Page 1 of 11 12345 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 103

Thread: Music Streaming - good or bad?

  1. #1
    Administrator sodascouts's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Where Faulkner collides with Elvis
    Posts
    33,663

    Default Music Streaming - good or bad?

    My verdict: streaming is a good thing for both fans and the music industry.

    Streaming has almost eliminated piracy. People want the convenience of streaming songs on their phones more than they want an illegally garnered download on their computer. They are willing to pay for that convenience. The artists are getting money.

    This is even true of YouTube. When record companies put up videos, they get money from the plays on YouTube.

    When they don't put their music on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, etc., we're back to "no legal way except for buying the entire album" again, the way it was in the 90s (I'll go into how bad that was in a bit). When there is a legal way to stream songs, people do it! Just OFFER it! Don't try to sue YouTube and Spotify out of existence; take advantage of them!!! The attitude of "DESTROY OTHER OPTIONS TO FORCE PEOPLE BACK TO WHERE WE WANT THEM" is what I find wrong.

    Streaming has broken the stranglehold of the record companies. This is what the record companies hate so much, but it's a good thing. They are not looking out for the artists and they never have been. The Eagles sued their first record company; Don sued his again later as a solo artist; Don started an interest group against record companies at one point, although this seems to have been back-burnered now that the record companies have convinced artists their true enemies are their own fans.

    I came of age in the 1990s, when labels had stopped offering singles so they could make people pay full price for a CD (at one point about $20) even if they only liked one song on it. It was all or nothing. It got so bad that the federal government had to step in to stop the labels from colluding to raise prices via market manipulation. The money they got from driving up prices was not passed down to the artists. People who fondly remember the "old days" and wax nostalgic about the 70s often forget how bad it got in the mid-to-late 90s because they weren't necessarily buying CDs of new artists then, which were the ones that cost the most.

    Before streaming, buying an album was a crap shoot. You heard a couple of songs on the radio and if you liked them enough, you bought the CD and hoped for the best. I was one of the people paying $20 for a Savage Garden album because I liked "Truly Madly Deeply" a lot, only to discover the rest of the album was mediocre at best. I can't remember the last time I played it. (If you're asking "Who are Savage Garden" right now, you're proving my point lol). That was the price of a new CD in 1998. $20 for one song = RIP OFF, but before streaming and after the death of the single (thanks to the record companies), there was no other legal way to get the song.

    No other legal way... but it was when CD prices were at their highest ever that Napster become super-popular among my age group and younger. Coincidence? I think not.

    Was it right to steal music? No. But I can bet you if the record companies were still in control and there was no alternative way to get music like streaming, we'd be paying at least $40 for our CDs now. I get that number by extrapolating how much CDs cost in the early 90s from their cost in 2000; they had doubled in price in less than 10 years. Even if you challenge that extrapolation, you have to admit that we would surely be paying more than the $20 we paid 15 years ago.

    Before streaming: I bought a couple CDs a month, maybe, because I was a college student and spending more than $40 a month on music wasn't feasible (I remember having to wait months for the price to go down; after about a year, you might be able to get a CD for $15, unless it was something like the Eagles Greatest Hits which never went down in price). I guess some people could afford to drop $100 a month or more to get a variety of music. Lucky them. For many people, they just didn't buy very many CDs per year, and didn't get to hear anything except what was played on the radio.

    Before streaming: albums went out of print. You had to buy them used once that happened, and it often didn't take very long for it to happen if the album wasn't a huge hit. The artists got nothing from those re-sells. Now, they get money even when you play their oldies and deep cuts that you can't find in the stores.... yet they still grouse because it isn't enough money. They preferred zero?

    Before streaming: only biggies and those with a lot of radio play got heard. Now, the little guy can get heard, too. You like the music, you can buy the album. The little guy makes more money now - he can even cut out the record company altogether by putting his own music on the services. The big shots are forced to share the wealth. For most artists, that's a good thing.

    This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for streaming!

    Always in our hearts, Never forgotten

  2. #2
    Stuck on the Border shunlvswx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Jackson, MS
    Posts
    5,767

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    I'm all for streaming. I use to pay for Spotify, but I don't anymore. I pay $3.99 (plus tax which sucks) for Pandora. I don't mind paying for Pandora. I hear more songs from the guys on Pandora than I do on IHeart Radio.

    I'm all for YouTube. I love watching videos I've never seen before and videos I haven't seen in years. I don't see what's wrong posting videos on YouTube.

    Soda. I was one of those people who was using Napster and other sites that were illegal too in the 90s and into 2000s.

    I was still buying cassettes in the 90s. I was in high school in the mid to late 90s. I couldn't afford it and I kinda couldn't afford it would I was in college. I wouldn't dare buy a 15.00 or 20.00 dollar CD. I'm glad its not that high anymore. I would buy CDs of the cassettes I had later in life. Majority of the CDs I did buy I did like the whole album. I do sometimes buy songs from Itunes and even Amazon.

  3. #3
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    1,662

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    Thanks for dragging the discussion to a new topic sodascouts. I feel really uncomfortable wandering off topic.

    I've never got into music streaming although I think YouTube is brilliant!

    In the late seventies I became an avid Joe Walsh record collector. It's now an obsolete pastime but I still want to add music to my collection rather just stream from another source.

    Buying a Joe Walsh record used to be a major event until I discovered the internet, eBay and cheap global mail order.

