I actually used to buy a lot of media so I hit this problem before streaming. As soon as I had a backlog big enough with each type of media that it wasn't straightforward to burn through it, it became a cloud of equally possible stuff with the result I wasn't particularly invested in any of it. Most people were smarter than me re: dumping money into bits on a disc, but now that streaming and/or free-feed libraries have hit most media types, I think the experience is becoming more common.
I think it's a different version of Paradox of Choice: all individualization between the various choices is lost when there's too many. With PoC, the problem is that then you have nothing left by which you can prioritize. In this case, the issue is the loss of all joy you'd have found in the differences.
What's helped a little for me is going on "kicks," like finding all the bands I liked that did EDM-metal hybrid, or all the found footage movies I liked, etc. Constraining the pool you're selecting from first makes it easier, and having a mission of some kind makes it easier still.
This meant my access to movies was basically whatever was on broadcast TV that night or if I was really lucky whatever was available at our local video rental store.
I remember not always loving whatever movie we chose (or whatever was on TV) but I watched it because it’s what I had.
Now, like many others, I stare at the home screen of a few different services each night, start and stop a few different things, then give up.
On the other hand, TV series have never been better - we seem to be in some kind of golden age where you can find tons of high quality well acted series on every streaming service. There was a bit of a lull (for me) during Covid, but my backlog is completely full through the next year.
There's always older films to watch. I'm at a point where I'd far rather put the time into something older, with solid actors, than watch the latest and greatest mostly-CG special effects laden [whatever]. That most of those movies are unwatchable unless you're "deep into the fandom" doesn't encourage me to invest in them either. And if it's not those, it's the "How can we prequel all the popular things," even when it makes no sense at all. To yell at a cloud briefly, Han Solo doesn't need a prequel. He's a standard drifter archetype, and to nail his past down doesn't do the character any service at all.
There was some threshold that was crossed probably close to a decade ago for me where CG effects stopped being interesting in any way, but watching older movies with their incredible special effects and stuntmen really does look impressive to me. There is no CG in the world that compares to the immersion in Apocalypse Now, for example.
I do think there are many ways to use CG to subtly support the impact of a scene driven by characters, but when the scene itself is driven by the CG (in ways that are unrealistic for actors or stuntmen to perform) it just feels like a lazy way to progress a storyline.
Yes, there's some CG for the flame effects and such, but the bulk of it is just practical effects - and when you watch it, the movie stands out because of them. Everything they're doing can be done - as proven by the fact that they did it. Is it insane madness in the desert? Yes, but they filmed insane madness in the desert.
I started getting annoyed at CG heavily around the Star Wars Prequel days - when you've got movies in which the plot serves the tech demo, not the other way around. That's not a style of storytelling I enjoy, and more and more it seems to be the style used.
(side note: the one they just released, Everything Everywhere All The Time, might be one of the best movies I've seen in the last decade)
old man makes great point
I agree though, fortunately I'm someone who doesn't mind rewatching old films I like, and also there are surely many greats I've yet to see. Television is not all hits, but there seem to be many more than in film, and then once you have one that's firstly and most simply more hours of entertainment; secondly it's a virtuous circle having more time for character and plot development etc.
Feel petty mentioning this, but you mean you couldn't care less right? As in you care nothing about latest movie, right?
Took me a moment to work out what you were saying, hence why pointing out, although aware small, potentially peevish position on my part
Couldn't care less - absolute zero care. Nothing can disappoint me whatever happen. Could care less - some degree of care is present. Thing can actually get worse
The internet, and Hacker News, is not that place.
There are plenty of people on here who will read "could" and "couldn't" as the actual words they are rather than the phrase they're a part of.
Never been a social guy, but I found enjoyable a short talk with the guy at the counter.
He gave me his opinion on the tape I was about to checkout and made suggestions about the new acquisitions. I guess after some weeks he knew my tastes and give a human-curated list, hehehe. They mostly tend to by nerdy, so we made a good fit, but they curated the list to old ladies, families and so...
A miss here and there, but I always found something enjoyable in all tapes. Even in the low budget, low quality ones.
Looks like ages ago...
It's quite useful experience to have, helps in adult life when you have to survive long meetings that are not particularly engaging nor interesting.
There's just too much of everything. There are too many musicians, movies, and games that friends, family, and the recommendation algorithms all swear I absolutely must experience before I can call my life complete.
