Interesting Vulture article that compares and contrasts current services with hints on current economics: 8tracks, Bandcamp, Hype Machine, Mixcloud, Pandora, SoundCloud, Spotify
Most of my "lean back" listening would be putting a player on random; a player that contained music I'd actively sought out. Even though I may like the music played I find myself getting bored much more easily by say a radio show on WFMU or someone's *ahem* curated playlist. Still interesting article thanks @trunkler and @rostasi.
I am definitely not a lean back person! The only time I will listening to music radio (other than one exception below) is if I know there is a particular artist doing a live show - and generally that will be through catch-up rather than live. The exception - on the school run with my granddaughters. They listen to Radio 1 - pop radio. At least those 15 minutes a few times a week keep me in touch with what might be happening in music suitable (or more likely not!) for an 8 year old.....
I enjoy listening to the radio especially BBC Radio 6, I also hear them on my Sonos as a change to my music. As Mrs Lowlife drives and enjoys the radio we tend to listen on car trips. Sometimes I hear something that gets me researching something new to buy. I also have Spotify which I use again for research, quite a lot of albums saved have ended up in my collection after hearing them.
By a pretty amazing coincidence, a first-time staging of Tom Phillips' 1969 opera, Irma, will be performed on the 16th and 17th of this month at the South London Gallery. Some of you may know of the Obscure Records recording that was released back in '78 - which is interesting, but really more of an excerpted segment from a not yet fully fleshed out final opera. Looking forward to a future recording of it, but maybe not necessarily by the ensemble that will be presenting it in London.
My Sonos is giving me pleasurable moments as well. It may begin spawning various speakers in random locations around the house soon. Out of all of the music sources mentioned in the article, I'm still a fan of Bandcamp mostly. Independents blowing up the big label conglomerates is what I'd like to see.
Spotify is one of those apps that I can never get to work properly on my desktop - and I use hundreds of apps. It takes forever for a window to come up and is clunky and extremely unresponsive to a point when I just shut it down because it's so frustrating trying to get anything out of it. Sonos has it listed, but it can't be used thru them unless you subscribe, so, yet again, it's not worth it if I can't get it to work properly in trial mode. Plus, they refuse to introduce a shuffle mode (even when a couple of other people have succeeded in doing so outside the company).
Mostly, "lean back" for me means using conceptually- based means to have music flowing thru the house from the desktop and out to anyone else who cares to listen to whatever I'm currently listening to. "Radio-Free Radio"?
As I've got older I want to listen much more to what I want rather than what someone else wants,hence using my iPod a lot. I suppose I do occasionally listen to 6 Music like Lowlife
My collection didn't appear in a vacuum. It came about thru listening to what other people are playing. The important point is who you choose to listen to when it comes to new things. In a way, social sites like this are a kind of radio because we make suggestions and post links thereby increasing musical knowledge and desires. So, yes, I do a lot of listening to what I already have, but I don't desire to stagnate and so I still often "listen" to what someone else "plays."
I tend to use Bird is the Worm as one filter, also listen to samples of new releases, read the Guardian reviews etc. Very little of what I buy will be played on mainstream or even specialist radio. I also definitely follow-up quite a lot recommended here, or even from checking out what people here are playing.
Interesting analogy of this site to radio. I guess with either you can be active or passive, but I wonder if there is something about the not-quite-in-real-time nature of a discussion board like this that makes it easier for listening to other people's stuff not actually to be "lean back" but more a kind of active sifting.
@Doofy, thanks for the video, I enjoyed it. I figured I was looking at a record changer, but I couldn't visualize the action from the still photo. I'm impressed, it will rotate through ten 30-minute discs. One advantage over a 1970's stack of records changer is that it appears to offer endless cycling. So yes, lean way back. But then how do you get to hear the B side of "Breakfast in America"?
It takes a lot of 1950's mechanical sophistication to get the anti-gravity working when the platter turns over! I think the next milestone here are those crazy Nakamichi physical flip auto-reverse cassette tape decks.
Microsoft is shutting down its Groove music service and migrating users to Spotify. Blog announcement here.
I remember the Christmas sales a few years back when Microsoft was trying to get into the market. Buckets of free downloads and one dollar albums. Reminds me of Guvera. And Spotify -- pfft! Did they ever evolve from an all black web interface?
