U.S. Music Fans Continue Shift to Streaming Services as Apple Readies Beats Revamp

[icolove]

The music industry started this, by packaging albums with two good songs, two marginal songs and 8 crappy songs and making you buy the whole thing.

Now people have the option of just buying the songs they like, and the old model no longer works.

I for one am not sad.

You must listen to crappy music, because I own hundreds of albums that have 10 good songs on them. This way of thinking ensures that music companies only care about singles and not about the album... and that's tragic.

 

[kds1]

I never understood people who buy or listen to one song from an album vs buying the album. I understand why my daughter does this, as she mixes and matches based on the classes she is teaching. And maybe others are buying individual tracks for like reasons.

But, I wonder about the general tendency to decide you like just a couple of songs from an album and ignore the rest. My guess is this tendency results in narrowing rather than broadening one's musical palette. Perhaps artists do create albums with a few quality pieces, the rest being flotsam to fill out contractual requirements. But, quality albums can create full "stories" in which each song is a "scene".

Somehow, pushing single songs simply diminishes the overall quality of what is being produced.

I'm not sure what era you're living in. Possibly one that exists in a parallel universe. The *single* has been around for a long long long time, even before recorded music when if you liked a song you heard performed, and you wanted to hear it whenever you liked, you had to buy the sheet music and play it on the piano in your parlour - and sing the words yourself.

P.S. I get the whole deal of "concept" albums. Pink Floyd were well known for theirs, but sometimes an album is just a collection of tunes.

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The death of the album continues, and no one seems to notice or care.

Reports of the albums demise are highly exaggerated.

 

[Karma*Police]

I still see the beats deal as a complete brain fart on the part of Apple execs (ie, Eddy Cue and Tim Cook). They should have anticipated the growing importance of music streaming and had a killer streaming service in the works a long time ago. Instead, they spent $3B for mediocre headphones and a music streaming service with few subscribers.

To put that into perspective, they could've purchased Waze for $1B and still had $2B left over to buy Sennheiser and B&W and hire top talent to develop an amazing music streaming service, improve Siri and Apple maps and construct another data center.

 

[E.Lizardo]

But your analogy is a poor one. Netflix is streaming for movies and shows. Many people have long embraced the idea of paying to 'rent' (watch) a movie once, and then not have to pay to keep the movie afterwards. The idea has been around since Blockbuster Video outlets in the 1980s. You rent movie, you watch it, then you return it. Done deal.

In other words, they only want to see most movies once. And most movies are not worth seeing more than once (since the majority of flicks from Hollywood are crap).

You are comparing this to MUSIC, which people have long embraced the idea of purchasing music (be it digital form, CD, etc) which they feel they are entitled to play anytime, all the time, every time, anywhere, everywhere, whenever they feel like it, as many times as they like. This has been an accepted idea that is decades old also….. and the ability to "play your music anytime you want" is as old as the Sony Walkmans portable music players in the 1980s as well.

You could be on a desert island, no cable internet access, and the Sony Walkmans/Discmans allowed you to listen to your favorite CDs (or cassette tapes) as you liked. No internet access required. No subscription requirement either.

The current streaming trend is strong and will grow, I am sure of that. But there will still be many holdouts that prefer the "classic method" where you buy your music, and you play it at will, no subscription needed. No contract needed. No Beats account needed. No monthly fees to worry about. No streaming account needed. No need to be forced to watch ads or connect to Google, YouTube, or FaceBook, etc.

That happens to be the group I belong to. Of course I do subscribe to XM radio,I guess that may count.

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Oh yeah, now I remember. DIRECT DRIVE! That was the turntable to have dammit. Had to have direct drive. With more wow and flutter. Or less. Or more of one and less of the other. Then all I need is a British car that leaks oil - with a choke and carburetors, lots and lots of carburetors I must tune daily so I can experience how good driving can really feel. And smell. Mmmmm I can smell that exhaust just thinking about it. Lexus is a lifeless flat digital download in comparison to the pure British driving experience today's whippersnappers have no idea what they're missing. No seatbelts full speed ahead zoom ZoOM ZOOM!

