Ted Gioia: prediction

Transcript context

…Is the advent of streaming for music a net gain or a net loss for the quality of music? Not counting convenience of the listener, but just the quality of the music. Don’t they now put all the good stuff in the first 30 seconds of the song? Well, that’s right. You have to have people hold on for a few seconds in order for you to get your royalty from the stream, so people have actually changed how they compose music to match the technology. But I will say, that’s always been the case to some extent. I do believe every kind of new technology changes how people sing and perform. If you go back into the 1920s, the first really advanced microphones were developed, and this allowed people to sing differently. All of a sudden, Bing Crosby comes along. He can use these new microphones, and he can sing at a very whispery, conversational voice, which is very expressive. So if you compare, for example, recordings made in 1925 with 1935, a completely different way of singing took place. We’re going through the same thing right now. People are singing differently to prosper on streaming sites. I don’t think that bothers me as much as the economic impact of streaming and also just the impact on sound quality with the compressed sound. In fact, I would say that music is the only form of entertainment in which the technology has gotten worse during my lifetime. I go to movies now, and it’s this big screen and surround sound. Video games put the Pong that I used to play to shame. TV is so good, it’s being called a golden age of television. But in music, most of us listen to songs on these lousy handheld devices. Most people in my generation had better sound systems as teenagers than they do now. That worries me more than the whole idea of how songs are written. I’m really concerned about the technology lessening the whole listening experience. Why has music been special in this regard? You can still buy an audiophile sound system, but it seems fewer people are interested.…

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