They do in as far as Spotify democratises music … but we should not conflate popularity with quality, ability or creative control. A smartphone camera can be good for many uses, social gatherings and photographing the family dog and is easier to use than the old digital cameras or instamatic cameras before that… just like Spotify means I have more choice than listening to the radio.
Interestingly there is a new app for the later iPhones that disables the huge amount of AI processing that is applied to iPhone images to make them look ‘nice’ in all nearly all environments albeit with that slight artificial look (which tend to look great on social media as it makes them pop in small images). The end result is more what you actually see is what you get… and allows you to create the image you want rather than what the phones thinks you want… but you need to think more about the capture but have far more control …and it also shows the limitations of the iPhone camera … I am sure we can draw parallels with audio… But the average person is not interested in this I am sure… it’s mostly going to be an about creating a photo for social media or your phone photo library of memories.
Is the average person going to be bothered with the PRaT/immersive listening experience of Spotify from their smart speaker - I suspect not.
I suspect young people don’t go to listen to the bands your friends are in. In this part of the world I live music with young people is very healthy… it’s the oldies you don’t tend to see. Mid fifties I sometimes feel one of the older in the audience…
What is super healthy is that musical festivals of all sorts (and I am not talking Glasto here) are more popular than they used to be in my unscientific evaluation and are popular for people of all ages - Yes it took a real battering in the Pandemic - but seems to be largely recovering…
This year seems to be a challenging one, I’ve seen a figure of 35 mid-size festivals closing this year (either no ‘24 festival or this year was their last. Towersey Folk Festival and Kate Rusby’s NY Moors ones are the two I know.
From a comment from Mark Raggett at the factory recently Muso and Uniti each account for about 30% of revenue, the other 40ish% being made up of the separates ranges and accessories.
I’ve seen the same Eoin. We seemed to have hit peak ‘festival’ just before COVID. When lockdown ended there was an obvious rush but the cost of living crisis has made it difficult for festivals to make a profit. The big ones such as Glastonbury, Latitude etc can put their ticket prices up and still sell tickets. However, this is not true for some small/medium sized festivals and they have gone under or are calling it a day after this summer
With regard to HiFi and the younger generation; I believe it represents a cultural shift in how music is consumed. I think one way of understanding this is to think about “mobility”. It all started with the Sony Walkman.
Before that I’d say - with battery powered cassette recorders that you could hang round your shoulder. The Christmas gift at age 7 that started me down this path
I guess you’re right - I carried mine around everywhere - lasted me up to mid secondary school and I built a fair old collection of tapes. When I was later working with twin sync’d Studer A800 2-inch studio machines running at 30ips … I blamed it all on that little Bush portable
You have brought back some good old memories. I started with one of those battery powered cassette recorders when I was 10 or so and would record music from that chart show the BBC used to have on Sundays (maybe still does!). I just stuck the recorder next to the radio. I used to do the recording in the kitchen because my room faced the railway.
…on this thread, for me the biggest upgrade of my musical life. The Sony Walkman simply blew away every memory of those old ITT cassette recorders which did such good service.
Yup, until I discovered hifi, my music was brought to me by a trusty Sony Walkman for my walks to and from school and around town, and a Sony “Mega Bass” ghetto blaster with high speed dubbing.
During this time, there was just one room away some very proper hifi which I had no interest in; didn’t know it was any good; and sorely regret getting rid of. It sat in that room rarely used and poorly set up for the best part of a decade. Poor thing.
I think I had a Philips portable cassette player for walking about. I had a gramophone radio/record player in my room. I went big at around 18 with a Rega 3, A60, Arcam CD player, a pretty average TEAC cassette player and AR speakers. I had those until I bought a tuner in my 40’s then new Qute2 in my 50’s. It’s all been downhill from there