As I'm in the late stage process of potentially joining a start-up, I am doing so much what-if and what-about-that analysis and it is completely paralyzing my decision process! But it reminded me that I was once a 20-year-old sophomore in college that created a business plan with a friend for a start-up without once wondering what else might be out there. Times have changed.
Twitter trends and YouTube as well is full of music on rails, polished pop stars that are working to spin their unremarkable music into an acting career, and it generates underwhelming results for music.
It's the very reason why device makers are getting rid of headphone jacks, and why storage is kept low, even on new on phones, and other devices. Soon we'll only have streaming as a choice, we won't be able to maintain a music collection any more for various reasons like HD/SSD failure, and mysteriously, making deeper choices will be more expensive, even though the artists don't get paid until they give in to the commercial song playlist machine.
There is literally volumes of the absolute best music being made on YouTube, but it never sees the light of day... I have to regularly go through hurdles to find it in places where artists themselves share it, and it's depressing to see them with only 50 views in many cases, completely ignored by algos.
I say this as someone who has run an underground music label for years now, the job of being a successfully creative and different artist is becoming impossible fast, and as a result, the process of finding music based on real talent is fading with it.
Hang onto your vinyl and hope your legacy devices don't get worn out, or enjoy non stop billboard top 10 on an infinite loop (Or Metallica's unforgiven again... on the radio... on infinite loop... after those 10 liberty mutual commercials). :/
This is my experience too. And I think "algos" are doing music-lovers a disservice…
Technology has the potential to democratise music making. You can produce music on any computer. If you make electronic music you need nothing else. If you play physical instruments you need a bit, but not much more, gear to get the sound into the computer to produce tracks which you can publish online.
So, if you want to make music, you can – no one can stop you! And you can put it online and anyone can access it, in theory, but making it discoverable by an audience is a completely different matter.
The streaming services do not need new and innovative music made with passion by god and everybody. They need the old hits, which people look for, and small amount of "new hits" to push on people to make everything feel fresh.
I want to say that there could be a different streaming service, which better serves the audience and makers, but I am not sure exactly what that means.
For many (most?) people, the most important role of music is participating in a shared culture. You want to be able to sing along with the same songs as your friends, to get the references made in conversation, to share moments together with a soundtrack in the background.
To the extent there is absolute quality for music, it is secondary to what people want. The thing where most everyone in a group listens to the same stuff on repeat is an important feature of the process.
This one compares how niche your tastes are compared to different countries.
This is a discovery tool.
For me the discovery functionality of Spotify and 3rd party discovery tools work perfectly. I keep discovering new music, the algorithm has learned my tastes pretty well, yet there are still tools if I want to go beyond that.
How about you? Do you have a YouTube list you can share with such music? I'd love to listen
I want to believe this. Do you have a YouTube list you can share with such music? I'd love to have a listen
There are some bugs to iron out in the setup, but my raspberry pi home server has been running this great for 5 months now, and offline media served me very well through a cross-country move. It's a great opportunity to take back some agency from Spotify, start contributing to artists on bandcamp or similar, and cut another annoying monthly subscription from your life.
When someone hands me their phone to play music on Spotify at this point, I find the front page absolutely overwhelming. It's sort of like going back to cable after streaming for years, and seeing your first ad. You wonder how you ever put up with it.
I share your concern that Epic will ruin Bandcamp, but part of me wonders if that wouldn't be a good thing in the long run. I don't think Bandcamp tried to monopolize digital file sales for independent music, but they kind of have, and that's bad.
I'd love to see a good open source music store pop up that labels and bands could easily self-host. You could probably build all the core Bandcamp features into a WordPress plugin in a weekend.
[0] https://airsonic.github.io/
My home music server has my wife and I’s mp3 collection that we’ve been building since like 2000. However, I’m continuously buying new music on bandcamp and scouring music blogs, and the collection grew until she was overwhelmed by the selection. So then I took her old click-wheel ipod music collection (which broke, but she had the music backed up), and I put that on a USB which is plugged into our Yamaha Musiccast receiver. The interface is pretty simple in the musiccast app (scroll and choose). She’s happy to have her collection locked to like 2012 in an ipod-like fashion.
But she still misses that ipod. The screen started fading, and I took it apart to replace parts, and in the process I screwed up the battery. It only works when docked and dies immediately when undocked.
I'd just be using WG if I figured out how to set it up the first time ahaha. It's nice to get rid of third-parties whenever possible, especially when it comes to my personal IT infrastructure.