"Tone Reverse" [Live: Ubique Maubeuge (2000)] from Art
Zoyd's '44 1/2: Live And Unreleased Works' out November 24, 2017 on
Cuneiform Records.
Trying to make France's Art Zoyd fit into a
single neat description is an exercise in futility. Sometimes they're
fiendish sonic saboteurs bent on destroying listener's preconceptions
about the way music works. Sometimes they're musical sorcerers conjuring
strange but bewitching moments of lyrical beauty.
You could call
them the original post-rock band, moving on from the dark, stormy sounds
of prog legends like Magma and King Crimson to something that makes
even those fearless explorers sound conventional by comparison. You'd be
equally accurate in dubbing them avant-classical composers, whose
experimental visions are influenced by Stravinsky and Schoenberg.
They
were members of the notorious Rock In Opposition (RIO) movement
alongside the likes of Henry Cow and Univers Zero. They're
impressionistic soundtrack composers. They're a band. They're a
multimedia collective. Ultimately they're simply Art Zoyd. And it takes a
document as massive and monumental as the 12-CD/2-DVD/2-Book set 44 1/2
to even come close to offering a comprehensive picture of what they're
all about.
Containing hours of live and unreleased material from
the vast Art Zoyd archives, 44 1/2 delves into the dense jungle of
wildly diverse periods in a story that goes all the way back to the
'70s. But it also provides many of the missing links in their long,
knotty discography, filling in the gaps between their official releases
and weaving together all of Art Zoyd's disparate stylistic strands into a
majestic, multicolored, even imposing tapestry.
"British ambient band, Marconi Union, incorporated scientific theory to unlock 'the world’s most relaxing song'...According to Mindlab International, the group behind the research, the power of this song is outstanding compared to any other song they have ever tested. “Weightless” induces a 65% reduction in anxiety and a 35% reduction in usual physiological resting rates."
Comments
Jazz trumpeter Hino attacks schoolboy drummer
"lean back" meaning sitting back and listening to what the radio wants to play you rather than seeking/selecting music.
That makes intuitive sense, and confirms that I am weird, since I have remarkably little interest in "lean back" listening at all.
will be performed on the 16th and 17th of this month at the South London Gallery.
Some of you may know of the Obscure Records recording that was released back in '78 -
which is interesting, but really more of an excerpted segment from a not yet fully fleshed out final opera. Looking forward to a future recording of it, but maybe not necessarily by the ensemble that will be presenting it in London.
It may begin spawning various speakers in random
locations around the house soon. Out of all of the
music sources mentioned in the article, I'm still a
fan of Bandcamp mostly. Independents blowing up
the big label conglomerates is what I'd like to see.
Spotify is one of those apps that I can never get to
work properly on my desktop - and I use hundreds
of apps. It takes forever for a window to come up
and is clunky and extremely unresponsive to a point
when I just shut it down because it's so frustrating
trying to get anything out of it. Sonos has it listed,
but it can't be used thru them unless you subscribe,
so, yet again, it's not worth it if I can't get it to work
properly in trial mode. Plus, they refuse to introduce
a shuffle mode (even when a couple of other people
have succeeded in doing so outside the company).
Mostly, "lean back" for me means using conceptually-
based means to have music flowing thru the house
from the desktop and out to anyone else who cares
to listen to whatever I'm currently listening to.
"Radio-Free Radio"?
So, yes, I do a lot of listening to what I already have, but I don't desire to stagnate and so I still often "listen" to what someone else "plays."
for decades now.
I remember the Christmas sales a few years back when Microsoft was trying to get into the market. Buckets of free downloads and one dollar albums. Reminds me of Guvera. And Spotify -- pfft! Did they ever evolve from an all black web interface?
The rumour goes that The Rolling Stones rented bikes in Copenhagen yesterday and:
"We biked at Christiania, where we smoked pot and ate raspberry pie !
And then we took the limo back."
First Ever Art Zoyd Box Set Release
"British ambient band, Marconi Union, incorporated scientific theory to unlock 'the world’s most relaxing song'...According to Mindlab International, the group behind the research, the power of this song is outstanding compared to any other song they have ever tested. “Weightless” induces a 65% reduction in anxiety and a 35% reduction in usual physiological resting rates."