That's pretty much gibberish.

 

[Nikomanz]

It's simple guys, whoever pays $1.29 for a 256kbps m4a to license a song is clearly wasting money.

Spotify - Rdio - Beats all offer 320 kbps streaming and Tidal offers 1411kbps streaming and** it is unlimited consumption.

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I still see the beats deal as a complete brain fart on the part of Apple execs (ie, Eddy Cue and Tim Cook). They should have anticipated the growing importance of music streaming and had a killer streaming service in the works a long time ago. Instead, they spent $3B for mediocre headphones and a music streaming service with few subscribers.

To put that into perspective, they could've purchased Waze for $1B and still had $2B left over to buy Sennheiser and B&W and hire top talent to develop an amazing music streaming service, improve Siri and Apple maps and construct another data center.

Oh my goodness.... +1 man. Couldn't have said it better myself. Streaming has been the next big thing since what - 2010, 2011?

If Apple would have jumped on that, AND bought Hi Fi headphones manufactures and a Hi Fi streaming platform they would have been market leaders, not followers.

Sadly, Apple seems to be becoming more of a fashion brand these days.. Hence the Beats purchase.

 

[zhenya]

Until we have a direct interface to plug computers/music directly into our brains, to all humans, music is analog until your brain converts it through sound waves hitting your ears.

It has been so long since most generations have had access to music players that read the complete analog sound wave that most of you have never heard the incredible difference in listening to an LP through a quality sound system as opposed to MP3 or the few that add more one's and zero's that are cuts of that sound wave. (Note: MP5 has existed for years but isn't used)
As a result, only in a live performance, or for video, from a BluRay Player (32 bit sound) do you hear the full experience.

Neil Young approached Steve Jobs regarding Apple improving iTunes from their primitive MP3 downloads. Neil Young & a group of famous artists had already entered a lawsuit to stop the degradation of their copyrighted music. Neil's approach to Steve Jobs was his way of looking for a shorter/better way for the current generation to actually hear all of the music he and other artists created. Steve Jobs suggested that Neil make his own digital player if he wanted a better product for his fans.

Neil Young has done so and it is called a PONO (https://ponomusic.force.com). Apple has made the choice to give you the watered down music or sound track (Apple TV has only Dolby 3 in a world of DTS Dolby 7).
Note that Steve Jobs had a very high quality LP music system in his own home that he used.

LP's have the complete sound wave for 2 channel stereo cut into them.
No digital player of downloaded music (except perhaps the new PONO) comes close!
That is why LP's are suddenly gaining traction. Even at the last Apple Event, when they announced the free album, the image put on the screen was an LP!

If you have the money, there has been a cottage industry of laser readers made for LP's. Due to the lack of a major manufacturer reducing their cost by making 100's of thousands of these machines, they cost about $5,000-$15,000 (http://www.elpj.com is an example). Not only do they read the 2 points in the grouve that a regular record player does, they read the entire grouve from top to bottom, take thousands of samples and give you music without the old "wow's" and "pops". They even treat the LP just like a CD as they can skip tracks or read the LP randomly.

There are 3 reasons why we are stuck with such low quality downloads or streaming. 1) There is a huge lack of available bandwidth, particularly in America. 2) 1/2 of America has very poor internet connections & cell connections to the internet are limited too much. 3) The streaming or downloading of higher quality digital representations of the analog sound wave would require both the service and the public's storage to be massively bigger.

Cheap reproductions sold at prices similar to LP's or streamed (particularly for a monthly fee) are more profitable. After many generations of even bad CD's, the public apparently has been dumbed down and don't know what they are missing.

It's a scam so they make more money!
If you want the full emotional experience the performers wanted you to have, you will need to buy a good LP player and complete amplifier/speaker system though a digital format can meet great quality so long as they put enough one's & zero's in the coding. Let's all hope that Neil Young's PONO Player makes Apple's iPod's look like the toys that they are.

Rather than get into all I could here, I'll just say that virtually all new music you can buy today on LP has been converted to digital at some point in the chain of production before the final disc is cut. Given that there are so many places where LP's are demonstrably inferior, (dynamic range, crosstalk, just to name a couple that anyone can spot) how can it be that an LP cut from a digital source can sound better than said digital source?

(This coming from a guy with thousands in his own vinyl rig. It's a great medium, but let's not get carried away.)

 

[lederermc]

although vinyl may possess superior sound quality, I still believe this uptick of vinyl sales is due to that "hipster apple look"

It's nastaglia... listening to the reissued Led Zeppelin makes me feel 16 years old again. My old LP has been played to the nubs.

 

[Ieo]

In all honesty, they could quite easily roll iTunes Match, Radio, and Beats into one service.

iTunes Plus?

They already have AppleCare Plus, and iPhone 6 Plus, so it'd fit right in with their silly naming patterns.

I would like to see one streamlined apple subscription...$75 a year to get itunes match, beats, 20gb icloud storage, and apple should start streaming original content on the apple tv similar to netflix, amazon, and hulu. Perhaps a daily news show, a late night style show, and a few beloved recently cancelled shows.

 

[ssgbryan]

This guy that tested vinyl on a $100k Marantz system describes what you are saying as a case of CMS. It's an interesting read: http://www.audioholics.com/editorials/analog-vinyl-vs-digital-audio

"Level matched by ear" - Fail 1

At no point does the writer state HOW he switched from A to B - which matters. Fail 2

I doubt the alcohol helped.

If you can't measure it, it isn't a fact, it's an opinion.

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youve probably just never sat in front of a proper turntable then… I tend to keep most of my music in FLAC files because MP3 or AAC sound horrible after listening to a vinyl record. Better soundstaging, better audio frequency range…

/QUOTE]

Been there, done that thank you very much. I was quite happy to retire my Thorens turntable, dealing with the trials and tribulations of various stylus, the need for a never ending supply of Disccleaner, and the obligatory turntable weight to deal with warped records that went with using vinyl.

Sorry, but I am too damned old to be a hipster.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I would like to see one streamlined apple subscription...$75 a year to get itunes match, beats, 20gb icloud storage, and apple should start streaming original content on the apple tv similar to netflix, amazon, and hulu. Perhaps a daily news show, a late night style show, and a few beloved recently cancelled shows.

Yeah that would be cool.

Microsoft has their Work & Play Bundle featuring Office 365 Home (with 1TB OneDrive storage), Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Music Pass and Skype Unlimited World and Wi-Fi.

It does seem weird that Apple makes you pay separately for iTunes Match and Beats and iCloud. It seems like they could package them together and offer some discounts.

Apple would love it for you to stay inside the Apple ecosystem. So it should be easier and more affordable.

 

[Ljohnson72]

80% of all statistics are made up on the spot and wrong.

LOL come on. Even Apple knows that digital music purchases are going down and will be replaced in the future by streaming services.

Still not as diverse as I want. Last time I checked, there aren't many Japanese songs in their collection. For physical copies, there is no such limitation.

What? With the internet, you could stream any song in the world, right this second. Whether it be via Spotify, Beats Music, Rdio, Pandora, Sony Music, etc etc. Of course more diverse music will be added in the future. Do you think iTunes had every single song in the world when it launched? Certainly not.

Guess I'm the 1%.

Guess so.


___________

And on a side note, I can't believe the number of people here who think the average consumer care about, let alone really want, streaming higher than 320kbit/s. The average consumer is not an audiophile by any means.

