The Classical Cloud

September 21, 2014 12:20 PM

Alex Ross on The Classical Cloud.

Here is a link to the Ionarts website mentioned in the article. (There are a lot of previously's for Alex Ross - you're on your own.)

posted by wittgenstein (21 comments total)

The last half of this article, where Ross does what Ross does best (write about pieces of music), is, in Ross fashion, wonderful. No living person writes more eloquently about classical music performances, performers and composers than Alex Ross.

That said, I think his criticisms about classical music on Spotify are more or less the same criticisms that apply to Spotify generally, with the exception of the very true observation that how classical music is catalogued on Spotify is profoundly chaotic and annoying (helped by some of the pretty good classical apps on Spotify, especially the incredible Ulysses Classical). Spotify is bad generally for artists, and that extends perhaps even more profoundly to the classical market, as classical music is less in demand and has generally has less touring appeal (where rock musicians can still make a buck).

I do kind of get the aesthetic appeal of being able to thumb through your CDs, but I also found keeping thousands of CDs around to be really annoying as they are very prone to scratching and melting and, imo, lack the same sort of physical presence that an actual book does (the smell, the underlining, the notes, etc.), and a few years ago I transferred all of my CDs to hard drives. But to each his own on that front for sure. I just don't want Ross to become the Lethem of CDs.

But in any case, thanks for the link. Wouldn't have seen this otherwise, and I could probably read Alex Ross write about cucumbers.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:55 PM on September 21, 2014 [4 favorites]

When I moved over a decade ago I sold my collection of CDs for the cash, having been a (relatively) early adopter of digital music. Everything had been ripped in long before it was offered for sale. And over the years a few friends and I amassed a sizable, shared digital library (all from our former CDs, no pirated music, swear) which is now terabytes in size and ripped in a high bit rate. I also became a regular Pandora listener (and still am). But as I started listening to more and more jazz, blues and classical, the lack of liner notes and additional material nagged at me. I also discovered, to my surprise, that lossless did make a noticeable difference to me (I often listen over good headphones) over what I had accepted as a high bit rate.

So recently I have found myself starting to selectively buy CDs again. And really re-expose myself to music I haven't really listened to critically for years. Decades, even. Perhaps I am just of an age that handling an "album," whether vinyl or CD, feels right and good. Perhaps I can only best understand an album as a project, or as something beyond a collection of songs or pieces of music. The act of taking down an album of any kind of music, putting it on, sitting back and listening to it out loud or on headphones, as a discreet act, has become a wonderful thing again.

I will add that Ross' thoughts, which he has expressed on many occasions, about supporting smaller labels that are perhaps more common in classical and jazz, is to my knowledge an accurate one, and if my buying CDs helps them, then cheers.
posted by buffalo at 1:39 PM on September 21, 2014 [5 favorites]

I thought this would be about the Universal watermark, which adds a noticeable 'flutter' to a lot of classical recordings on labels like Decca and Deutsche Grammophon. I think they've stopped adding it to new files, but it's still there on ones added before 2013. I'd love to know more details though.
posted by rollick at 1:55 PM on September 21, 2014 [5 favorites]

He'a right about artist fairness. The streaming services aren't charging anywhere near enough money for their subscriptions - Spotify and Slacker are each around $10 for commercial-free offline playlists. They can do this because they are screwing over artists, usually with the blessing of the media conglomerates. I'd raise an unholy ruckus if I were a terrestrial or satellite broadcaster who had to compete with that.
posted by Slap*Happy at 2:15 PM on September 21, 2014

I amassed a sizable, shared digital library (all from our former CDs, no pirated music, swear)

Sounds like a case of unauthorized duplication to me
posted by thelonius at 2:16 PM on September 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

Streaming and cloud-based media buying (like Amazon Instant Video) also suffers from navigation/search interfaces that range from awful to face-meltingly awful. Browsing these online repositories never has the simplicity of browsing the racks of a video store, I'm presuming because computers rather than humans are arranging the virtual shelves.

Netflix is at least making an effort with its genre-crafting algorithms ("Zany Fight-the-System Documentaries with Ensemble Cast").

Like most things on the web, finding what you already know you want is easier than "discovery."

You know what would be cool? Personalized recommendation services. Live chat where you tell a qualified human nerd what you like and they make suggestions--just like they used to have at the record shop and the video rental place...

