Spotify, what streaming should be

Spotify is what should have come out around the time of the fall of Napster. It is much more interesting than pandora and music on permanent random mix. There should be no reason to be stuck on shuffle when everything is digitized.

The only part I don’t fully understand is why subscribe, at 9.99 a month I can buy an album a month and build a decent collection in short order.

music and statistics

Most audiophiles will argue that fidelity was lost when we went from analog to digital.

I would argue that what was lost is the transitory nature of music, we know know in great detail what we’ve listened to and when.  We also never misplace any of our collection, it’s all right there, searchable and tagged.

Length of a record

Records were a pain to use, could get scratched, wear out, and had pops and crackles.

The one thing a record has that mp3’s don’t is character, and not just tonality.  In order to listen to a record you have to do so with intention, carefully select which album and gently place the vinyl down.

And when those Twenty two and a half minutes are done what you have is silence.  You have heard the creation as intended.

Seems like the endless stream of music we have today does not lend itself to a greater contemplation of a single piece. We are constantly being fed the next new piece.

The other advantage of the limited length of the record is that the artist must carefully select what goes into the work.