discussion "Playlists Have Replaced Criticism As the Gateway for Music Discovery"

[Wicked]

Pretty interesting opinion piece from someone who runs a music blog.

 

Quote

I'd returned to music writing with a hazy understanding that things would probably be different, I just wasn't sure how. The playlist situation sharpened the focus: in 2024, a solo blurb or even full write-up is nice, but the real currency is being on a playlist, sardined between 30 other artists—no analysis, no backstory, no context. 

 

I was genuinely glad with the response to our nascent playlist. But given the way playlist supremacy (or at least the root forces behind it) seemed interconnected with ailments across the music ecosystem, I also viewed the developments with as much skepticism as I did satisfaction. It seemed like an illustration of not just how far we'd come but what we'd lost along the way. 

 

https://indyweek.com/music/playlists-have-replaced-criticism-as-the-gateway-for-music-discovery-were-all-losing-out-because-of-it/?curator=MediaREDEF

 

Fans need to forcibly detach themselves, at least for an hour at a time, from the content deluge of social media and sit with considered analysis of artists—work that may champion or challenge, but will always result in a deeper relationship to the material. 

Edited August 23 by Wicked

[Contessa]

Agreed. Playlists and algorithms (and social media to an extent) are shaping the music ppl consume nowadays. Nobody reads or listens to a critics' guides or lists as primary mode of discovery, perhaps besides YouTube critics like Anthony Fantano, who has leveraged social media to work in his favor, unlike most critics that are stuck in the "print" spaces.

[Liafen]

So discovery isn't dictated by - sometimes - petty snobs? Maybe it's for the best. 

[Burn]

I think it's maybe better this way. In the past you couldn't easily listen to every album to make your mind up if you liked it, because, well you had to pay to buy the album and nobody could buy every piece of music, it's just not practical. So people relied on critics to tell them what to listen to. But now that music is so easily accessible with streaming, it makes more sense to just listen to it and figure out what you like for yourself.

Edited August 23 by Burn

[wastedpotential]

I mean music journalism has been dying for well over a decade, we no longer need experts to tell us what music is good enough to drop $10+ on a CD because we can just use Spotify and decide if we like it. Outside of very niche communities (including this one), true indie-hunters, and people whose musical tastes were formed before the iTunes era, music journalism probably literally never crosses people's minds. I know I'm not running to Pitchfork to decide whether or not to buy Short & Sweet, for instance, because I can go to Spotify and see for myself.  

 

well actually I went to Dbree at first because it wasn't available in the US but you know what I mean 

[MatiRod]

It's no different from radio or MTV back in the day.

[mxoonlight]

Slay

[Digitalism]

The same pretencious people that used to read critics back then are the ones reading them now. That hasn't changed 

[Gladiator]

Do these people think the average person discovered songs by reading critic write ups about them?

Have they never heard of the radio?

 

Spotify and Apple Music playlisting has replaced radio, which was the primary means of music discovery to the average music consumer.