I feel global political oppression or global wars usually produce great music but Macklemore might be the peak.
Nothing against him, some of his songs are good, but I expected real rage inducing stuff with everything going on. Or is this just the state of music as a whole?
Jesus Christ you people will bitch about anything.
Please explain to me how an algorithm is worse than having to bribe execs to get on the radio and wait for the song to be played. And then if lucky it’ll get played 40 times in repeat.
I’m sure this will be a coherent answer 🙄.
You’re exactly right.
WTF algorithm was there to serve us on demand copying mix and demo tapes? We had to touch physical media to get the songs. It took effort, sometimes $5 in gas money, a stack of blank tapes at home, and working two-deck stereo.
Not just for Rage-type alt music and punk, but the entire early hip-hop and rap scenes were almost exclusively bootlegged and home-made.
This isn’t about “kids today have it so easy” - this is about good songs overcoming massive headwinds to get popular and simply heard. Music discovery was word of mouth, rumors, and who had what on hand. The thrill of the hunt got you amazing results.
Right now there’s probably someone making killer music and posting to YT or peertube with like 3 views because everyone just accepts the algo slop and no one looks for the gems.
Oh hey look, it’s me!
Are you looking for the gems? Or making the gems? Either way, you’re doing the Lord’s work.
Making them! https://jimmyhalliday.bandcamp.com/
Holy shit, your band is fucking fire!
Edit: I listened to your whole album and it’s great. Reminds me of the early 2000s Fat Wreck Chords era when punk was honest and real, but also fun. Like some NoFX/MXPX stuff plus shades of this band named King Kong but louder. Thanks for linking to it!
Then you might be surprised to learn that there is no band, just me! I played and sang all the parts except for drums, those I made with Hydrogen. I did all of that using mostly open-source tools, all in my living room!
Yeah, I was wondering about the drums part in the credits for each song, because it seemed odd to have different names for each drum set. Is it just a different setup and you give it a name?
It’s a different virtual drumkit, and I swapped some pieces here and there when I felt like one or the other sounded better for a specific song. The names were set by the creator of the drumkit, and I didn’t really know how to credit them so I might have gone overboard with it lol
Respectfully, i think this is the wrong conclusion. There are more sophisticated listeners today than there have ever been and sub-genre communities are great at spotting new gems. But while the number of listeners grew linearly, the number of bands has grown exponentially, making discoverability very difficult to achieve. That’s not anyone’s fault unless you consider musicians are at fault for creating so many good bands.
Absolutely fair point, and I agree with you to some degree. I imagine that it’s somewhere in the middle, where bands have flooded the space so that if no technical means exists for discovery, we’ve traded off friction points. Instead of the 90’s version where people would drive 40 minutes to the cool reord store in the next town over, now discerning listeners looking for gems have to wade through more and more bands they don’t like. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just how it is.
the ’90s* version
Nobody tell this guy about mps3 🤣
None of that went away. Music discovery is easier than ever. Sharing music is a link and you’re done. Either you’ve forgotten or are too young to remember the same artists played over and over again.
However you got here, your understanding of the music industry pre internet is rose tinted at best.
Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when MP3s were new. If it wasn’t for a HD crash in 2003, I would still have MP3s from the 90s.
Plus, I was agreeing with you. WTF?
I’m not talking about sharing in particular, I’m talking about friction involved in discovery. You have to know someone to share the link, even today. So someone is out there spending 10 hours a day listening to random stuff on YT just to get something to share, not waiting around for the algorithm to give them music.
You just made me sad thinking about the huge music library I used to have. I’ve recently started downloading again, but my tastes were so different back then I don’t think I’ll ever remember it all.