What will the distribution & consumption of music look like in 10 years' time?

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Will CDs have disappeared by then? If so, does that mean the album format will die as well? Will downloading destroy copyright? etc etc.

― jz, Thursday, 3 November 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

If the head of Island DefJam doesn't know...

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 3 November 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/candymolds/M-music/pianocake.jpg

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

It's somewhere between etc and etc.

― Nathalie, the Queen of Frock 'n' Fall (stevie nixed), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.proicer/cakepict/piano.jpg

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

http://www.nce.gc.ca/images/geoide4.jpg

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

there will still be a high-quality portable audio format, for sure, that you buy somewhere as a product.

ultratiny mp3 players (or whatever comes after mp3s -- maybe even full-quality lame rips or whatever) will be ubiquitous. i think that the music-streaming market will be in full stride, too; people won't carry their music on them, even in mp3 form -- it'll just stream to them from a satellite or something.

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2003/Feb03/martian_chronicles.jpg

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:14 (twenty years ago)

People who manage to survive will go back to acoustic music, because there will be no energy.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:45 (twenty years ago)

A paraphrase of a quote I saw in a Lester Bangs article (though not by Bangs himself): Essentially, as music gets doled into smaller and smaller sub-sub-subgenres, people are going to become more defensive of their preferences. Eventually, everyone will have one band that they love that they will be the only fan of, and will KILL anyone trying to bite their particular taste.

As for distribution, I would imagine some kind of benevolent, sympathetic super-computer which can instantaneously process the thoughts of every music consumer on earth (via tiny microchips, obv.) and beam the mental request for a song/album/playlist directly into their iPod, which will now be nothing but a microprocesser attached to a headphone jack, all of it encased in fluorescent lucite because otherwise it might get lost between the threads of your pants. Also, the guitar will be outlawed and the copyright abolished.

― owen moorhead (i heart daniel miller), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

Full discographies will be distributed on hypercubes made of sugar you can ingest.

― Brakhage (brakhage), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

We'll all have implants in our ears by that time.

― shutup, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

david croneberg-style FLESHY implants, that develop a mind of their own...

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

rockist_scientist otm

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

jonathan - stl otm about rockist_scientist being otm

― login name (fandango), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:23 (twenty years ago)

I will travel from town to town in a duct-tape-and-twine Road Warrior-style bus, distributing burned CD-Rs and performing Wolfie songs on the ukelele. You will regret having guillotined Prince.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

Tubes.

― Bobby Peru (Bobby Peru), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

Lee Perry can't die

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

record industry will have long ago given up trying to contain and control the spread of digital music. ipods will've shrunken to the size of earbuds, each of which holds a terrabyte of music/pictures/videos/whatever. everyone will have open access to everyone else's music files. actually buying a CD gets you a free backrub or shoeshine from the head of the record label. all the money for recording comes from sales of mp9 players (which is significant revenue since every model becomes obsolete 4 hours after being released) and from touring. NME comes out 3 times a day, and each new band on their cover is the biggest thing EVER for several seconds. having made a miraculous recovery from limb-and-heart replacement surgery, keith richards, along with the disembodied animatronic head of mick jagger, record what mainstream critics swear to be the rolling stones best, "rawest" album to date.

― jonnyblank (jonnyblank), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1456/1194/1600/existenz_bioport_2_boa.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogcasmurro.blogspot.com/&h=321&w=620&sz=22&tbnid=lbDGfEKaDrgJ:&tbnh=69&tbnw=134&hl=en&ei=95JqQ5yvEYiYaLKg3cUO&sig2=KBQDS_BjZsD5mLrNTmQcVQ&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dexistenz%2Bbioport%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26hs%3DOXS%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

― schwantz, Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

Trying again...

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1456/1194/1600/existenz_bioport_2_boa.jpg

― schwantz, Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

we will literally have entertained ourselves to death

― login name (fandango), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:48 (twenty years ago)

http://swg.stratics.com/content/lore/personas/images/lobot.jpg

― monkeybutler, Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:56 (twenty years ago)

I agree with Sean and my money -quite literally- is on streaming (vs. downloading). Free wireless high bandwidth everywhere ASAP kthxbye.

