death of music

[jeansGuyOZ]

I have an interesting idea for an interactive Internet radio station - I don't know if this has been tried before. For it to work, you would have to have some way of measuring how different one song was from another - not a note by note comparison, but a comparison of style. So a song by Usher would be rated fairly similar in style to one by Beyonce, but very diifferent to one by, say, Peter Gabriel.

How it would work would be: to start with, the site would select ANY music, completely at random, from a very large playlist comprising all kinds of genres. However, you would have the option to give the piece a negative rating. The site would be programmed so that, over time, music would continue to be selected at random, but tracks similar to one for which you gave a negative rating would be less likely to be selected - the closer the match, the smaller the probability. You could even hear a song you already disliked, it would just be less likely, and become less likely over time as you continued to dislike it.

One way to measure how similar one song is to another would be to compare the two lists of people who disliked each of them, and see how closely they matched.

It's important to note that I am proposing only a negative rating, not a positive one. So while I may really like the song I just heard from Joni Mitchell, I might be quite happy if the next track was something by Bob Marley. It leaves open the possibility of discovering new music and new styles that you never knew you liked.

The Internet stations on Live365 already have a system where you can give a track a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down", but that rating only refers to that particular track, and of course those stations are not personalised.

 

[diklik]

Interactive radio thing

OZ, an interesting idea with some downsides. Having worked previously in the biz, I doubt that it would do well today, since the stats keeping would be very intensive and expensive. Today, radio runs with as few humans as possible - not to my liking - but that's the economics of the broadcast industry in these times.

As well, it would be far too easy to swing 'the vote' by repeated negatives if you wanted to kill an artist's airplay. Proxy servers hide IP addresses, and IP filtering is about the only way to prevent multiple voting from the same source. Creating a membership list is a possibility, but the chore of logging in every time you wish to vote would be an issue, and is often impossible for some listeners. It would quickly put a damper on things. One would end up with a small coterie of interested voters, and their preferences would rapidly created a personalized format just for them.

That's why many internet and satellite services are narrow-casters, providing a specialized format and music choice for specific listeners. With the right mix of artists or genres, such a 'station' can prove successful. Money-wise, those operators usually group under (satellite) subscription services like Sirius or XM, with a guaranteed minimum income every month.

 

[diklik]

I'm sorry but you are wrong. Commercial music you hear on commercial station has indeed become more commercial. But that's not music!

Not music to your taste, Bart. But the word-nazi in me wants to point out that any two notes played in succession are considered music by definition. I agree - the formulaic crap that is heard on commercialized radio is not necessarily pleasant or desirable - but it is music of a sort.

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

Thank you diklik but I am not sure you totally understood the concept I had in mind. It's true there would be many technical issues to be ironed out, such as keeping a database, user authentication and so on. However I disagree about "swinging the vote" by repeated negatives.

The point is, I am talking about a site that would broadcast (or narrowcast, if you like) tracks selected for YOU. What you would hear at any given time would not be the same as what another listener would hear. How often a track gets selected for me would depend only on how I have rated it in the past, and how I have rated other songs that the site thinks are similar to this one, NOT on other people's rating. There would be no advantage in logging in under another username, because you are only going to listen to one song at a time unless you are a bit strange, and in any case your rating only affects what is presented to you. It is not like a voting system where people's votes are totalled up.

I am not suggesting that it would be feasible to set up an Internet site like this tomorrow. I am putting forward a concept.

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

Not music to your taste, Bart. But the word-nazi in me wants to point out that any two notes played in succession are considered music by definition. I agree - the formulaic crap that is heard on commercialized radio is not necessarily pleasant or desirable - but it is music of a sort.

I have a problem with referring to rap as music. That has nothing to do with the fact that I dislike most of it. I am prepared to accept it as a valid art form, and even to admit that many rappers are talented in how they contruct their word paintings (and others are perfectly dreadful). the thing is, I find it hard to justify labelling it music when the words are spoken rather than sung, and the backing consists of a constant unchanging synthesised drum beat. I think a soundscape must have at least a few different notes, in the voice or the backing, to qualify as music.

If there are parts of the piece that are sung, as is the case with a lot of hybrid pieces these days such as the thing by Rihanna and Eminem, then yes it is music, or at least part of it is music.

 

[gb2000ie]

Not music to your taste, Bart. But the word-nazi in me wants to point out that any two notes played in succession are considered music by definition. I agree - the formulaic crap that is heard on commercialized radio is not necessarily pleasant or desirable - but it is music of a sort.

