-
My family often streams Jazz on Pandora from our Alexa smart speaker. After hearing "Moanin" for probably the 200th time, I have to say I am sick of their selection. They play the same small selection of songs over and over. They have some of my favorites (one of them used to be "Moanin," Art Blakey version), and I am starting to actually lose my passion for these songs.
Why can't Pandora do better? There are so many great Jazz songs available, some old and some not-so-old, yet they keep using the same small selection. Why must this be?
Rant over...Last edited by AlsoRan; 08-27-2020 at 07:50 AM.
-
08-21-2020 01:53 PM
-
Physical media is good. Vinyl is best. That is if you want the best sound. I don’t stream.
-
I prefer to listen to jazzradio.com which actually has a jazz guitar channel. I do detect some limits in the range of music, but it's not too bad. I hear players with them that I don't hear about elsewhere.
-
i worked at a place where the default station was a classic rock outlet. it was great for about three days. By that time you could set your watch by when Santana/Doobie bros/Clapton etc came on. I mean the overall playlist was pathetically limited. Streaming has only exacerbated the situation, I am sure.
Originally Posted by AlsoRan
-
Well, ok and here's hoping the latest format whatever it may be, improves.
But seriously - can we really expect this current group of programming yokels to do any better than the previous groups of yokels ?
I mean c'mon - -this is a jazz forum - -we've had to dig for the decent music since day one, why should 2020 not be the same ol' ?
Just my two cents.....
-
My gut tells me the answer to your "why can't Pandora do better", is because they don't want to. I.e. there is no financial reason do to so. Maybe there is a financial reason NOT to do so; I.e. increasing the total number of tunes available for rotation cost money. Bottom line being unless doing better would lead to more subscribers,, there isn't a reason to spend more to do so. Originally Posted by AlsoRan
I don't use these streaming services but my brother-in-law does. My wife, brother-in-law, and I went on a weekend trip to our vacation home. Since he knows I'm the jazz man, he was nice enough to have the service he uses play jazz. We listen to this a lot over the weekend. Well about 4 months later we go again. He starts playing the music. Well as they start playing I start to try to predict what would come up in the next 5 - 6 or so songs. They were amazed how accurate I was. The same songs (often in a similar order), that were played before. Mostly fine songs but the same ones. It is like they have only 2 or 3 songs per artist. E.g. if they play Wes, you're going to get either West Coast Blues, or Four on Six.
-
Wow! Sadly, you are most probably right. "Follow the money," as they say. Originally Posted by jameslovestal
While I am ranting, I also have a subscription to Amazon music. You can tell Alexa a song to play and if it is available in the Amazon library it will. While the kids can get songs from the Migos or the fellow who raps "Old Town Road," I might go through 20 different Jazz songs before I can find one Amazon can play. I wonder how that library works? I was thinking that if the song is in Amazon's MP3 library, it would be available - apparently not, in many cases!
Sorry to bend your ears (eyes in this case) with my griping. Rant over.
-
They do not care about you. Actually they do not care about anything, just maximizing their profit. It is just a coincidence if some cases as a side effect it is good for the consumer too in long term. Streaming services do not differ from Coca Cola or a news broadcast company. Unfortunatelly capitalism is still the best option, we have no other working concept. Originally Posted by AlsoRan
-
i think spotify is great for this. Users can make there own playlists that they can share.
And their algorythms are great to suggest new music every week based on what younlistened to previously.
So much music to discover..
-
I have low expectations of hearing anything of quality in the supermarket. Occasionally, they might play something by Lorde or Bic Runga, but mostly it is muttering and grunting by people I would not recognise in a police lineup. I feel much the same about Pandora, Spotify and all the rest.
Nobody who makes these things cares about music. They buy licenses from the media corporations to play selections from the back catalogue of dead composers and musicians, who are unable to claim royalties. They play the songs over and over because that is the most efficient revenue model; besides, most people seem to like it that way – or at least do not go elsewhere. Why spoil a perfectly good system by complicating it with The Necks or Eric Dolphy?
Most people accept choice but no variety in everything they consume and experience. That is normalcy.
-
thanks i didnt know the necks or eric dolphy. But now i have to go trough these.. Originally Posted by Litterick
there are 2 more pages of dolphy.
that’s why i like spotify.
-
This sounds promising.... Originally Posted by waltf
-
Spotify is better for this.
