The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXIV

[Borachio]

It's a good question. I don't think you're at all alone in this regard.

Most people don't inherit their musical tastes from their parents. (A few do. But they tend to be children of musicians.)

Taste in music is like taste in anything else. People acquire it gradually over a long period of time.

But in the case of pop music, they acquire a taste for a quite narrow band of music that was popular in their "impressionable years" say 15 to 18. And they get this principally through their peer group. And by listening to the radio and whatnot to what is "popular".

So you can tell how old someone is from the list of bands that they like. This isn't totally reliable, though. Some people deliberately deviate from their generational taste. Just to stick out a bit, I suppose.

Now, what I describe may not actually be at all the case, but it is my impression. Things may have changed. Or they may never have been this way at all.

In the end, none of it matters. We listen to music for pleasure. Not for any artificial notion of taste.

 

[caketastydelish]

How do people find music? Serious question. I wasn't allowed to listen to music until I was 12 years old, so I've never grown up in an environment where you learn about music, how to find new music, and so on. As it stands now, all I know is to switch on the radio, hope they give a song name, or go on Youtube to a song I like, and look at the side bar. These all tend to be well-known artists, though. This is fine, but whenever I ask for people to share their musical tastes with me, they always have a large number of artists I've never remotely heard about.

How do people find more obscure artists? How do you know what to look for?

www.pandora.com

www.stereogum.com

Or if you want to just listen to the best obscure band ever, try Harvey Danger. (despite having permanently broken up as a band, their website is still up and running and they were kind enough to release their third and final album for free via internet download.

http://www.harveydanger.com

 

[Syno]

Sorry for the confusion, Mr. B. I was asking the 'how', not the 'why'.

 

[Borachio]

Oh right. OK then, though I thought the 'how' was implicit in my post.

TV, radio, music press, word of mouth from peers, random searches on youtube, etc.

It's just the same for music as it is for any other information.

 

[Grisu]

How do people find music? Serious question. I wasn't allowed to listen to music until I was 12 years old, so I've never grown up in an environment where you learn about music, how to find new music, and so on. As it stands now, all I know is to switch on the radio, hope they give a song name, or go on Youtube to a song I like, and look at the side bar. These all tend to be well-known artists, though. This is fine, but whenever I ask for people to share their musical tastes with me, they always have a large number of artists I've never remotely heard about.

How do people find more obscure artists? How do you know what to look for?

how do you end up not being allowed to listen to music? Some religious thing?

Anyway, most of my music tastes developed in my youth. I'd hear songs on the Radio or played by friends, etc. I then spent hours in the music store browsing through CDs, listening to the ones that looked promising. (yes, I'm aware that's probably a bit of an outdated technique )

nowadays, I use streaming services such as spotify or grooveshark (or I guess pandora, if I were in the US). They often offer 'similar artists' to artists I'm listening to.

much of it is just try-and-error

 

[Syno]

how do you end up not being allowed to listen to music? Some religious thing?

My parents felt that the surest way for me to be corrupted from their ideals was if I were exposed to media.

Technically speaking, they were right, but it was my eventual maturing that turned me away from them rather than listening to a song or watching a television show or reading a novel.

Thank you for the recommendations, Cake. I would use Pandora but it is America-only. I wonder if MediaHint works for it. Is that really the method used nowadays? Radios that stream based on your preferences and voting?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I used to answer the question "what nationality are you" at university (from other students, not staff) by stating "Australian, just like you, you idiot." The questions stopped quickly.

The equivalent question here in Canada would be "where are you from?". If you don't look white, you can't be considered of Australian nationality then?

 

[bhsup]

Is EA's Origin really as bad as I've heard?

Probably not, no. But it's still worse than Steam.

One thing I do like about Origin is how they are handling DLCs. You right click on the game and can access what DLCs are available for that game and it immediately shows which you already own and which you do not, with a link to buy. All in one nice little window. In Steam, all I can see is a list of the ones I own. It doesn't show the all at once while also flagging which are owned and which are not (in the same window.)

Just a nice little user friendly feature.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

EA making it easy to buy DLC? Color me surprised.

 

[bhsup]

Hehe, yeah I don't hate DLC, though, so it's not a big deal for me.

 

[Grisu]

My parents felt that the surest way for me to be corrupted from their ideals was if I were exposed to media.

Technically speaking, they were right, but it was my eventual maturing that turned me away from them rather than listening to a song or watching a television show or reading a novel.

Ah, I see

Thank you for the recommendations, Cake. I would use Pandora but it is America-only. I wonder if MediaHint works for it. Is that really the method used nowadays? Radios that stream based on your preferences and voting?[/QUOTE]

Where are you from? Grooveshark and Spotify are available in Europe I think, and they are somewhat similar to Pandora.