I think I wasn't clear - the way the statement was phrased it was ONLY considering the pop crap to be music - my point is that the definition is MUCH broader, and that it goes well beyond what the record labels are doing. So yes, if you only choose to look at what the record lables are doing, it is getting more commercial - but that that statement doesn't stand up if you actually expand out your definition of music to the real and actual definition.

B.

 

[diklik]

Thank you diklik but I am not sure you totally understood the concept I had in mind.

Ahh, yes OZ you're right, I did not get your concept when I read the post initially. It would be a massive technical undertaking, but certainly feasible with today's technology. Obviously it would need to be membership supported, with monthly fees to cover the expense of a huge music and stats database. Certainly would prove interesting.

 

[slimjim]

I have a problem with referring to rap as music. That has nothing to do with the fact that I dislike most of it. I am prepared to accept it as a valid art form, and even to admit that many rappers are talented in how they contruct their word paintings (and others are perfectly dreadful). the thing is, I find it hard to justify labelling it music when the words are spoken rather than sung, and the backing consists of a constant unchanging synthesised drum beat. I think a soundscape must have at least a few different notes, in the voice or the backing, to qualify as music.

If there are parts of the piece that are sung, as is the case with a lot of hybrid pieces these days such as the thing by Rihanna and Eminem, then yes it is music, or at least part of it is music.

Do you know why it's called "Rap"... it's because the term " Shite" had already been taken :thumbs up:

 

[diklik]

Do you know why it's called "Rap"... it's because the term " Shite" had already been taken :thumbs up:

:agree:

TOO FUNNY!

It would be a more valid art form if the performers REALLY came out of poverty and privation, and were singing/chanting/rapping about their own lives and hardships. That just ain't so for almost all of them. They're spoiled, over-indulged posers; pretending to be street people but having never really experienced that life. Perhaps years ago when rapping began on street corners with neighborhood gangs vying for attention and handouts from passersby, their music and clever rhyming lines had cred - not any more.

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

Do you know why it's called "Rap"... it's because the term " Shite" had already been taken :thumbs up:

No, it was because the 'C' was stuck on the guy's keyboard!

No but seriously... just because I hate rap and the other guy loves it does not make me better than him - just as long a he also respects my tastes.

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

:agree:

TOO FUNNY!

It would be a more valid art form if the performers REALLY came out of poverty and privation, and were singing/chanting/rapping about their own lives and hardships. That just ain't so for almost all of them. They're spoiled, over-indulged posers; pretending to be street people but having never really experienced that life. Perhaps years ago when rapping began on street corners with neighborhood gangs vying for attention and handouts from passersby, their music and clever rhyming lines had cred - not any more.

"The Message", by Grandmaster Flash, was probably the original rap piece, and if you listen to those lyrics they actually make a lot of sense. It was also highly original for the time. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for most of the rap that has followed in its wake.

 

[diklik]

"The Message", by Grandmaster Flash, was probably the original rap piece

Maybe only in the sense that it was a first major hit, on record.

Rapping - rhyming speech uttered to a percussive background of either recorded beats or live spoken sound - was noted as a street busking phenomenon in New York City in the early 1960's. Grandmaster Flash (real name Joseph Saddler), came to the USA as a child from the Barbados, and never lived in poverty or was a street kid. Saddler came from a two-parent family with very supportive attention to his education in electronics and his appreciation for his father's very large record collection of all kinds of music.

His album was released in 1982, a good 18 years after rapping was written about in the music press of that day. He may possess, as some others do, innate talent - and no one can denigrate that. However, like almost every other rapper, he is a poser. I personally can't abide the ghetto thug attitude and phoney posturing and ghetto slang that they all seem to adopt. It's a Hollywood cliché that is very lame. If all rappers really had to overcome serious poverty, starvation and drug habits PRIOR to becoming "stars", I might have more respect for them. The truth is that the vast majority of rap artists are spoiled brats who never had one day of hardship, other than worrying how far they could stretch their allowance money. Even rappers' choices of pretentious stage names (Grandmaster Flash, Vanilla Ice, Fiddy [50] Cent for instance), was ripped off from the style of Calypso/Reggae singers in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and elsewhere (examples are The Mighty Sparrow, Lord Kitchener, etc.)

My issue relates to (most of) the rappers' pretense of being part of the ghetto when they are not; and the artificial angst they inject into their lyrics..........lyrics that inflame and provoke many young and impressionable kids who don't know how phoney it all is. Folk singers for many years wrote and sang of the troubles of the poor and downtrodden, but they didn't pretend to be one of them - they stood as social commentators. Rappers have tried to appropriate that nobility without true credibility.

 

[kevi]

Jay Sean is awesome!!!