Thought Provoking Article: "The coming implosion of the record business…"

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

14 hours ago, Archimago said:

Wow, this part of the article really stuck out to me:

 

From a supply-demand perspective, isn't this simply also an excess of supply? I mean, how many of those 60-100 thousand albums/week is actually "needed" or of "value" in this world? We're oversaturated with entertainment media these days between movies, TV shows, music, video games, YouTube, social media, etc... Vast majority of those albums obviously will not make much (if any) money!

 

 

 

The fact that it's easier to put out stuff means there's a lot more "crap" out there, but hopefully also some things of value. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

Yes, agree. However, with less filtering of what's "good" and what's "crap", it could also make it tough to allow good artists to be recognized. Imagine how many person-hours it would take to sift through 60,000+ albums a week! Literally looking for needles in haystacks. With work, family life, enjoying other entertainment, I doubt I would be able to fairly sample 60,000 albums in a lifetime, much less the idea that this volume comes out weekly.

 

Even worse if there's actually a brilliant song or two that deserves to be heard in what's otherwise an OK album easily dismissed.

 

Oversaturation.

 

That's addressed in point 9 of the article, and the answer is unfortunately "algorithms" 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

One thing that is not covered in the article, but that I find very important, is the loss of all the "non musical" information on streaming services: credits, dates, venues, recording equipment, liner notes, album art (not just the cover)... 

 

This information is rarely given on streaming services. This is a shame for us listeners as it greatly impoverishes the "Listening experience". 

 

It is also problematic for royalty payments that credits are missing or inexact. I read somewhere that it is estimated that 25% of payments are not made to the right artists.

 

There is a new standard being implemented for metadata management in the recording industry, but that will only cover new recordings, and obviously does not cover things such as liner notes. 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Physical release do not always have all the information but often do. If I don't have the CD/LP I sometimes look it up on the Internet Archive which often has full scans. Discography websites and databases are also useful but the quality/accuracy varies... 

 

No, I did not mean to imply that liner notes were useful for royalty payments, just the credits, which are often incomplete or even erroneous on streaming sites. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Standards for music metadata have been defined by this organization, for example, but I don't know much about this (time-line, scope...) :

 

https://ddex.net/standards/collection-of-studio-metadata/

 

More on all this and the importance of metadata for royalty payments, here for example (first that came up on a Google search of recent articles) :

 

https://www.bridge.audio/blog/metadata-the-new-cornerstone-in-the-music-industry/

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Here's a good example I came across recently: Lennie Tristano - Intuition. 

 

On Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0724385277153

 

On Spotify: 

 

 

On Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/Lennie-Tristano-Warne-Marsh-Intuition/release/1085765

On the Internet Archive (scan of the CD booklet): https://archive.org/details/cd_intuition_lenny-tristanowarne-marsh-lennie-tristano

 

This album is a reedition of several sessions:

- Warne Marsh (leader) sessions in October 1956, originally issued on LPs (two different versions, in fact)

- Lennie Tristano (leader) sessions in March and May 1949, originally issued as 78s (see here, for example: https://www.discogs.com/The-Lennie-Tristano-Sextette-Wow-Crosscurrent/release/4312593)

 

The CD provides all the information (on the back, it actually omits the year for the Tristano sessions, but this is indicated elswhere in the booklet):

 

 

 

The Qobuz credits do not provide any dates, and on the Warne Marsh sessions they do not provide the full list of musicians:

 

 

Whereas on the Lennie Tristano dates they do (but still no recording dates):

 

 

On Spotify, however, none of the tracks contain the full credits:

 

 

 

What was the process involved in all this ? I have no idea. Did someone at Blue Note Records enter this information in file tags by looking them up on the CD ? Did they already have some kind of database ? Is the information communicated to Qobuz differently than Spotify, or is that Spotify chose not to include everything ?  Who knows. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Here's another one. Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section. Recorded on January 19, 1957 and originally published by Contemporary Records: https://www.discogs.com/Art-Pepper-Meets-The-Rhythm-Section/master/221127

 

When you look for it on Qobuz, you get 14 different versions!

 

 

None of them show the recording date or location. Some of them contain the composer credits, but not all of them. Only two releases contain the  musician credits (though not the instruments played):

 

- Music Manager (the one with the blue pepper) 

- Original Jazz Sound (the last one with the ugliest cover, and terrible sound 

 

I doubt too many people are going to be listening to those versions, or purchasing them from Qobuz.

The recording quality of this album was very good, it would be a shame to listen to a crappy remaster.

 

 

 

Here the composer is simply "Porter" ! The main artist on the first track is Paul Chambers, for some unknown reason.

 

 

On a side note, the BNF version is the only one in Mono, which is too bad, as this album was mixed with excessive stereo: on the first track, for example, the piano is on one side, and the sax on the other. The BNF version, by the way, it is the only one in "hi resolution" on Qobuz but is probably a Vinyl rip (I did not listen to it on my stereo to check). There is actually a very good mono edition on CD, but it is not available on Qobuz: https://www.discogs.com/Art-Pepper-Meets-The-Rhythm-Section/release/9968614

It is worth getting if you like this album and are annoyed by the stereo mix - two are on sale on Discogs but the prices are high...

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Slightly off topic, but I would be curious to know how the "Intuition" album is displayed in Roon. On AllMusic, the credits are defined for the album as a whole. There is a, good chance that Roon gets its metadata from Tivo (AllMusic parent company), especially since Musicbrainz does not have credits for this album:

 https://musicbrainz.org/release/f983bfa8-4bda-4476-8d33-439dc542d34e

 

 

Do the credits in Roon correctly distinguish between the Tristano and Marsh sessions?  Could someone using Roon look for this album and let me know? 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, DuckToller said:

here you go ...
Marsh Tristano Intuition on ROON.docx

 

Thanks. It looks like the composers are correctly identified track by track, but that the performers are not. Lennie Tristano plays piano on all tracks. This is a bit "off topic", but it is worth noting the paradox - Roon chooses not to get the data from the streaming service (Qobuz) and obtains it from Tivo (what is displayed in AllMusic), but AllMusic gets it wrong (as the credits are at the "album" level, not the track level), and Qobuz may get it right. Roon's approach is perfectly understandable, given that for some albums there are many releases - as we saw with the ArtPepper album. 

 

Metadata is complicated !