Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Future Of Music and The Internet (and a wee quiz)


There's no doubting that the internet has kinda revolutionised the way those online listen to music, find out about music, and communicate about music. The fact that I'm writing on this community blog that mostly discusses and shares thoughts about music is proof of that.
The latest web - music thing that's cropped up is the idea that now we've kinda got used to having (and paying for!) mp3s - is it about to go the way of the cassette also? 
Personally speaking the hard drive of my laptop is groaning under the weight of music files, and there's not much room for anymore (not once I've finished downloading the 4 gig John Peel festive 50s torrent that I'm on just now). 
I do intend to network another mac into my setup to mainly use as storage - but is this really necessary? 
With the rise of LastFM, The Hype Machine, and lately Spotify - do we really need to hoard away thousands of mp3s when we can easily stream them at will? The size the Spill is growing to is kinda epic too, you can just hit play on the yahoo player and have hours of quality and diverse music to listen to. 
I've only been getting into LastFM recently, and really dig it the most (I have it as an iPhone app also)  - and there's friends of mine that don't buy music and solely use LastFM instead. 
Obviously I'll always be happy to buy vinyl (cds I can take or leave) - but what I am interested in is your thoughts on whether you'd happily ditch the itunes library if everything could be streamed on demand - or if you are getting attached to the massed gigabytes (that could get wiped out with a hard drive failure in an instant) you own. 
Or would you be happy uploading your music library to your own personal internet server (like a Dropbox or Google G-Drive scenario) and being able to access it from anywhere (it's only a matter of time before the whole country is covered by free wifi)?
Or is there another way? 

Bonus easy quiz - there are 'Spill points on offer here if you can name all artists and songs used in this megakewlrofl mash-up: 

Mystery Quiz Track

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Much to my amazement, I could actually get this to play! BUT it showed me WHAT it was playing, so no quizzjoining me for moi ce soir. Quite like the first track, though, which is all I've managed to hear so far - got a kind of 70s feel about it.
I actually didn't understand much of what you wrote here, Blimpy (just got in from work's Christmas dinner, where I was FORCED by an abundance of teetotallers to down a bottle of Red on my own). I get CDs out from the library, same as I used to get LPs back in the ol' days, and TRY to listen to at least some of the stuff posted on here (time often defeats me there, unfortunately).
The only time I've ever used itunes was making a compilation for a birthday present (*our* Travelling Songs!)

Anonymous said...

Oops, just realised boxstr is playing me tfd's list at last - so maybe you only had one track for our aural delight...

saneshane said...

hey hey ..cool as feck

have you head Dave Clarke/ chicks on speed abusing the haus of Bau! they had some great sound that I'm suprised aren't sampled more.

Thinking about it Optimo used to mix them in and my first spill monster used one of their bass line on the wrong speed..

I'll answer the question in am moment I'm just trying to upload a 'for blimpy' in dropbox!!!

saneshane said...

Hey Blimpy..
so can you get to the 'for blimpy' folder in RR Dropbox then?
or do I have to send it to your e-mail or something?
tin has just sorted it into the folder (thank you very much.. sir)
(steen I had nothing to do with setting it up... I 'm not so good with learning this.. all of my effort goes into learning the art work ones.. this is supposed to be my relaxing!)

saneshane said...

answering this question:

1) vinyl (even though I have no space) still is beautiful.

2) I really like the way songs compliment each other.. my iTunes is made up of folders that work together.. either my own theme or a RR theme.. there is only about 6 and a half thousand songs uploaded and mostly they relate to the weeks topic!

3) so it would be agony if the computer got wiped .. but I would still have most of the songs ..streaming just makes me impatient.. (it's a very nice glance, but I want to hold it and squeeze it give it a cuddle) or to put it another way .. it does just make it throw away.
the only place I download from says they'll replace all songs if a crash happens anyway. I guess if I got round to setting up decent sound out of the computer it would change... i use it to scan not wallow. (didn't toffeeboy get bose speakers for his birthday and with it a whole new music collection?)