I think I'd pay money for that.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 2:36 PM on September 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm now listening to that Leon Fleischer on Beats Music. And he's right; the Bach is sublime.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:03 PM on September 21, 2014

Paul Morley's classical picks. From The Guardian.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:07 PM on September 21, 2014

Very thoughtful article but at the same time, people like me are way way more likely to listen to classical music in like a radio station sort of way on Spotify or Pandora than we are to ever buy a CD. Pennies it may be, but it's more than the publishing companies are getting now from pop fans right?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:55 PM on September 21, 2014

I quite like Alex Ross and am looking forward to reading this.
posted by Nevin at 4:03 PM on September 21, 2014

Streaming and cloud-based media buying (like Amazon Instant Video) also suffers from navigation/search interfaces that range from awful to face-meltingly awful.

Yeah...I've never found browsing music on iTunes or any of the other online outlets to be anything close to enjoyable as browsing an actual rack of discs in a store. There's much less a sense of discovery, I guess. In any case, my music purchasing has certainly declined radically in the past decade or two.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:28 PM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

You know what would be cool? Personalized recommendation services. Live chat where you tell a qualified human nerd what you like and they make suggestions--just like they used to have at the record shop and the video rental place...

Libraries still try to do this, and often do it very well, though I will admit that you're kinda rolling the dice when you ask about atonal modern composition instead of John Grisham or Captain Underpants or something.
posted by box at 5:04 PM on September 21, 2014

I keep my Schwann Catalog right on top of my copy of The New Yorker.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:23 PM on September 21, 2014

There sure is a lot of classical on youtube. http://peggo.co/ is a pretty clean downloader.
posted by sammyo at 5:40 PM on September 21, 2014

So, if your song gets played on Spotify a MILLION TIMES, and they accurately account for all the plays, and they actually pay you in an honest, timely fashion, and if someone else, like a publishing company or an agent or a record label, doesn't own up to 50% of your royalties, you get... $200.00. This isn't a business model, it's really just corporate robbery.

And to my ears, it sounds like crap, even compared to a reasonably compressed file, like a 256 or 320 kbps AAC. Classical, especially, with the dynamic range & subtleties would suffer worse than highly compressed & brick-walled pop music over streaming services.

I'm not a huge Classical listener, but I like some audio integrity, and the royalty models, or lack thereof, with streaming services is just something I can't even implicitly condone by partaking of them.


just like they used to have at the record shop and the video rental place...

There are still record shops and video renal places a person can go to, if those things are important to you.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:47 PM on September 21, 2014 [4 favorites]

Video renal? But they only have the pissiest stuff! running away
posted by JHarris at 6:30 PM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

I probably never would have listened to Eduard Tubin if it wasn't for Spotify. I found some music on the recommendation of somebody else online, but there's far too much of that around to listen to everything. Plus I have never seen any Tubin in a physical store. Of course Amazon, etc. have plenty of Tubin but I had never heard any Tubin - I have also never heard Tubin on the radio - so I would be going in near blind.

Spotify is also getting better on labeling of classical recordings. Lutoslawski mentioned Ulysses Classical; the person behind that now works for Spotify and some of what they have been doing is seeing that the data gets cleaned up, adding composers to the tags. And when that all fails there's still Discogs and All Music.

I wish Spotify paid out more but I have no idea how to make that happen. Take it (and similar outlets) away and we're stuck with the miserable selection of radio, wasting money on near-blind purchases and finding about music by hearing it live (if there are orchestras near you that play a good variety of music).

I have a pile of CDs and records and they're great but they're much more of a pain to listen to and if I'm going to take the time to sit with the liner notes or libretto I can find similar (and oftentimes better) information online (apart the exceedingly rare stuff as Ross mentions; which, again, no one would know if it weren't for it being on YouTube).
posted by mountmccabe at 6:48 PM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Streaming and cloud-based media buying (like Amazon Instant Video) also suffers from navigation/search interfaces that range from awful to face-meltingly awful.

Yes, and searching for classical music in particular makes you *wish* your face was melting. You really can't expect streaming services like Pandora or Spotify to spend a lot of time on the .1% of their audience that wants to search on "Kreutzer Sonata" rather than "Blurred Lines" or "Blonde on Blonde", and I can't imagine any venture capitalists stepping up to fund Classify.
posted by uosuaq at 7:16 PM on September 21, 2014

I've found that searching by the performer/conductor is best. So I don't search for Chopin, I search for Ashkenazy or whatever.
posted by persona au gratin at 7:43 PM on September 21, 2014

He somehow doesn't mention (possibly doesn't even know about?) DRAM? The greatest thing since sliced bread?
posted by kenko at 8:49 PM on September 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

I was going to note that DRAM is inaccessible to most people but looking into it I see that things have changed and one can donate and get individual access. So, um, wow. Awesome.
posted by mountmccabe at 7:59 AM on September 22, 2014