Question to stuartd: I am concerned about how long Apple will support iTunes Match. Have you thought about what you would switch to in order to stream your Apple Music/iTunes when or if Apple sunsets iTunes Match as a service?
Appreciate it!
https://www.imore.com/apple-music-vs-itunes-match-whats-diff...
My suspicion is that they're not going to get rid of that functionality -- it continues to be a differentiator between them and Spotify. And, assuming that's right, they don't have any particular pressure to get rid of the standalone iTunes Match service. I know there's the argument that they might get rid of the $25/yr service in order to force people onto the $99/yr service. But it seems quite likely to me that Apple figures anyone still paying for iTunes Match but not Apple Music just doesn't want Apple Music, which makes the consideration in Apple's accounting department not "$99 > $25" but "$25 > $0".
According to this link [0] iTunes Match is an integral component of Apple Music. And I pay for both!
So I guess I'm cancelling iTunes Match..
[0] https://miapple.me/apple-music-vs-itunes-match-difference
Steve Jobs was against the whole Streaming Music services idea. At the time I would have thought the next move for iTunes would be to have free Streaming of songs you have purchased. Which is somewhat similar to this idea.
The other middle ground, between self hosting and streaming if you will, is to connect your music library to a streaming service like https://asti.ga/ .
I guess this is effectively outsourcing the self hosting bit. You can connect to locally stored music files via WebDAV or just upload your collection to any of the big cloud storage providers.
Plexamp has been great for music. I can put on any CD I own, in FLAC quality, without having to go locate the physical disc. I've spent much of pandemic filing in holes in the back catalog of my favorite artists.
If I want a mix, I tend to open up Tidal and let it build a "radio station" based on my mood.
Here is my solution to enjoying music: treat it as a soundtrack to your life. Create themed playlists. Spotify has collaborative playlists built in and I have a couple of friends who are or were professional DJs. I will start a playlist and then have them add things to it based on the theme and feeling. This process has gotten better and better. I now enjoy high quality music that I love while also discovering new artists and records.
I have certain custom mixtape style mood music CDs depending on how the scene in my novel is supposed to feel tonally, for example.
Yes I could make those into YouTube playlists, but the ritual of putting in the right CD has something to say for it, and also my CDs never have advertisements that manage to sneak past all of my layers of adblock, nor do they suddenly decide to be unavailable on one particular day or another.
I still play records though, simply because it is more fun, but if I want quality I play CDs.
It feels like the inconvenience is what people _like_ about vinyl? But maybe my setup just isn't good enough to tell a difference?
This is where we differ. For me that is not an inconvenience but part of the experience. I enjoy picking a record to play, removing it from the cover, checking it for dust or dirt, and putting it on the turntable. Probably mostly for nostalgic reasons.
edit: formatting
This and that I'm very deliberate about keeping track of new music I want to listen to (my queue). EDIT: There was a tool posted here on Show HN a few days ago that seemed interesting for this sort of stuff but I can't seem to find it now.
I do get where you're coming from, I'm very nostalgic for my old click-wheel iPod. Probably the biggest downside in moving away from physical media in my mind is the loss of the rest of the album art.
Not that I want music discovery to cost more, but I do think a consequence can be that it’s also easier to not discover music you might otherwise have. If I buy an album, and it doesn’t immediately capture me, I have N-1 other tracks waiting to change my mind. And I’m invested in that possibility. Endless discovery possibilities gives me an incentive to move on to another artist. Sure, I might like that other artist too. But pretty much all of my now-favorite artists were a pass before they grew on me.
I’m not saying that’s the attitude everyone should have, or that others wouldn’t or even ought to explore this way. Just sharing my own perspective for whatever it’s worth.
And this isn’t like a chore I’ve set out to get musically enriched. It’s just “oh yeah, I have that album! I didn’t like it last time but I’m in the mood to have another listen.” Some of these have been years between and sudden discoveries that I had buried my own treasures.
It I’ve ever felt like trying to appreciate an album was a chore but one I wanted to pursue anyway, it was Radiohead’s Amnesiac. I loved the band already but felt put off by the work at first. Even then, I put it away, came back later and fell in love on whichever was the next fresh listen.
But several of my favorite artists, I literally had no interest in at all at first. Then they just caught me in the right moment and the right emotional space. Some of these albums date back to the first I bought, around 13ish(?) and have been favorites for well over 20 years.
Again I don’t think everyone should experience music this way. It’s just my experience. My only point in sharing it, besides sharing a bit of my own joy, is to welcome other people who do find it appealing to either pursue it or feel less oddball for it.
You’re welcome to enjoy listening and discovering music however you see fit. I’m glad you like what you like! This isn’t a conflict or at least it shouldn’t be.
Edit: I also want to be clear, my investment in revisiting music I'd panned wasn’t monetary at all. I have hundreds of CDs I listened to once or twice and tossed in a binder, ignored ever since. My investment is “something about this work felt interesting to me; it still does, even if I’m not ready for it now; I want to revisit it again, and having some artifact [whether it’s a physical album or even just a download] leaves me something to re-discover.”
I've noticed a related phenomenon: too much choice induces anxiety. If there are like 5 films showing in the cinema it's usually obvious which one to pick. Maybe I'll watch another later in the week. But now I can watch any film ever made and I often find it hard to choose because there is a fear of missing out on all the other films I could have chosen.
I also support the artists I listen to by buying merch/going to concerts to supplement the pittance they get from streaming royalties.
It’s not quite the tangible feel of the ipod you describe but I find a great joy in my library being mine and not having any social or promotional features (« hot albums this week » etc.), i know what is in there and what comes in and goes out. The UI is utilitarian and not trying to drive engagement or generate revenue from me, I love it.
My only real complaint is that nothing wants to work together, so migrating services / backing up playlists / etc is a real nightmare. But I never actually maintained that in any real fashion to begin with, so I do the ones I care about by hand and ignore the rest and I've become fine with that.
Having physical media or something that is individual to the music makes me respect my collection and helps bring it to life. I can’t stream from a big service because it ruins the feeling. I don’t really listen to much music on my phone either unless I’m in the car. I like it that way. It feels defiant that I’m not just randomly bombarding my ears with whatever cool new trash is being forced into my ears.
Music that is part of my own playlists is there because I discovered it organically (was in a movie I watched, heard on the radio etc.) which is the same as you would discover it pre-streaming.
Songs and playlists that friends share with me is the equivalent of old cassettes that friends would make for you.
I do the same thing outside of music streaming too, there are browser extensions like Undistracted that can help avoiding recommendation systems (but unfortunately Undistracted doesn't work on Spotify).
The self curated playlist idea on a nice dedicated device is also very attractive, not least because I still do that on streaming, pity that its support is an Nth tier for the providers behind 'intelligent' and 'AI' and 'just for you' bullsh*t pushed into my face, dealing with own lists is very often a struggle or even an uphill battle.
Yes, I should pick up the old habits too and pay attention more to 'own mix albums', elevating the experience.
I highly encourage giving it a try if you’re inclined. I personally never took to streaming services, largely for the reasons you express.
For me it’s mostly because I dislike shuffle, and prefer listing to full albums. Not a hipster snobby thing, it just fits my attention span better and has led to several artists becoming favorites when I’d felt pretty meh about their singles.
So really all to say, it might be worth trying some habit hacks before flipping the whole thing over.
The part I don’t always like is the app experience. Not that it’s hard to use but browsing a shelf /rack is so much better. Just like finding a movie at blockbuster was easier than on Netflix. Grocery store > instacart.
I just wish Amazon digital albums were available in Canada, I don't want to have to buy CDs.
I've discovered nts.live somewhere in 2021 and have been listening a lot to their shows. The selection of music is diverse and very obviuosly curated.
Where else would I find a podcast of lofi outsider pop that ventures from brittle shoegaze/ambient track into one of the greatest disoc/pop songs ever sung by a 10 year old girl: https://www.nts.live/shows/okonkole-y-trompa/episodes/okonko... (Around 1h40min)
Pulling up lyrics and going through my favorite records is quite a nice evening.
I used to do this before the streaming services existed. I used to buy a handful of MP3's from Amazon (don't laugh) per month. I would also buy used CDs and rip it to MP3. Apple Music is included with monthly cell phone bill so I now "rent" some of my music now, it's just easier. I'm careful not to just download whole albums outright though, I have a curated collection of songs I like and I still use the old star ratings in iTunes. I also pay for $25/year for iTunes Match to maintain my legacy collection.
As for buying albums- Do it. Something about listening to a whole album puts my head at ease. My car's glovebox is stuffed with CDs I got in places ranging from the local bookstore to a dive bar in Memphis. It's great music, but it's also a fond memory.