4) If I wasn't an idiot, and could work out the technology I might change my mind! as it is those zip folders i extracted from might not be there the next time I put the electric on.

did I just say anything of merit????

ToffeeBoy said...

I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I never liked vinyl that much. There, I've said it. I feel better for that.

Yes, there are some things I liked about LPs and 12 and 7" singles - the packaging, of course. CDs or whatever don't come close and I agree that there was something satisfying about the feel of vinyl (steady...) but don't you all hate the jumps and the scratches? perhaps I was never careful enough but loads of my records were always cursed with impurities. In some cases I got so used to the jumps that when I listen them on CD or mp3 they don't sound right - I'm expecting the jump.

Perhaps I just don't have hifi ears - perhaps I'm a phlistine - OK. I'm ready - let me have it...

ToffeeBoy said...

Philistine...

ejaydee said...

Loser vs Mongoloids vs something else?

ejaydee said...

I couldn't let go of my files, what about all the stuff that's not on the internet?! What about the times when there is no internet?! I don't relish the idea of continually purchasing a bigger external HD, but at the moment, I'm too lazy to find a better solution.

Luke-sensei said...

Good question(s) Blimpy.

- I have absolutely no interest in CD's at all (although I do have a few hundred of them tucked away in various locations across the globe - and nearly all of my Britpop collection is on CD, which I miss a lot) but am close to pathological obsessiveness when it comes to vinyl.....it's difficult to explain the appeal but they just feel that bit more special.....

...I've only got into MP3's in the last year or so and didn't have an iPod until last month, which has so far been filled with Radio 4 comedies and the like rather than music.. (except for Radio Abahachi Podcasts of course!)....streaming is fine, but for me, these PtoP things like Boxstr are the best, you can listen first and if you like it you can download....but the main problem is that it's all just single tracks, never a whole album.

As for having the whole collection existing virtually on some kind of internet server that can be easily accessed wherever you are in the world in an instant at the click of a button? I mean, who would choose that when you can have ridiculously oversized and unwieldy slabs of environment-destroying wax that are overpriced, skip and jump every few seconds, you have to physically get up for to turn over every few songs and take up the entire bloody living room causing endless arguments with other halves...etc etc....!!!!

treefrogdemon said...

I do like CDs because it means I have the music in my hand, as it were; and they're much more convenient than vinyl. But I do consider I made a mistake when I got my first car that had a CD player instead of a tape player. I thought I was all cool and up-to-date but in fact...you could have two LPs on a double-sided tape, so it played for longer, and changing the CD while driving was just as dangerous as changing the tape. So I had to get an iPod in the end, which I didn't want to do (because I thought I wouldn't want to do shuffle so I'd have to be making playlists all the time. But in fact I love shuffle.).

At the moment I have to play the iPod through the radio which is another annoyance because of interference. But my new car, coming in March, will have a direct connection to the stereo, so I'll stop moaning then.

Abahachi said...

A bit like Japanther, though in my case it's cds and old cassettes, I'm still wedded to things; I think it's going to be a long time before I move over completely to digital, for all that it is incredibly convenient. It isn't necessarily any more secure; yes, hard drives can crash, but I had my entire cd collection stolen from my flat ten years ago, and some of it has never been replaced (partly because the insurance company refused just to give me money and instead hired a music replacement firm, who were hopeless at replacing anything that wasn't a mainstream chart act, and partly because I didn't have a list of everything I had and so ever since have, at least a couple of times a year, thought "I thought I had that album no hold on oh bugger.").

It's a bit like - to resort to quoting Buffy yet again - Giles' reaction to the idea of computers replacing books: "There's no smell. Knowledge should be smelly."

tincanman said...

I got a CD player for the car for Mrs Tin for Christmas and it has a SD card slot. Now you can but 'CD's on SD as well.

Seems like the CD might be going the way of 8 tracks.

treefrogdemon said...

@tincanman: but does it always play in the same order?

tincanman said...

now that's a silly question!
I said I got it for her for Christmas.
It's just turning Feb.
You think I got it installed yet?