73 replies to this topic

[ipickert55]

I noticed we didn't have a thread about music here, kinda interested in what y'all listen to.

Currently, I am listening to an album called In Return by ODESZA, possibly one of the best albums I've ever heard.

[Frigidman™]

I have multiple Pandora stations I listen too depending on mood or situation. Been a year-long subscriber since they began... but I may be changing providers if something better comes along. I mean, what other thing allows me to run 24/7 uninterrupted music that pulls by a 'feel' rather than absolutes?

So 'right now' I'm on the "Techno Funk Diddy" station. Basically a lot of stuff that is deep and rhythmic, and quite electronic sounding.

Disclaimer:

I do not know the names of almost anyone, nor the names of any song, and definitely never the names of albums. I simply do not care 'who' 'what' 'why'. If my ears like what is going in, then the song is AOK in my book. If the song hits the moment, then its awesome.

Also, I could never tell you any lyrics of songs. To me, due to growing up among music majors and professionals, the voice is simply another instrument in an entire piece. If that instrument sounds bad or detracts from the overall song, then... the song sucks. Kind of like how trying to a nice melody of piano, and a kid starts banging trashcan lids together. Same effect.

[Janichsan]

The latest album from Therapy?, some older stuff from Ulme and "Minus the Machine" from 10 Years are on heavy rotation for me at the moment.

I'm also currently taking the radio stations of the new Apple Music for a spin. "Alternative" and "Rock" pretty much were a dud. "Hard Rock" seems to work for me, though.

[Frigidman™]

Is Apple Music 'curated' by a human, or a machine, or do they just lump any ole popsnizzle together because it happens to be flagged as a certain genre?

[the Battle Cat]

Right this second I'm listening to L'Etoile Entr'actes by Emmanuel Chabrier.

[Janichsan]

Frigidman™, on 02 July 2015 - 08:46 AM, said:

Is Apple Music 'curated' by a human, or a machine, or do they just lump any ole popsnizzle together because it happens to be flagged as a certain genre?

The radio stations are (allegedly) actually curated by knowledgeable people. At least so far, I hadn't any weird artist choices within the selected genres, like what the Genius mixes sometimes come up with.

[Frigidman™]

Pandora is really odd in how it does it, which is what puts some people off initially. From the start, you just begin with a single song to create a station. Then, based on how you want that station to feel, you either say 'yup' or 'nope' on early songs it plays. It starts to build a "DNA Match" based off those + -, and finds other songs close to the DNA, and injects them.

Once in a blue moon it will throw something in that is like where did THAT come from... just to see if you want it on the station, or it was simply off the mark. However I noticed the older a station gets, the fewer random oddballs pop up.

One thing that I absolutely hate about Pandora, is the innability to globally say "NO 'Live' MUSIC". I have no patience for that kind of auditory ear rape, and absolutely hate when it pulls up a 'Live' version of anything. Sadly I have to thumb it down fast, and extra sadly, it then decides that I dont like that song, or DNA string, and starts to alter the station accordingly. It doesnt just realize "hay, this guy hates Live music... lets remove that value from the seed criteria!".

I think next year when my sub is due, I will write in again and say "Hay guys... if you want to keep me as the life time subscriber I have been, you really need to add a global filter option for certain things, starting with that Live music crap.".

[Janichsan]

Frigidman™, on 02 July 2015 - 09:07 AM, said:

Pandora is really odd in how it does it, which is what puts some people off initially. From the start, you just begin with a single song to create a station. Then, based on how you want that station to feel, you either say 'yup' or 'nope' on early songs it plays. It starts to build a "DNA Match" based off those + -, and finds other songs close to the DNA, and injects them.

The "For You" section from Apple Music works similar: you get to choose from iTunes (very broadly defined) genres, then from some well-known bands from these genres, and based on that, you get a bunch of recommended playlists and albums. You can then refine the recommendations by liking certain songs/albums/playlists (even from your own library), or mark recommended titles to be never played again. I can't really say yet, how well the recommendations become, since it's still a bit early.

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Once in a blue moon it will throw something in that is like where did THAT come from... just to see if you want it on the station, or it was simply off the mark. However I noticed the older a station gets, the fewer random oddballs pop up.

iTunes' Genius mixes and recommendations just remain pretty much random. Tin Machine does not play industrial, even if they have "Machine" in their band name, and no matter what, Rabbit Junk is not Mainstream Rock. Actually, nothing in the Mainstream Rock Genius mix I have is mainstream rock. Not Bauhaus, not And One, not VNV Nation, not The Merry Thoughts… I have no idea why iTunes even thinks any of the music I have is mainstream rock.

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One thing that I absolutely hate about Pandora, is the innability to globally say "NO 'Live' MUSIC". I have no patience for that kind of auditory ear rape, and absolutely hate when it pulls up a 'Live' version of anything. Sadly I have to thumb it down fast, and extra sadly, it then decides that I dont like that song, or DNA string, and starts to alter the station accordingly. It doesnt just realize "hay, this guy hates Live music... lets remove that value from the seed criteria!".

Last.fm has a similar problem, especially since they switched from their own music library to YouTube as source a few years back. There are so many crappy bootlegged live recordings filmed with a cell phone, it's just no fun. Fortunately, you can just skip such a track, without it becoming marked as disliked. Their recommendations are usually still excellent, though.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

I am listening to Frank Herberts Destination: Void. Not liking it so far. Too much random technobabble and Herbert style dreaming philosophical discussions.

[Frigidman™]

Seems I'm listening to the soundtrack of the secrete life of walter mitty. There was some good music in that movie.

[Sneaky Snake]

Does anyone else have the impression that Apple Music's UI is fraking terrible? Spotify, rdio, and other streaming apps are pretty easy to navigate, but with Apple Music it seems pretty hard to find what to listen to unless you know EXACTLY what you are looking for (eg: specific album), or you want to listen to their super general "radio" playlists/stations.

Having the whole iTunes library for $10/month is nice, but it feels like I'm battling the UI to actually do anything.

[Janichsan]

Sneaky Snake, on 03 July 2015 - 07:37 AM, said:

Does anyone else have the impression that Apple Music's UI is fraking terrible? Spotify, rdio, and other streaming apps are pretty easy to navigate, but with Apple Music it seems pretty hard to find what to listen to unless you know EXACTLY what you are looking for (eg: specific album), or you want to listen to their super general "radio" playlists/stations.

It's definitely not their best UI design, but so far, I found pretty much everything I wanted, from specific songs and albums to artists in general, simply by perusing the good old search box. Finding specific subgenres (e.g. "progressive doom metal") is usually less successful, due to Apple's very broad genre definitions. If there does not happen to be an appropriate playlist, you're out of luck. But Spotify is as bad in this regard as Apple Music…

[ipickert55]

For the record, I'd like to say that I haven't had a single problem with any of Apple's recent UI's. I know that I'm not the majority, I might even be the only one, but I feel like I should share it. In Apple Music I can find things pretty easily, and so far my recommendations in the "For You" section have been pretty spot on.

I just feel like sharing because I see a lot of hate towards this UI.

[DirtyHarry50]

I haven't messed with Apple's Music thingy yet. I am going to do the trial soon and listen to some stuff on my iTunes wish list fully. That'll be fun although I still intend to purchase it. Well, maybe. I guess if I really like this and can access anything on iTunes I should probably consider whether I really care about purchasing music versus renting it for $120. a year is it? I mean, that's only roughly a dozen albums cost to listen to anything you want whenever you want. I'm sure how I feel about that idea yet.

Anyway, the other day I bought Elton John's amazing 11-17-70 live album and cranked that up. Wow. What a kick ass performance that was and a great selection of tunes too, including stuff from his not yet released Tumbleweed Connection album. It also had a great tune from the Friends soundtrack and other good stuff, none of which were radio hits. I liked that. I noted that some purists were all upset that the iTunes release had been remixed by some heathen engineer who dared to add some reverb. I liked the sound myself. I don't like sterile sound. The whole point of playing in a good venue is the sound after all, the way it reverberates in the hall, etc.

This show was before a small audience and the three piece band of Elton on piano, Dee Murray on Bass and Nigel Olsson on drums gave an amazing performance. I like a lot of Elton's music but like so many bands for me, I like the earliest stuff the best.

