[scantron4]

If generic jazz can easily substitute "important" jazz it just means your important jazz doesn't have the value you ascribe to it, especially not in the context of "things for background music."

I don't think this is saying anything about more active music consumption where people are actually listening to it. I personally get annoyed if more than 20% of a mix is songs I haven't already upvoted so there isn't a lot of room to bring in weird knockoff artists into my streaming--in fact I saw a recent article that talked about the current problem with streaming is that 90% of profits come from titles older than 18 months so it is harder to break through with new songs (the opposite of radio-driven sales where most profits came from new albums). That seems to be the opposite of "no one cares what they listen to so spotify can just redirect profits wherever they like."

[Animats]

If generic jazz can easily substitute "important" jazz it just means your important jazz doesn't have the value you ascribe to it, especially not in the context of "things for background music."

This is a modern version of Seeburg background music. Seeburg was a jukebox company, and as a sideline, they also sold a background music system. This used a special purpose record changer that played a stack of records over and over.Seeburg made their own records, recorded by their own orchestra in Chicago, and distributed them through their own jukebox dealers. So they didn't have to pay anything to record companies. It was a subscription service; every few months, subscribers got a new set of records with 1000 songs, and the old set was taken back to Seeburg. The records were not copyrighted, which cost money back then. Instead, they were 9 inch diameter, 2 inch center hole, 16⅔ rpm, 420 grooves per inch, 0.5 mil diamond stylus, all of which were incompatible with record players of the era. They were not sold, just rented, although often nobody bothered to ship them back to Chicago for crushing, so many have survived. DRM, the early years.

You can listen to them here.[1]

[1] https://streema.com/radios/RadioCoastcom

[hadlock]

We had a system like this when I worked at a retail store, and later a movie theater. It was a double-sided cassette that had 60 minutes of audio, and would auto switch from A/B side and back again. Most of the year it was just instrumental background music, but Christmas was a really hated time of year, as all those songs have lyrics (that's what makes them Christmas themed) and it was very obvious how long you'd been working your shift when the celebrity version of "Jingle Bells" played for the fifth time that day.

[jrd259]

I note that streema.com is trying really hard to get me to install "easy search tool" by favouring the START button above the PLAY button. If it's not them directly, it's a dark-pattern ad they are running

[CamperBob2]

Interesting, never heard of this service. Its purpose was to compete with Muzak, I assume? The use of nuclear weapons has been authorized.

[nescioquid]

Music historians note that the creation of the "cannon" of classical music occurred when public orchestral concerts arose around the early 19th century (and often paired with the rise of the middle class). Prior, you'd need an invitation to a private concert put on by a noble.

Mostly "old" music was played at these concerts. A public concert had to at least cover its cost from ticket sales, so eliminating commissions for new works was necessary, if a big break from tradition (most music was written expecting little more than a single performance). Because the pieces that kept getting played at concerts became part of a standard orchestral repertoire, a cannon emerged which became harder to update. A commonplace that circulated when I was a music student claimed that Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (1943) was the last thing to make it into the standard orchestral repertoire.

Maybe there's a similar underlying process at play in which any commercial process naturally tends to promote a smaller "cannon" of block-buster crowd-pleasers (why would you not promote your best-selling widget?). Our own listening (now) prefers not only music we already know, but the exact performance we already have heard.

[drewzero1]

Canon? (Unless you're talking specifically about the 1812 overture. :-) )

I wonder how copyright extension has affected this phenomenon. Works taking decades longer to enter the public domain, leading to the existing public domain (old) music becoming even more solidified as classical canon? If anybody knows about this I'd love to hear more.

[FabHK]

Shostakovich is not considered "standard orchestral repertoire"?

[nerdponx]

Are these artists even "fake"? Are they "bad"? Or are they just mediocre and good enough for background music?

I guess the complaint is that jazz is still kind of a niche genre, compared to "background music that generally resembles jazz". But maybe real jazz is actually less good as background music compared to not-quite-jazz. Otherwise, why aren't actual jazz labels putting effort into playlist placements like these so-called fake artists are?

Or is the assertion that Spotify themselves is populating their platform with no-name artists, to avoid paying record label royalties? Maybe you can take issue with vertical integration, but that doesn't make the artists involved "fake".

[Dotnaught]

I believe the most apt analogy would be Amazon promoting Amazon-commissioned knockoffs of its merchant's products, something that's already drawn the attention of antitrust authorities.

It will be interesting to see whether antitrust law can be applied to Spotify in this context, since its actions are arguably anticompetitive.

[giraffe_lady]

Most people I've run across who say they like jazz do not like music by contemporary musicians who consider themselves to create jazz. Jazz right now is wildly diverse but overall pretty weird, pretty electronic, very sonically influenced by hip hop, metal, and pop. Lotta sampling, drum machines, even autotune.

[slfnflctd]

> I personally get annoyed if more than 20% of a mix is songs I haven't already upvoted

I am at the complete other end of the spectrum-- I prefer to hear music I've never heard before at least 80% of the time, provided it fits with my taste (which is broad but picky). There is so much great music I will never hear, I want to be exposed to as much of it as possible rather than going over familiar ground all the time.

I have a feeling I'm in the minority on this, but my point is that there are definitely those of us who appreciate algorithms which bring in more "weird knockoff artists" to our streaming mixes. Another factor is that it opens up greater possibilities for seeing live shows.

[zeruch]

" it just means your important jazz doesn't have the value you ascribe to it" that's one hell of a stretch.

Failure by a broader audience to understand a genre (or only want to casually consume one part of it passively) doesn't invalidate it's canon. By that measure Kenny G should have usurped John Coltrane as the saxophonist of note, and by any standard except coffee shop and elevator back ground noise he's done no such thing.

[postingposts]

John Coltrane is only good on paper and there’s a cult of personality which exists around his work. I can’t really say that I think much of his improvisations and in general, what people believe is “incredible” could be cranked out by an algorithm. Miles Davis is the real deal of jazz for me. Never cared about notes, fame, or much other than being free. That’s jazz.

[blurbleblurble]

I think it moreso goes to show that value is subjective and contextual, not that the music you like "doesn't have the the value you ascribe to it". Things always have the value people ascribe to them. It's just that one person's trash is another person's treasure. And that context matters.