 

[fxmx42]

ugh just goes to show how little people these days care about music. I want to OWN the music i listen to and just have my albums as always

That's great for you and even greater for greedy record companies. Not everyone feels the same.

 

[Reda24]

I would like to see one streamlined apple subscription...$75 a year to get itunes match, beats, 20gb icloud storage, and apple should start streaming original content on the apple tv similar to netflix, amazon, and hulu. Perhaps a daily news show, a late night style show, and a few beloved recently cancelled shows.

In our increasingly mobile world, this model is rich with value to a large percentage of the market.




galaxy note 3 hülle

 

[flat five]

I guess I'm old, or just don't get it...

I'll never understand "renting" music. I can't begin to see the appeal, I don't see any value.

If I want a semi-random stream of audio that I may or may not like, or be in the mood to listen to at any given moment, I already have that, it's called a radio... it's not dependent on an internet connection, and it's FREE.

I'll gladly pay to have the songs I actually like, stored on my devices, organized in playlists I can choose based on my mood, and not have to pay a monthly fee, and not be at the mercy of an internet connection and it's reliability (or lack of).

I can't begin to understand where anyone sees the value in the music rental business. Seems like flushing cash down the toilet to me.

Of course, I completely understand companies like Apple rushing to take money from suckers that are willing, hell eager even, to rent music.

Shrug.

Oh yeah..

And git off my lawn!

yeah, you don't get it (not just you).. seemingly lots of people think beats (spotify etc) is like a paid version of pandora.. but it's not.. you listen to whatever you want whenever you want and it's not dependent on an internet connection (well, not always dependent.. you do have to have a connection to stream/download obviously).

anyway, i think apple would be pretty smart to focus some of their beats campaign on making it clear what exactly it does and that it's not simply a 'semi-random stream of audio'..

it's a gigantic music library of which you can build your own personal library from. (amongst other ways to use it)

 

[jhwalker]

Almost everyone seems to be "all buy" or "all stream" - why not both?

I use streaming services (Tidal, Qobuz, or Spotify) to listen to any album I desire, any time, anywhere, including saving to my local device(s) for mobile use. This lets me listen to 10s of new releases each month and only buy the ones that *really* thrill me - which I do, either lossless downloads or on CD to rip to my 75k+ track collection.

Best of both worlds, really - I get to hear all the new releases I desire, seldom buy a "stinker" of an album any more, and add the real gems to my collection.

 

[Jsameds]

Geez why limit yourself with so many options available. Get a streaming subscription and when you listen to an artist you really like, buy the physical album? Easy.

It's not like planet Earth is running out of CD musics. It's still for sale somewhere although not affluent as it used to.
If you really love music, you wouldn't complaint about paying so little money for something you can listen anyday, anytime.

Or if you want something free, iTunes Radio is still free (with relatively unobtrusive ads). I found quite a lot of musics I didn't know before and eventually like it, and finally buy the album. Can't do that if you purely listen to CDs. Music streaming is also a great discovery tool, again if you love music so much.

"Musics"

 

[iolinux333]

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-1356-avid-acutus-reference-sp-turntable.aspx

There's a $15k needle as well...

Well Hell. I sure hope it comes with Corinthian leather LPs cause I ain't never gonna let a piece o vinyl touch dat bad boy.

 

[rish]

Ironically it's cheaper to buy cd's (exclude vinyl) than to download. The cd you own where as I've been told a few times now that the digital file you don't necessarily own out right therefore you can not pass in collections.
Much more interested in radio than paying a fee to stream music I'll never own. The whole thing has become a mess in my view.

 

[s2mikey]

You must listen to crappy music, because I own hundreds of albums that have 10 good songs on them. This way of thinking ensures that music companies only care about singles and not about the album... and that's tragic.

Ten good songs on an album is the exception, NOT the norm. No freegin way. You have to go way back for full albums of that quality. Now, it's one hit wonder city and the albums are loaded with filler.