    At the local Music Mega-store, I had to pay £16.99, which must've been over $30 to buy Joe's Ordinary Average Guy CD, in 1991. A year later, Songs For A Dying Planet wasn't available in any stores at any price and hasn't been since. It remains the only Walsh record I haven't had the pleasure of buying over the counter and carrying home in anticipation of the first play.

    Artists like Joe were thrown onto the scrapheap during the 80s. It's only when the back catalogs of such artists were re-released on the new CD format that the record companies realised that music fans still listened to their favourite old records! As a result, even very rare obscurities, that I never found on vinyl, as they were so scarce, ended up being re-released on CD.

    Things are so much better now that everything is available all the time. Music streaming does seem to be the future.

    In the analog era, many bands that I enjoyed listening to, split up before I really discovered them. The Eagles, Barnstorm and El-Rayo X, to name three, come straight to mind. The opposite is now true. There are more bands reuniting than splitting up, even artists, that I enjoy that barely dent the charts seem to be hanging on in there, so things can't be too bad for the artists either.

    Thumbs up for the future and Happy Thanksgiving to all American readers.

  4. #4
    Stuck on the Border
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    24,191

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    Here is an article on this from Australia's ABC:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-2...rvices/5920428

    I use the iTunes store, which I pay for except when I have a gift card, so I suppose I don't stream. I have however used the YouTube to MP3 converter on numeous occasions to convert performances which aren't on albums into MP3s. I don't feel guilty about it. The facility is there, so I use it.

    The idea that you only have to buy one or two tracks in iTunes instead of the entire CD is what is so great about it. Later, if you want the rest of the CD, you can get it.

  5. #5
    Stuck on the Border shunlvswx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Jackson, MS
    Posts
    5,767

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Freypower View Post
    Here is an article on this from Australia's ABC:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-2...rvices/5920428

    I use the iTunes store, which I pay for except when I have a gift card, so I suppose I don't stream. I have however used the YouTube to MP3 converter on numeous occasions to convert performances which aren't on albums into MP3s. I don't feel guilty about it. The facility is there, so I use it.

    The idea that you only have to buy one or two tracks in iTunes instead of the entire CD is what is so great about it. Later, if you want the rest of the CD, you can get it.
    I'm guilty of that too. I would download the video and some that I have put to MP3, but it's mostly very old songs you know you won't find on cd.

  6. #6
    Border Desperado SoaringRockyMountainWay's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    278

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    I'm thankful for streaming too. I listen to the Eagles on my phone A LOT, especially during the summer because I can listen whenever and wherever. Just to put it into perspective my phone stats say I've listened to Hotel California 263 times and the next song closest to it is Take It To The Limit with 184. Yeah I know its crazy how much I listen to the Eagles. My saying is: I'm crazy when it comes to horses and the Eagles. Anyway, that's why its a good thing for me that there is music streaming.
    People talking about us they got nothing else to do. When it all comes down we will still come through in the long run.

  7. #7
    Stuck on the Border VAisForEagleLovers's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Ridin' with Lady Luck in Kentucky
    Posts
    11,013

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    Well everyone, I hate to break it to you, but I just asked my nephews, ages 16 and 14, and they said they used to use streaming sites, but 'no one uses those anymore'. I said I had friends who used them and they said it was because my friends are probably old like I am. So, there you have it.

    One listens to hip hop and he follows his favorites on Twitter and generally gets links to music from them where it can be downloaded for free. He hears of new artists as recommendations from them or his friends.

    The other nephew listens to music on You Tube and follows recommendations from it for other music. Neither will use torrent sites because they are illegal. But they do convert you tube video to MP3. Both estimate they have not paid for the music they listen to in over two years.
    Last edited by VAisForEagleLovers; 11-28-2014 at 01:03 AM.
    VK

    You can't change the world but you can change yourself.

  8. #8
    Stuck on the Border VAisForEagleLovers's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Ridin' with Lady Luck in Kentucky
    Posts
    11,013

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    I should mention that since I pay a freaking fortune for SiriusXM I use that on the computer instead of streaming sites.
    VK

    You can't change the world but you can change yourself.

  9. #9
    Stuck on the Border shunlvswx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Jackson, MS
    Posts
    5,767

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    My phone is a lifesaver when it comes to playing Pandora and IHeart without a computer even though its eating up my data. LOL My job blocked IHeart and Pandora back in May I think, so I have to listen to them on my phone. They usually block it for a few weeks and then unblock it. Its been 6 months now. I don't think they're going unblock it.Thank goodness I have unlimited data because I think I would have a very high cell phone bill because my usage. LOL

    VA. So your nephews say nobody listen to streaming sites anymore? Hmm. LOL I'm not surprise because teenagers are not using Facebook. Its now for old people. I'm not old. LOL I'm not even close to 40. LOL

    I use to hate Pandora and only listen to IHeart. Then one day I gave it a try and like I said earlier. I like Pandora now because they play other songs that weren't singles and every once in a while they would add more songs.

  10. #10
    Stuck on the Border WalshFan88's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Illinois
    Posts
    11,238

    Default Re: Music Streaming - good or bad?

    I use Spotify and occasionally Pandora.

    I am thankful for them, but there definitely is a current hubbub about Spotify and what they pay the musicians and songwriters and a lot of my musician friends are fired up about it. Then again, other musician friends use Spotify! Spotify is convenient, and that is addicting.

    I have thought about YouTube to MP3, but I'm not patient to go after every single song I want, name it, get the album art, etc etc etc. When I put a CD into iTunes to rip it, iTunes grabs the artwork from their store. I don't use the iTunes Store personally. I worry about data loss and I like having physical media.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •