Some people get very, um, engaged with the universe of sound they wish to live in and have much stronger opinions about that than, say, world hunger. It directly impacts their experienced quality of life, and is one of the few cultural constants they retain over the course of their entire life. Lovers, employment, friends come and go but the music remains. I may be one of them myself. Profanity generally results when it is mucked around with. Count yourself lucky the opinion was expressed as mildly as it was.
I will not permit a company/algorithm to directly determine what I want to hear. I’m old enough to know about the Payola scams with radio DJs to trust anyone with that authority.
My solution: buy CDs or vinyl, find a group of like-minded friends to share music recommendations (email newsletters would work, perhaps even…physical interaction), read music journalism, buy music online and build your personal library. Just the music on my hard drive, all directly and legally purchased, would play continuously half a year without repeats.
I use/used the Apple iTunes others-have-bought recommendations for tracks related to tracks I’d purchase. Invaluable for discovering alternative artists by someone who is nowhere near the target age demographic for that sort of music. And you buy the flippin’ track and you know the artist/rights holder is directly getting a reasonable number of pennies from that transaction.
Worst case — buy CDs and get a CD changer. New ones are still being sold. You can still get the 300-400 CD units used. No fans are more rabid than classical music fans, and they are still ecstatically buying huge boxed sets of CDs. They are expecting to listen to these tracks for decades, and there is wisdom there.
I will not permit a company/algorithm to directly determine what I want to hear. I’m old enough to know about the Payola scams with radio DJs to trust anyone with that authority.
My solution: buy CDs or vinyl, find a group of like-minded friends to share music recommendations (email newsletters would work, perhaps even…physical interaction), read music journalism, buy music online and build your personal library. Just the music on my hard drive, all directly and legally purchased, would play continuously half a year without repeats.
I use/used the Apple iTunes others-have-bought recommendations for tracks related to tracks I’d purchase. Invaluable for discovering alternative artists by someone who is nowhere near the target age demographic for that sort of music. And you buy the flippin’ track and you know the artist/rights holder is directly getting a reasonable number of pennies from that transaction.
Worst case — buy CDs and get a CD changer. New ones are still being sold. You can still get the 300-400 CD units used. No fans are more rabid than classical music fans, and they are still ecstatically buying huge boxed sets of CDs. They are expecting to listen to these tracks for decades, and there is wisdom there.