The person you replied to is correct though. This whole streaming, ripping, downloading thing was spawned from record companies trying to rob people with $17 dollar CDs that had two good songs on them. You are paying about $7 bucks a song or whatever. Now, it's .99 cents a song or just youtube it and snag the MP3. Sorry but that's how it goes. When something is way overpriced people will get it some other way. That's how it works.

 

[Technarchy]

Apple is already behind the curve on streaming music, which is a very sticky product. People who subscribe to Spotify are unlikely to subscribe to Google Play Music, who in turn are unlikely to subscribe to Beats.

Once I signed up for a streaming service I never looked back. For people that love and consume lots of music it's the ideal model.

 

[Yardman1977]

I have beats music AT&T 14.99 grandfathered family plan...kids have spotify...and I have a free 90 day trail going with google play music....
Compared them all ...beats doesnt have a radio feature yet and i dont care for listening to playlists that other people put together..cant add yor owned songs to library either.....so dont listen to beats much.....just hangin on to it cuz of the 14.99 price for whole family....and cuz im hoping apple will add a radio play feature to it..but i do love the way beats organizes my saved music..and has a great looking ipad app..much better than the other 2 services........everyone thinks spotify is the **** but u can only stream on 1 device at a time.....so no sharing the acct to save cash....also u cant see the upcoming songs when using the radio feature...And cant add yor own songs to the library...
Google play music ..for 9.99 u get both google play music and the new youtube music key beta .which is add free for official music videos only. and plays in the background of your device...U cud add yor already owned songs to the library..up to 20000 of them so all your owned songs and saved streaming songs are all together in one program.....they have a radio with no limits feature which keeps them coming endless and .u cud also see upcoming songs ....also u cud stream at least 3 devices simultaneously on the same acct....maybe more but 3 is all I've tested...also when playing a song if there is a youtube video of that song it will show a red play button on the artwork so u cud click it and watch the official video ...lots of 80s and newer songs have videos..
I would suggest to anyone who has spotify or any other streaming service to google search for the 90 day free trial for google play music service ....not the 30 day ....there is a 90 day out there too...
Try this ....click radio..create new station...type in fly to the angels by slaughter....or 90s rock...or whatever stuff you into.....tap the music note button in the upper right to see upcoming songs.....and to keep the radio songs coming u highlite a dim song at bottom of playlist.....click the 3 little dots next to the song for more options...for me google play music hands down beats both spotify and beats music.

 

[Jeaz]

I'd be happy if they just made iTunes radio available where I live. Have no interest in streaming services since they cost at least twice of what I pay per year in music. But iTunes radio as a channel of inspiration and source for new music I want.

 

[antman2x2]

So im supposed to pay for the subscription, and than pay for more data?

Im sorry but as long as set data plans are still around I will NOT be part of any subscription music service, my 2GB data plan is more than enough for my simple web surfing and instagram pulls when im not home, but if I were to start steaming the amount of music I listen to, I would easily need a 20GB data plan.

No thank you.

UNLESS, I'm wrong and apple would figure out some way to get around the data caps for their service. But that's impossible.

 

[Patriot24]

Perhaps new music is not worth buying, and streaming the latest "disposable hits" are what people would rather do.

Every generation believes that the music they listened to was the last great batch of artists/songs and that everything that comes after is lackluster and not worthy of purchase/consumption. It is a weak, tired argument.

 

[Elvergun]

ugh just goes to show how little people these days care about music. I want to OWN the music i listen to and just have my albums as always

Me too...and I also subscribe to Spotify.

Spotify is great for discovering new artists (which might lead to a purchase of an album or song)...and to hear groups from yesteryear.

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And they will be paying on a regular basis, like month-to-month, year after year, forever/indefinitely, or until they stop paying for the service, whichever comes first…

… at which point the music becomes silent.

Yeah...just like many people pay for HBO month-to-month, year after year, until they stop paying for the service...at which point the movies and shows are gone.