-
Yeah, I don’t have an Alexa either. I’m really an old fogie who when it comes to music I yell ‘get off my lawn.’
-
Qobuz? Tidal? Roon.... anyone.?
Sent from my H8216 using Tapatalk
-
What, your family streams bebop jazz?... well congrats on that Originally Posted by AlsoRan
-
Originally Posted by AlsoRan
Not just jazz stations. I have a couple of dozen or so different stations. Really loved that Pandora would play stuff I never heard before and discovered a lot of music that way. But now it's the same selection of tunes; rarely anything new. I'm constantly doing thumbs-down even on tunes that I really like because it's starting to ruin them for me due to overplay.
Spotify has a wider selection, but doesn't have a feature like Pandora where you can create a station from a single tune. And if I specify an artist, it presents a list of specific tunes that I can select to play. It does create custom "curated playlists" based on what you've played, but I haven't really had a lot of success with it.
-
It does. Right click on a song and choose 'song radio'. Originally Posted by zdub
This is where spotify really shines. I tried most streaming options. Spotify has the best selections and best suggestions.
Sound quality is not that the same as qobuz and Tidal, but it doesnt make a huge difference listening trough a sonos or airpods or in the car and the selections + price makes up for that.
And if I really like something i buy it on vinyl.
Ok enough advertisement for spotify. I wish streaming services paid the artists more..
-
This is also what I was kind of thinking. Originally Posted by Lobomov
-
listening jazz as radio stream is not my cup of tea. I would like to focus, so I pick the record according to my mood, then sit, then listen. If I am doing some research, or learn music, I also has a goal so have a target in my mind, there is no need others (nor a machine) help.
The radio thing when others pick and create a salad for me, fits to the scenario when Sunday I prepare and do the barbecue, drink some cocktals, and tune to a 50s 60s rock billboards, and listening Elvis
-
People always talk about ‘capitalism’ as one specific essentialist thing (usually an idealised version of the US style), as if not every nominally capitalist country has some form of mixed economy and as if any divergence from this platonic ideal is basically Eastern Bloc style command economy authoritarianism. This is of course nonsense: not even the likes of Friedman or Hayek ever argued that. Originally Posted by Gabor
We have very good public music broadcasting in the UK thanks to the BBC and somehow manage also to have a market economy and elections. However do we manage it?
-
Wow, thanks! I spent some time time trying to find such an option and couldn't. Going to give it a try as I am getting sick of Pandora. Originally Posted by waltf
-
talking about capitalism of course was oversimplification by me. I meant people behaviour, and money. (Human nature is also of course could be different by one to one but statistically we all share the common greatness and also the defects of the human race.) Originally Posted by christianm77
The key words were, "they do not care about you" even if it seems to be that the case.
BBC do not play here, because it funded by UK taxpayers, Btw BBC also do not care about you, They care about exclusively keeping the image of bias-less information source, which they accomplish mostly by giving no information (news) on UK sensitive topics. Of course they have a topic literally every single day about how stupid is Trump, but what is the new in it?
Democracy and free choice are very delicate topic. I do not think drinking coca cola is free choice, banning Huawei from UK, after a few days Trump banned them also was not a free choice. Listening manipulated DAW processed canned music also is not the free choice of billions of people, still they are doing it. Addicted to facebook or any of its competitor is also not a free choice, even the subject feels it was her/his free will.Last edited by Gabor; 08-24-2020 at 09:23 AM.
-
This is somewhat beside the point. So let’s keep it specific: Originally Posted by Gabor
You can have both capitalism and tax subsidised music radio.* We’ve had in the UK and in other European countries for decades.
*there is an interesting discussion to be had about what shape public broadcasting should take, what constitutes paternalism, who gets to be the cultural gatekeepers etc... but that’s a separate (and probably quite long and complicated) thread. The BBC is not without faults.
You can also question whether publicly funded music radio is the only way to go; but that discussion would probably require a lot of specifics of broadcasting that I’m really not able to discuss. I suspect the devil is in the details.
-
you were wise not going into this :-) and instead focusing on music, and I have to agree, my bad.
Talking about broadcast, programmed content I think it is the past. Now I have all my heroes online, either on Spotify or Apple music, and this collection is bigger than I ever hoped. I listen it on demand, and my choice is free, I feel myself very rich, and I live in a dream. (strictly in aspect of music listening, other things do not go such well :-)
Reply With Quote
Looking for a "jazz box"
Yesterday, 09:57 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos