• SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Sounds like neither of you watched the video. Fortunately, I did so here’s a quick summary. The thesis is that music is getting worse, for a few reasons. Author argues:

    • Auto tune and other modern digital sound production tools are overused to correct pitch and timing, making music too synthetic. Real music has imperfections that makes music just sound more artificial. Basically, taking the human element out of it.
    • Streaming has cheapened the value of a single song because of how easy it is to skip to another song. So arguably it is not technically just worse music, it’s our appreciation for it.

    The first point has been touched on by many other people. It’s a common trend in a lot of places outside of music too. People are replaced with machines and processes in a lot of settings especially in corporations and commerce, and while that’s great for efficiency and predictability, it creates a sterile landscape devoid of human expression. This is not to say all music has this. But mass market music is a chief culprit.

    The other point really resonates with me with videogames and videogame sales. You can get a dozen great steam games for the same price as a single Nintendo title, yet I probably put 10x the time into that one Nintendo title than all the other steam games combined. Had to get every bit of value out of that expensive Nintendo purchase. YMMV on this point though. I don’t stream music so I can’t say how it has affected me personally.

    • coffinwood
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      5 months ago

      "Sounds like neither of you watched the video. "

      That’s. The. Point. I neither watch videos nor read articles that suggest having boiled down a more or less complex topic to ‘the real reason (singular)’. Maybe it’s bad wording, maybe it’s on purpose. I’ll never know.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      The autotune “argument” is sooo narrow. There are many many genres that generally don’t use autotune at all (eg. metal).

      I feel like Rick is just another old white guy who’s mad about Hip Hop but doesn’t want to say it directly.