# Do we need to redefine "recorded music"?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bloomberg: "Streaming music is officially a bigger business than physical music sales in the U.S. for the first time, according to new data released today by the Recording Industry Association of America. If current trends continue, streaming will surpass digital download sales as the biggest single source of revenue for the music industry by next year."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ng-music-passes-physical-sales-for-first-time


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Unless it's a live performance, streaming music offers the same recording you can hear from a download or CD. The delivery mechanism may be different from the source is the same. I listen to all three.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

For some reason, streaming seems to be unfriendly to classical music. Per a Neilsen Music report last year, classical music was 2.8% of sales of physical media and downloads, but only 0.5% of paid streams. Not sure why this is, but maybe somebody here does or at least can speculate.

Per these figures, the growth in streaming may not augur well for the future of the classical music recording industry.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Per these figures, the growth in streaming may not auger well for the future of the classical music recording industry.


That would assume that an overall contraction in the size of record industry sales is directly correlated with a corresponding contraction in sales of classical music. Isn't it also possible that many who would have bought CDs or downloads are switching over to streaming instead, rather than some portion of the classical music market dropping out entirely in the shuffle?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I don't understand your comment. A general shift to a medium with a lower volume of CM revenues, given an unchanged size of the overall market, suggests hard times for CM. Obviously the buyers of CM CDs and downloads are not shifting to streaming, or the percentage of paid CM streams would reflect that.


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## Musicophile (May 29, 2015)

The biggest issue of streaming for classical music is meta tagging. Try to find a specific work is just a nightmare, as the entire "album" concept never made sense for classical music in the first place. Plus often the composer is tagged as artist, or other shortcuts that don't really make sense.

Beyond that, the artist really doesn't make enough money from streaming only. 

I love streaming to discover new releases but it will never be my only source.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I suspect the entire concept of music streaming fits a lifestyle of listening to short pieces of music on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Music would be considered disposable in this scenario. Not that you couldn't sit down and listen to a whole symphony, but that just doesn't seem to fit the medium somehow.

Of course I could be totally washed up on this. It's happened before!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I think it's just an age thing. Classical music listeners tend to be older, and streaming music listeners tend to be younger.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

(to Ken) Who is 'we', white man?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

As I made my transition to streaming music (not entirely complete, but) I shifted towards classical music. From my CDs maybe a fifth of my collect was classical; I probably listen to classical music around two-thirds of my streaming time.

I was starting to realize that I didn't need to own fifteen different performances of a symphony on CD because I wouldn't replay the newer ones much. But with streaming music I'm thrilled to be able to listen to many different performances of a piece if I get in that mood. So I'm able to easily explore new performers, conductors, orchestras. 

The same with composers. In addition to multiple copies of the standard canon I also have so much access to composers I'd never or rarely hear on the radio or in concert.

Some of this applies to other styles of music as well, but, for me, it turns out when the amount of music available to me increases by a ridiculous amount what I choose classical music more frequently than anything else.


This is of course just an anecdote and I don't really have answers for why classical doesn't seem to do as well on streaming.


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## Guest (Sep 29, 2015)

Ukko said:


> (to Ken) Who is 'we', white man?


I saw this and laughed - wonder how many people have heard that joke to know that punchline. My dad used to tell it.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I like to stream to explore new music but it's always on a computer where I do not do most of my listening. Most of my listening is done in the car these days because I have an hour drive to work and then back home again. I don't have unlimited data so it does me no good in the car. I'm sure I will continue to use my CD rips that are on my iPod for many years, as well as the fact that most of my collection isn't available on any streaming service anyway.


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## Guest (Sep 29, 2015)

Thanks to my new cars having USB ports, I put my music on USB drives and plug them in. I can get numerous CDs worth of music on one drive, and leave the CDs at home, where they effectively serve as a hard copy archive.

I stream very little - I have Spotify on my phone, but don't use it as much. At work, when I listen to music, it is either on my iPod, if I am mobile, or off of my iTunes library if I am at my desk.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I generally work from home; currently Sokolov's performance of the Diabelli Variations is streaming from my phone, which is plugged into my stereo so I get good sound.

I recently was gone for a while and off-lined a bunch of music from Spotify, and switched off between that and the mp3s on my phone. This was much what I would do when I would commute by bus. I'm not sure what I would do if I went back to driving; though I'm sure I'd look for a stereo that had a line-in and/or a USB port. I don't think I'd be as stuck on playing mp3 CDs like I used until 4 years ago.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I cannot stream at work easily and I do a lot of my listening at work and on the bike ride home. I also enjoy the more intuitive randomizing and playlist options available when you "own" the files. 

But recorded music is recorded regardless of how it's delivered.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I'm not keen on streaming, since I like to choose what I hear. Even YT's autoplay function usually gets switched off. I like to scan the side panel and choose what grabs me.

If I may speculate, I think more classical listeners are like me: they know what they want to hear and they don't like being spoonfed a stream of whatever.


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