Month: July 2025

SPOTIFY IS HORRIBLE

Hearing Things is done with Spotify; “we will no longer be making playlists on Spotify or linking to the platform.”

Also, “Don’t publish your podcast only on Spotify“

“Spotify uses dark patterns to make it difficult to distribute podcasts hosted on its platform to rival apps.”

Just because streaming music is convenient doesn’t mean it’s great.

The idea that it helps bands get discovered is one thing, sure, but is handing over music discovery to computer algorithms a good idea? And then what? The band gets a zillion listens and makes $12?

STOP PRAYING TO ALGORITHMS

I see this so much on Substack Notes: “I wish the algorithm…”

STOP! Stop wishing a computer in the cloud is going to deliver your new favorite band, some cool new writer – the algorithim can only process 1s and 0s, and by doing so turns all “content” into 1s and 0s, so just stop with this belief that if only the algorithm were better you’d be able to know about better stuff.

It’s all bullshit. Don’t rely on computers to discern editorial quality, or help you discover.

Don’t let AI take these jobs of editors, curators, DJs, writers, and various other conveyors of taste and fine art.

Via Stephen Moore’s Trend Mill:

“A lot of people seem to actually enjoy AI-generated content, and are ready to eat up more. We should have seen that coming. There’s a simple explanation — too many people have become so lost in platforms, so dictated to by algorithms, ‘for you’ feeds and suggested content, that we’re collectively losing our taste.”

Everything has been reduced to bits. Cleaned up, covered with a vanilla scent, and optimized to keep you tied into whatever platform you think is somehow “good.”

Friends are filters. People are guides. Pick up something in print that still requires some editorial discernment, or find your local college radio station. Email the writers of the newsletters you like. Go find some blogs again.

Moore is right, we’re collectively losing our taste, and we’re become helpless babies being spoon fed whatever media someone else wants us to consume.

FAT WRECK CHORDS SELLS CATALOG, WIPE OUT BAND DEBT

I’m not much of a punk rock guy, but I know this is pretty cool.

As part of the sale, all bands on Fat that are “in debt” to the label, will have their debt wiped out. That is, if a band had an advance that was not yet recouped, that balanced owed is zeroed, so that if the band sells a single royalty at Hopeless, they will begin earning royalties immediately. (Often when a band signs with an independent label, the expense of record production is granted as an “advance.” When the band’s music earns money, the money earned is first counted against the advance. So, a band usually does not earn any money until the advance is paid back through royalties earned on record sales).

Even more interesting is that Erin and Mike essentially paid off the debts themselves. That is, say the cost of Hopeless buying Fat was valued at $100. In this sale, Hopeless only paid $80 to Erin and Mike, due to the fact that Erin and Mike required that band debt be wiped out upon the sale. As far as record label sales, this is a rather monumental and magnanimous move on the part of Erin and Mike. In fact, the debt forgiveness cost Erin and Mike about $3.5 million.

via Punk News

THERE’S ANOTHER WAY

“But what if there’s another way? We’re clearly starving for something different online. A 19-minute ambient song with a static image of a whale has 3.1M views on YouTube – people choosing to spend nearly 20 minutes with literally nothing happening while the rest of the platform optimises for peak stimulation. This is evidence of a deep hunger for ‘digital quiet’. Online spaces that offer contemplation instead of consumption.”

This from “The Restaurant with No Music” by Simon James French.

He also linked to this Google Doc called ‘Ambient-ish music to do work to,’ with all sorts of links to playlists and albums and.. Plants.fm??

That’s right – there’s a device you can buy called Plant Wave.

“PlantWave measures biological changes within plants, graphs them as a wave and translates the wave into pitch.

With PlantWave, every single note you hear is a real-time expression of a shift in a plant. The more active a plant is at any particular moment, the more notes you’ll hear. When a plant is less active, it will often drone or even stop producing notes.”

I literally just want to hook one of these up to a plant next to a creek, set up my camera, and take a nap for an hour.