power metal. Pretty much anything with fast guitars and drums, he's into it.

I LOVE that it's all the classics! I hope to see his Top Ten Metal albums on here really soon! 😁

\m/

Re: Spotify Wrapped

LTSings — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 19:59:23 GMT

Author: LTSings

Posted: 12/06/2022 00:59

Thanks to @albummaster for helping me to finally get my Spotify Wrapped images posted. These are both the ones I tried to post before. The top one is for 2021 and the bottom one is for 2022.

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

[/img]

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

[/img]

Re: Spotify Wrapped

RockyRaccoon — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 16:16:35 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 12/05/2022 21:16

Repo wrote:

OMG! Your son's the coolest!!! \m/

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Repo — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 14:52:37 GMT

Author: Repo

Posted: 12/05/2022 19:52

RockyRaccoon wrote:

My 6-year-old has really gotten into metal for whatever reason over the past couple of years and totally hijacked my top 5 songs and the top 3 of my top artists:

Top artists:

1. Dio (his favorite)
2. Judas Priest
3. Black Sabbath
4. The Beatles
5. The Avett Brothers

Top songs:

1. Iron Man - Black Sabbath (my 6-year-old was obsessed with this song for a while this year)
2. Don't Talk to Strangers - Dio
3. Trapped Under Ice - Metallica
4. Electric Funeral - Black Sabbath
5. Neon Knights - Black Sabbath

OMG! Your son's the coolest!!! \m/

Re: Spotify Wrapped

RockyRaccoon — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 13:51:42 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 12/05/2022 18:51

My 6-year-old has really gotten into metal for whatever reason over the past couple of years and totally hijacked my top 5 songs and the top 3 of my top artists:

Top artists:

1. Dio (his favorite)
2. Judas Priest
3. Black Sabbath
4. The Beatles
5. The Avett Brothers

Top songs:

1. Iron Man - Black Sabbath (my 6-year-old was obsessed with this song for a while this year)
2. Don't Talk to Strangers - Dio
3. Trapped Under Ice - Metallica
4. Electric Funeral - Black Sabbath
5. Neon Knights - Black Sabbath

Re: Spotify Wrapped

craola — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 13:17:42 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 12/05/2022 18:17

baystateoftheart wrote:

2. Rainbow Connection - Kermit

legitimately one of my favorite songs. my dad used to play that song on guitar and sing it to me and my siblings when we were little, so it's tied up in all sorts of nostalgia. i can think of three songs off the top of my head that are liable to move me to tears, and that's one of them. cool to see it crack your top five.
---
my kids hijacked my top five songs (hello encanto), but my top five artists were anne paceo, cocteau twins, nina simone, nusrat fateh ali khan, and leonard cohen.

Re: Spotify Wrapped

Anonymous — Mon, 5 Dec 2022 04:21:08 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/05/2022 09:21

I have dotted around services and taken time away from them this year so don’t have this at the minute. But based on what I have listened to a lot, I’m guessing:

Top genre: alternative ( lol, I always get this)

My top artists of 2022:
1. XTC
2. Alvvays
3. Taylor Swift
4. Weyes Blood
5. Belle and Sebastian

My top songs of 2022:
1. Go find yourself or whatever - Carly Rae Jepsen
2. All of a Sudden - XTC
3. Snowman - XTC
4. Pomeranian Spinster - Alvvays
5. Working Boy in New York City- Belle and Sebastian