 

[Syno]

Where are you from? Grooveshark and Spotify are available in Europe I think, and they are somewhat similar to Pandora.

Canada. Last time I checked none of these radio sites were available here but that may have changed. I will investigate.

 

[Mise]

There's also Deezer and We7, but again they're both European so might not work for you...

For obscure and unsigned stuff, Bandcamp and SoundCloud are good.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Why are these music services regional? Does it have something to do with copyrights?

 

[Mise]

Yeah. They have to negotiate with the music association (e.g. RIAA in the US, BPI in the UK) that represents the music industry in that country for the rights. "Independent labels" are labels that do not belong to these music industry trade associations, so you tend to find that Spotify for example doesn't have a great deal of independent music, whereas it has (IIRC) all the major labels.

 

[Farm Boy]

Huh, broadcast radio seems to still work for me, but I guess I'm close enough to some metro areas that I actually have a selection of stations. Best part is I get a huge amount of DJs finding and arranging music for me(a task I find tedious) so I don't have to and it super utterly free. Don't even need internet or data phone service, and it works about everywhere(for me, maybe not depending where you are).

 

[The_J]

How do people find music?

Google + wikipedia.


Okay, also that, seriously.
If I like an artist, I check the wikipedia article to what exact style of music he/she/the band belongs to, then I check the categorie for that style, and type some of them into youtube. Or just ask google "music similar to X".
That sure works better for stuff besides the main stream, but I guess you're not that much interested in the average radio music (else you'd just listen to radio).

 

[Cutlass]

Huh, broadcast radio seems to still work for me, but I guess I'm close enough to some metro areas that I actually have a selection of stations. Best part is I get a huge amount of DJs finding and arranging music for me(a task I find tedious) so I don't have to and it super utterly free. Don't even need internet or data phone service, and it works about everywhere(for me, maybe not depending where you are).

Broadcast radio has actually turned me away from music. With the rise of corporate ownership and the demise of local DJs and programming, there is simply very little to choose from on broadcast radio. It has killed variety (even while the word "variety" is their primary advertising slogan) and makes every day of listening so much the same as every other day that I would rather leave the radio off than listen to what these corps have done to it. I live in an area where I can easily tune in 5 rock format radio stations (not counting the oldies rock station) and they are all playing pretty much the same playlist. With 40-50 years of music to choose from, the number of times that I have switched channels only to find the same song playing is nothing short of stunning. And handfuls of titles are played over and over again until I just can't stand to listen to them anymore.

And the pop format channels are even worse, because they are expected to play the latest hits a dozen times a day.

If it wasn't for NPR, I practically wouldn't need a radio at all any more.

 

[Farm Boy]

Broadcast radio has actually turned me away from music. With the rise of corporate ownership and the demise of local DJs and programming, there is simply very little to choose from on broadcast radio. It has killed variety (even while the word "variety" is their primary advertising slogan) and makes every day of listening so much the same as every other day that I would rather leave the radio off than listen to what these corps have done to it. I live in an area where I can easily tune in 5 rock format radio stations (not counting the oldies rock station) and they are all playing pretty much the same playlist. With 40-50 years of music to choose from, the number of times that I have switched channels only to find the same song playing is nothing short of stunning. And handfuls of titles are played over and over again until I just can't stand to listen to them anymore.

And the pop format channels are even worse, because they are expected to play the latest hits a dozen times a day.

If it wasn't for NPR, I practically wouldn't need a radio at all any more.

I'm going to go ahead and blame copyright law for that. Dunno, I guess when I switch channels I switch from country to classical to rock to dance and back again. But yea, mostly it's NPR.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm going to go ahead and blame copyright law for that. Dunno, I guess when I switch channels I switch from country to classical to rock to dance and back again. But yea, mostly it's NPR.

It's not copyright. It's corporate playlists. Essentially what happened is that they got their marketing weenies together and came up with lists of songs that many people like, and few to no people hate, then crossed that with a list of songs that have low royalty payments to the artists, and drew up a bunch of "lowest cost/lowest conflict" playlists, and then bought out about 70% of the radio stations, fired the local talent, and put those playlists on the air. It's simple profit maximization at the expense of quality.

And since radio has competition from other media, no one makes an issue of the fact that there is no longer competition within the radio industry. Leaving those people who would otherwise choose to be consumers of radio to either leave radio altogether, or suffer an utter suckfest.

Now while there is other media, the biggest drawback to that other media is that it best suits the informed consumer, not someone who is searching for something to like. And it also suits those who have the time and opportunity to create their own playlists, and not those looking for a new experience.

If you know what you want to hear, it's not that big of a deal to load up an Ipod. If you don't, you're screwed.