This is what I do! And for similar reasons. It's actually really great because a) you can pick up used CDs and vinyl for cheap, b) you get to listen to the whole album, c) there are no screens involved. I didn't realize how oppressive screen-based music selection has become until I ditched it. I love my setup (and you can pick up great used audio equipment for cheap now, too.) Just do it - and if you don't like it you can get rid of it all on ebay.
Is anyone aware of any geeky workflows for this, e.g. having a giant collection on a server and regularly updating the local selection. A simple player app etc. A service independent way to store favourite tracks and playlists etc.
Or have streaming services stolen all tha air from this sector?
The aggressivness of Apple Music hints that those services will start getting annoying.
I support my favorite artists directly on Bandcamp by buying their digital albums. I put them in my personal Plex server to listen when/wherever. And you usually get download options for lossless formats.
Will sometimes buy the vinyl version as they usually come with a digital download. It's even nicer to lay on the couch and blast the full album without any iPod clicking to deal with ;)
I've seen it being carried as a daily driver instead of a phone by few privacy and security conscious folks. Considering that use case, iPod Touch was a great value for money. Guess they'll carry iPad mini now i.e. if they really want to stick with Apple (app) ecosystem.
Having tried Youtube Music, Tidal and Amazon Music, I feel that the UIs of most streaming apps and even most music apps in general are not that great.
I strongly prefer the "sit down and listen to a whole album" experience anyway, at least from artists who make a deliberate attempt to put together a cohesive album and not just one or two bangers and a bunch of filler.
Sitting down and listening to a Bowie album or something is a time capsule, and I'm not a boomer so it's not childhood nostalgia either. It's nice to sit down and listen to an hour of music that was specifically curated to produce a certain experience.
> Unfortunately, finding one that both holds a charge and isn’t battered to all hell is quite difficult these days, and even so, it’s much harder to justify a single use device for music when I literally always have my phone with me.
FYI you can replace the battery in an iPod... someone pointed me towards Cameron Sino as being an extremely reputable supplier of replacements (I've known of them for a long time but I had no idea they sold direct to consumer!).
Also, if you are not enamored with needing to use iTunes, the "Rockbox" open-source firmware targets Apple hardware and that should allow it to act like a plain old USB Mass Storage device. I used to use it like 15+ years ago on my iRiver H320 music player.
(the name "iRiver" actually predates the ipod! They were a korean company who became known for making very capable flash and HDD mp3 players for their day, with OGG Vorbis support and line-in recording and many other neat features.)
Also also, if you are interested in improvements, or your HDD died, you can get an IDE-to-CF adapter or perhaps SD/MicroSD or mSATA or M.2 (not sure what's available nowadays) and use a normal flash drive. At the time they were popular this often implied a reduction in capacity, but flash is big now and you can probably get like a 1TB drive and with Rockbox it should recognize it. Not all cards work, but I think the dividing line is often "cards that speak IDE" vs cards that don't - many of the high-spec CompactFlash cards actually have a "native IDE" mode so they speak the same protocol as the original drive did. It also substantially improves battery life, because you're going from a spinning drive pulling a couple watts to a flash card pulling ~nothing.
No affiliation with this site and haven't used them but this is basically what you'll be looking for: https://www.iflash.xyz/ipod-and-sdhc-sdxc-cards/
If your device is physically battered to hell then yeah, not much you can do besides try to find a replacement. But if your ipod is still in decent shape with a fresh battery and a flash adapter it'll be better than new. Do try to minimize the number of assembly/disassembly cycles though, there's lots of little plastic clips in most devices and they won't last forever.
Also, Fiio made some devices with very similar ergonomics to the ipod (eg the scroll wheel) like the X5 and X5ii, although like most others they've gone to android nowadays. I have an X5ii that will take a pair of 128GB microSD cards and it has a solid hifi headphone amp built in.
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/fiio-x5-2nd-gen-premium-hi-...
There is also a part of me that wants to take those albums and keep them on an old click-wheel iPod. I always thought the early iPod nanos were among the best consumer hardware devices ever made. Just the right mix of boxy and round; small enough to be novel (at least at the time), but large enough to still be perfectly usable. Unfortunately, finding one that both holds a charge and isn’t battered to all hell is quite difficult these days, and even so, it’s much harder to justify a single use device for music when I literally always have my phone with me.
As someone who was a teen when the iPod really started taking off, it was a constant presence during the time music was starting to become an important part of my life. Sad to see it go, even though really it’s been gone since the iPhone launched.