― blunt (blunt), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:16 (twenty years ago)

Having slsk is a little like having access to everything already. Eventually owning music will be kind of silly, and you'll just pay fees to access the HumungoTunesEmporium.

― Brakhage (brakhage), Friday, 4 November 2005 03:52 (twenty years ago)

Oops, forgot about the nice packaging of box sets. Dang. I guess I have to own these things.

― Brakhage (brakhage), Friday, 4 November 2005 03:56 (twenty years ago)

Globally networked collaborative filtering x realtime streaming will have advanced to the point that you will never hear a song you don't like, except at ballgames.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Friday, 4 November 2005 04:10 (twenty years ago)

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 4 November 2005 04:14 (twenty years ago)

NME comes out 3 times a day, and each new band on their cover is the biggest thing EVER for several seconds.

this is the funniest thing i have read today. also possibly the most prophetic.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 4 November 2005 04:53 (twenty years ago)

i think it will definitely will move away from downloading to only having contractualy-based access - through streaming i guess. that feels like less access to me, but its just the idea/a huge shift for folks who are mentally into the coveting factor...which in some way is everyone who's bought music and since the phonograph was invented...the idea that the music is in this object and i can make it happen just by using some device versus it residing somewhere offsite and seeing absolutely nothing mechanical etc. etc. happen to make the thing "play" the word play being replaced by a less active verb; there will indeed be less energy. it seems sad, but obviously there will be much more music avail and unprecedented ability to tailor to you ,which seems overall a good thing, and no one will notice the other stuff and it will be a glorious day! flipside - may be lots more access to other media previously very restricted.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Friday, 4 November 2005 05:07 (twenty years ago)

I, for one, welcome our streaming overlords.

― M. V. (M.V.), Friday, 4 November 2005 07:26 (twenty years ago)

seven years pass...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2013/08/how-will-musicians-survive-in-the-spotify-era.html

― curmudgeon, Friday, 20 September 2013 15:56 (twelve years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxohROgPAU8

― _Rudipherous_, Friday, 20 September 2013 16:36 (twelve years ago)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2013/08/how-will-musicians-survive-in-the-spotify-era.html

― curmudgeon, Friday, September 20, 2013 11:56 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol @ out of touch gang of four dude harping on "own your copyrights" thx grandpa

― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Friday, 20 September 2013 16:58 (twelve years ago)

ten months pass...

Based on one listen, at work, to a 128kbps stream, on office headphones, not turned up so that I can still respond to people, this was kinda disappointing!

― brimstead, Friday, 15 August 2014 03:06 (eleven years ago)

Spotify? Just came to Canada! I signed up today but haven't listened to anything yet.

― everything, Friday, 15 August 2014 17:01 (eleven years ago)

don't listen to it all in one day

― Now you're messing with a (President Keyes), Friday, 15 August 2014 18:11 (eleven years ago)

Can't fucking log on for some reason anyway. Fuck this shit. I'm listening to an old Erol Alkan mix disc that came free with a magazine instead.

― everything, Friday, 15 August 2014 18:19 (eleven years ago)

there will still be a high-quality portable audio format, for sure, that you buy somewhere as a product.
ultratiny mp3 players (or whatever comes after mp3s -- maybe even full-quality lame rips or whatever) will be ubiquitous. i think that the music-streaming market will be in full stride, too; people won't carry their music on them, even in mp3 form -- it'll just stream to them from a satellite or something.
― sean gramophone (Sean M), Thursday, November 3, 2005 10:13 AM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was flipping through a book called "The Future of Music" recently, which basically argues that music will become a kind of service "utility" like cable television. I don't know if I buy that yet, but it seems possible.
― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, November 3, 2005 10:14 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these two very prescient

― global tetrahedron, Friday, 15 August 2014 18:25 (eleven years ago)

shit i dunno i just steal it same as then

― j., Friday, 15 August 2014 18:28 (eleven years ago)

nah, this was the Nostradamus prize

― duff paddy (darraghmac), Saturday, 16 August 2014 09:25 (eleven years ago)

Was so much better in Bangs's day when everyone only liked one band but it was the same band

― Hogan's Bluff (wins), Saturday, 16 August 2014 09:47 (eleven years ago)

Rush

― Now you're messing with a (President Keyes), Saturday, 16 August 2014 17:39 (eleven years ago)

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