The Problem with Music Live Stream

#17

Mat Dryhurst’s take made me lol

#18

yeah agreed, the archive is one of the better things for me as well. i mean even fisheye lens camera at decks and radio shows are amazing if the content is good. all that matters is the music or the story/show/new use of the medium that is now our new normal. lots of people are going to suck at it, and they should be ridiculed.

#19

resident advisor just launched a listings page for live streams here: https://www.residentadvisor.net/events/streamland

#20

Holy shit that’s interesting. It will be crazy to see the scene get flattened like this temporarily. It seems like clubs (like Nowadays NYC), radio stations (Rinse), charities, etc are positioning themselves as platforms and booking DJ’s, but for the first time they’re all in the same list.

#21

woah. yeah thats crazy. the new normal, everybody is boiler room.

#22

With all this garbage being thrown at us at the same time, why don’t they do another Redbull Academy type content since that stopped and many people liked it? I’m sure we’re all sick of seeing the same DJs DJ for an hour in front of a camera. I would really love to hear some of the stories of how people got into music and where they are today specially from the newer generations.

#23

Totally, let’s get some lore and stories rather than just “here’s what I put together this morning, I’m stressed you’re stressed let’s heal”

#24

I already feel overwhelmed with the amount of livestreams to choose from. I think people in this and the radio thread have made a really good point in that the ones that stick out the most are where it feels live and in the moment and there’s some sort of dialogue between people at home and the person doing the stream. The Badu thing was great in that it had the feel of a private concert round her house, but it’s difficult for everyone to get this atmosphere.

I could really take or leave a webcam pointed at some decks with someone bopping behind it, at this point.

#25

@nickecks @spceboi

Willie Burns has you covered on the interviews front. For me, has been a perfect compliment to the RBMA archives and the timing could not be better:

Edit: and the parallels between the discussion points between willie and his guests and the “scene is not worth saving” thread is insane. they are having the same discussion; that basically a real scene revolves around IRL social networks and relationships and networks or promoters, peoples houses to stay at, record stores, etc.

#26

To me, I think this might be the actual issue. It’s more of a content overload issue in general. Livestreams exacerbate it because they are low effort compared to composing an album or recording a mix, posting it with art and a description, etc. Like @spceboi alluded to here:

Livestreams (and the recordings thereof) allow people to dumptruck hours and hours and hours of mostly meaningless reconfigurations of the same tunes onto the internet with very little resistance. It’s exhausting.

There feels like there is a threshold of how many releases, mixes, and livestreams a person can be expected to keep track of much less actually listen to/consume. IMO we are WAY beyond that threshold at the moment.

#27

Anyone care to enlighten an old man, what a boiler room set really means these days?
First time I heard it, I just guessed it meant just that. A set played on shitty gear in the middle of the party where you where at. (an old boiler room) Guess it speaks for being too old, but thats how I remember most good parties, either behind the decks or blazing in the corner . . .

Now boiler room points to a brand?
(mainly the one popping up everywhere with the lame logo?)

#28

Yeah, basically. Started off as a loose group of friends in tiny club spaces/rehearsal rooms/etc in London just doing it for fun with a webcam pointed at it, and got moulded into an international brand with a huge Youtube presence that is present at pretty much every festival nowadays.

#29

the other day i streamed a set over silent footage from the first bionicle movie for a local collective and it was just rlly fun! get abt twenty ppl watching on twitch & u can have a nice little chat, i recommend it

#30

The latest “First Floor” newsletter from Shawn Reyenaldo has a different take on this:

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch (which is owned by Amazon)… these are all multibillion-dollar corporations, and the livestream-related infrastructure, norms and relationships that artists establish with them now are bound to carry over into the post-coronavirus world. If nothing changes, the music industry going to be locked into another system where tech companies are growing their platforms and raking in profits while paying very little to the artists whose content fuels their success. Musicians are already dangerously short on potential revenue streams; do they really want to surrender another one so quickly? […]To be clear, I’m not against livestreams.

Personally I think when traditional licensing models get involved the artists still get screwed (Spotify is “compliant”) and the user experience gets worse (Mixcloud free is so damn frustrating to use with all the limitations). But an interesting take nonetheless.

#31

control your medium, platform and venue, control your revenue. its possible to have 2/3 of the equation with a dedicated server and website performing from your house. promoting it, however, requires the corporate FBIGYTTwitch assholes…we’re nearly there, its possible.

#32

Yeah, this is the issue I have with it. Livestreaming definitely feels like some sort of easy solution to not being able to play/go to live shows, but all the platforms artists use/are forced to use are still within the framework of corporations (or Boiler Room, which is near enough one). Any alternative requires time, energy, money vs just plugging into Youtube or Facebook live.

#33

yeah, i understand now.

Honestly I haven’t watched any music livestreams at all since quarantine, mostly it’s just been listening to my favorite music on youtube / soundcloud / bandcamp, etc., just the usual stuff I normally listen to already.

It’s crazy how incredibly oversaturated livestreams became all of a sudden, no doubt why. For better or for worse, livestreaming has changed permanently as a medium, just like Soundcloud. I remember from a tweet by Mr. Mitch that soundcloud used to be a place where people would post drafts and ideas without a thought about audiences, and now it’s a place for incessant self-promotion.

#35

Thanks for the tip, I didn’t realise! :+1:

#36

Another part of this discussion is the continued issue that producers make shit money, whereas DJ’s are building their profile playing other people’s music and perhaps getting tips for livestreams, etc.

Shawn Reyenaldo did an interview with Mixcloud Live, which attempts to tackle this by scanning the mixes with content ID in an attempt to pay out fees to producers.

At least they are trying to do something!

#37

This is so smart. I love the idea that producers can get paid every time a DJ plays out a track of theirs.

It’s absolutely wild that highly billed festival DJs like, I dunno, Denis Sulta or Peggy Gou or whoever are getting probably five to six figure fees by essentially utilising someone else’s labour and there’s no kickback to the people actually making the music.