Jazzy D's Soul Notes

I have been thinking about the streaming services that are available and think that on the whole they should only be used as a supplement. We have Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and others. In fact, I worry that they will fracture as much as TV and video have gone with services like Netflix, Disney and Hulu, and so on.

I feel that the music medium as a whole has taken a backseat in recent years. "New" mediums like computer games, streamed TV, social media, even the internet, in general, have all taken a big chunk of the general public's mindshare and time. While the really big, label-driven pop artists still bring in the money, the amount of smaller/upcoming bands and artists that make a living solely from their music have shrunken significantly in the last 20 years. Although from the pages of Wire tends to show that independent and avant-garde or new music is still thriving.

I remember reading an interview with Noel Gallagher where he said something like: In the latter half of the last century, music was THE go-to outlet for anyone creative. These days it's sitting around 8th place, right behind brewing craft beer and starting a YouTube channel...and that may be true.

My other fear with streaming, apart from the fact that you never own it, is that contracts may make some artists on streaming services may disappear. Already on Netflix, some shows are having a limited period before they get cut from the streaming service. Then as a consumer, you no longer will not be able to watch it or with music listen to it unless you have a physical copy.

Most of the music that I listen to - generally some jazz, avant-garde, improv, and much more minor genres - has “fallen through the cracks”, so to speak, in that it isn’t available on standard streaming services (that’s what you get with licensed property music, foreign artists, etc.).

So, for now, and for the much more foreseeable future, I have always continued to build my own library, which consists of CDs, Albums, and burned CDRs from MP3 downloads. I don't throw my Music(or Books) away unless I resell them of course, and though I have Amazon Music, I will never stop building my Library.

I know that we don't "own" our Music and Movies, but I know plenty of people who make copies of their purchases, and love having a Collection to play what they want, when they want, without Monthly fees or depending on someone to Play what you want, or even if Streaming Services know or have what you're searching, assuming you even know or remember the name of what you want to hear. I hate a lot of the music that's being offered, and I enjoy being in command of what I want to hear and having the booklets and other printed information that comes in a CD tray or in a Box set such as those I have from Mingus and James Brown, for example.

I will be interested in your thoughts.

Think I best put up another music post.