If you want to browse by genre in Apple Music, you’re presented with 35 categories to choose from... yet 15 centuries of music from around the world, from Gregorian chant and liturgical plainsong through Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, Stravinsky, Debussy, John Cage, musique concrète, Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, and the Boston Pops are all neatly encompassed under a single genre: Classical. | | | | In sync, more or less: BTS on "Good Morning America," Central Park, New York, May 15, 2019.
(John Lamparski/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “If you want to browse by genre in Apple Music, you’re presented with 35 categories to choose from... yet 15 centuries of music from around the world, from Gregorian chant and liturgical plainsong through Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, Stravinsky, Debussy, John Cage, musique concrète, Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, and the Boston Pops are all neatly encompassed under a single genre: Classical.”
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| | rantnrave:// If a tree falls in a forest and there's no way to search the database in the woods for broken branches or ripped up roots, does it make a sound? And how would anyone know? That's kind of what it's like trying to find classical music on any mainstream streaming service, none of which does a very good job of organizing music by conductor, orchestra, composer, instrument or any other number of other data points that are crucial to classical listening. Too much music, too little information. Much of the repertoire you're looking for is there on the streaming servers, but it sits quietly among tens of millions of pop tracks, patiently waiting to never be heard, like a string section with redacted sheet music and no conductor. "It all comes down to metadata," writes VOGUE's COREY SEYMOUR in an essay about IDAGIO, a German service that launched in the US in late 2018. Along with its competitor PRIMEPHONIC, Idagio has set out to catalog classical music in a way that makes sense to the people who listen to it, which includes rethinking everything from metadata to product to programming. You can, for example, scroll through PHILIP GLASS's chamber pieces, or his concertos, or his operas. You can get a list of every available recording of MAHLER's Fifth Symphony, and see which is most popular. All of which is expensive and complicated and, if you're APPLE MUSIC or SPOTIFY, maybe not worth the investment and almost certainly not worth the complication. Kind of how creating a usable, searchable database of songwriters and labels probably isn't worth it for most (or perhaps all) services. Which is a different rant for a different day. Or is it? Is this two problems or just one? You've built a library of the world's music. Is it too much to ask you now to be the librarian? Is it too much to ask for a new kind of index card that can catalog everything in the library, from classical conductors to rock labels to jazz rhythm sections and beyond? And to build a new, more versatile file cabinet that can hold all those cards?... Another interesting twist to the Idagio/Primephonic model: They pay royalties based on how many seconds each user listens to each piece. Thirty minutes of a user's time on a single symphony is worth the same as 30 minutes of a user's time on 10 pop songs, the reasoning goes, and should pay out accordingly... MARGO PRICE, who is nine months pregnant, and HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF's ALYNDA SEGARRA, who had an abortion when she was 19, have stories to share and now is the time to share them. "It's very important to speak up for women's rights," says Price, who has recorded a duet with JOHN PRINE of his "UNWED FATHERS" to benefit the Alabama chapter of the ACLU. "I lay in bed at night thinking about the kid I was, and how I got to choose what became of my body and my future," writes Segarra, who's asking fans to donate to the NATIONAL RESOURCE OF ABORTION FUNDS... The continuing discussion/debate over the new theme music for NPR's MORNING EDITION is the nerd-music story of the year, and almost as much fun as discussing/debating "OLD TOWN ROAD"... RIP JAKE BLACK, who knew a thing or two about theme music himself, and DAVE "BOOKIE" BOOKMAN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| What do Bach and smooth jazz have in common? Both score the unmistakable theme song for NPR’s flagship show Morning Edition. This is undeniably pop music, a daily soundtrack to the lives of many. So why does it sound the way it does? And why, after forty years, why does NPR want to change it? | | |
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| It all comes down to metadata. | | |
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| Getting back together may sound easy enough, but for decades, the Stray Cats usually sniffed at reunion talk. Or at the idea of talking at all. | | |
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| Fraudsters and fakes are nothing new, but a new Carti leak highlights just how popular these uploads have become. | | |
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| Christianity formed my deepest instincts, and I have been walking away from it for half my life. | | |
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| ByteDance Ltd., owner of the popular video app TikTok, is developing a paid music service that will challenge industry leaders Spotify and Apple Music in emerging markets, according to people familiar with the matter. | | |
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| How to survive a Blackpink gig when you're the tallest, oldest and hairiest attendee. | | |
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| The Korean artists have achieved unprecedented success in the U.S., and their influence can already be felt. | | |
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| Streaming and social networks took music out of the hands of the country’s cultural guardians and let a new generation of artists emerge. | | |
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| Willie Hightower hadn’t made an album since 1969. Then a phone call out of the blue led to a stunning comeback. | | |
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| For decades, house music has shaped pop worldwide-but many of the spaces that birthed it here disappeared so quickly they barely left a trace. | | |
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| The state of Michigan is hoping to lure tourism with its indigenous music. And not the music -- Motown, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, Eminem, Jack White, techno -- that you might expect. | | |
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| Amid music festival saturation, AEG’s live events team quietly tests a new, data-driven way to personalize concerts. | | |
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| Holly Herndon's "Proto" is an engrossing testament to the power of multiple voices singing in unison. One of those voices is a computer named Spawn. | | |
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| Much has been written about Taylor Swift's choice to share her new single "Me!" with Panic! At the Disco 's Brendon Urie (the two perform the song on tonight's season finale of "The Voice"), but perhaps not as much attention has been paid to the tried-and-true formula that has helped land Panic! | | |
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| Below is an overview of three categories of scarcity tactics I’ve noticed in music streaming over the last few years, followed by a framework for why I think many of them will be ineffective in 2019 and beyond. | | |
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| BTS! DJ Khaled! Paul Simon! Kanye West dressed as a bottle of sparkling water! This season of "Saturday Night Live" had it all, and now all 21 performances have been cruelly ranked for your enjoyment. | | |
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| From Drake and E-40 to Lecrae and Fat Joe, these are the best lyrical references to Steph Curry in hip-hop today. | | |
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| When she first saw Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls, Bebe Buell thought of him as a “charismatic ball of fire with the best hair in rock n’ roll”. She stayed in touch with him over the years, despite his well-documented decline into drug dependency, and even today covers his song, “Untouchable” in tribute to him at his best. | | |
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| On Saturday night (May 18), after much heated preparation and two semifinals, the Eurovision Song Contest took place, in Tel Aviv. Israel had been participating in the competition, held by the European Broadcasting Union, since 1973, and last year it won, when Netta Barzilai took home the prize, for her vigorously performed anthem of female empowerment, "Toy." | | |
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