I've been on a B-52s kick lately also. I used to raise holy hell with a bunch of friends out in the woods by the town pond in a small town in New England when those records were new. I love them. They are so crazy. It's great stuff. Rock Lobster, Legal Tender, Planet Claire, Party Out of Bounds, Private Idaho, Dance This Mess Around, Love Shack, Roam... Hell, yeah. Fabulous. The cool thing is I can actually remember all that fun despite my mental state at the time.

You know what would be cool? I don't know if the service supports this but if I could just flag all the albums I like them as I listen to them and then have them appear in a saved display just like my existing iTunes library of music I own but say under another tab to distinguish it as music I do not own. That would rock. It would make accessing everything I care about simple once I'd found it the first time. So, say I could go find every Joni Mitchell album, tag them all to be part of my "listening library" and then access is just as easy as what I already own is.

By the way, does anybody know what the bit rate of the streamed music is? I am assuming it cannot be lossless due to the bandwidth required for that so is it 256 kbps?

[macdude22]

DirtyHarry50, on 05 July 2015 - 04:07 PM, said:

I haven't messed with Apple's Music thingy yet. I am going to do the trial soon and listen to some stuff on my iTunes wish list fully. That'll be fun although I still intend to purchase it. Well, maybe. I guess if I really like this and can access anything on iTunes I should probably consider whether I really care about purchasing music versus renting it for $120. a year is it?

I thought I used to care, but I dunno. Over the years Netflix kind of changed my tune. I'm pretty much attached to a netflix subscription for my video needs for perpetuity. I used Spotify (premium) for about a year, I have been using RDIO Select for a few months now, which has been meeting my needs fine (I thought I might care about being able to pick anything anytime but the 25 downloads a day has been sufficient). I guess if I pay a few bucks a month for access to all the music, I'm ok with it. I brew my own coffee so I probably spend less on Rdio than your average starbucks nut does on coffee in a day. INTERNAL JUSTIFICATIONS.

I have not tried the Music app yet but I'll give it a whirl at some point. Apple's music application UI design hasn't been selling me the past few years though. And Rdio is on my Roku and Derple is not. One thing I like really like about Rdio is it has an ultra low bandwidth streaming option for cellular (you can differentiate between cellular and WiFi). So I can cheap out in the car but krankerup at home attached to the kitchen Tivoli.

[Sneaky Snake]

macdude22, on 06 July 2015 - 07:16 AM, said:

Apple's music application UI design hasn't been selling me the past few years though. And Rdio is on my Roku and Derple is not. One thing I like really like about Rdio is it has an ultra low bandwidth streaming option for cellular (you can differentiate between cellular and WiFi). So I can cheap out in the car but krankerup at home attached to the kitchen Tivoli.

After using Apple Music for a few days my initial comment is kind of off. The UI isn't amazing, but it works (and it's not like Spotify, Rdio, or Google Music have amazing UI's). I'm canceled my Spotify Premium sub, but will still be using Spotify Free. The sheer collection size of Apple Music is enough to draw me in.

I just re-watched Interstellar yesterday afternoon with the wife and realized how much I love the soundtrack. I hopped onto Apple Music and within 5 seconds saved the whole album to my iTunes library for offline use.

[Frigidman™]

$120 a year for music? ha... god, eff that. Here I thought Pandora's $36 a year for unlimited music of any kind was a bit much Guess I'll stick with Pandora... or try this Google Play Music thing... supposedly free. Which means I betcha it has effen commercials.

[Sneaky Snake]

Frigidman™, on 06 July 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

$120 a year for music? ha... god, eff that. Here I thought Pandora's $36 a year for unlimited music of any kind was a bit much Guess I'll stick with Pandora... or try this Google Play Music thing... supposedly free. Which means I betcha it has effen commercials.

I buy at least an album a month, so Apple Music pays for itself instantly.

[macdude22]

Frigidman™, on 06 July 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

$120 a year for music? ha... god, eff that. Here I thought Pandora's $36 a year for unlimited music of any kind was a bit much Guess I'll stick with Pandora... or try this Google Play Music thing... supposedly free. Which means I betcha it has effen commercials.

Pandora kinda started rurl sucking it up with adding anything that wasn't top 40 the past 5 years.

[Frigidman™]

Look in my eyes... do I give two popsnizzles what the general sheep of america think is 'good music' ... let alone 'top whatever'?

LOOK CLOSELY...



Ok, too close.