Jacob-

I know I’ve already voted but I wouldn’t be able to do tomorrow or Thursday so would love Semi 2!

^Ah, I just use a convertor on the Spotify playlist oop. :kink: I think it's right now?

Would love a semi 2 listenthrough tomorrow!

Omg that song is an absolute fave of mine, it needs to just win tbh.

Votes are in, nearly 11 hours early (unheard of I know x).

Thanks, found it and added it in!

I don't think it is more analogous to radio, rather an amalgamation of both radio and sales with a slant towards replacing sales, the primary factor being radio was chosen for you. I get your argument because playlists are chosen for you should one choose to use them, but you can listen to whatever you want on the platform at any time, which before streaming could only be done if you owned music (or recorded it off radio lul). The fact is now streaming music has replaced a HUGE chunk of sales, to the point real sales are negligible compared to previous levels. Before I caved and subbed to Apple Music I would still buy CDs rather than downloads a lot, not because I would play the CDs much or at all, but because one could get a CD at the same price as the mp3 download, and you could rip (higher quality) mp3s off the CDs anyway, and I had a physical souvenir. Other than the previously mentioned issue with tracks disappearing from stores, when mp3s are the only option it just doesn't make much sense from the consumer's point of view to not use streaming, the sub averages the cost of one album a month. The current model is necessary in the current climate, that's just the way that people want to consume content and it is really good for the consumer but it is exploitative for artists and it doesn't have to be. There are ways in which the pie could be divided more fairly. Fan clubs, Patreons, YouTube channels, social media presence - sure, all good ideas but not everyone can do that and that shouldn't devalue their art. Can you imagine someone like Nick Drake or Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel trying to become a "3D artist" in this day and age? Just because you're a great musician it shouldn't mean you should have to be great at marketing, PR, social media, all that shite and on top of that finding things to monetise other than music itself. Sure, it needs to be done and that's what labels, managers etc should be for but they all need to be paid too and you have the same problem with lack of income. Maybe it's the idealist in me but I feel that the art should be able to speak for itself. Well, Spotify wasn't that big in 2006 and didn't become what it is until the 2010s but I digress. The precursor was piracy which indicates the necessity for the streaming model. The thing is though, nothing or not much about the model from the consumer end needs to change, there's plenty of wiggle room on the other end, how the money from subscribers is actually divided.

Yeah it does irritate me when things just get taken down, I like Apple because it seamlessly blends with iTunes so I still have a load of bought music in the same place and I have things there you can't get on streaming platforms any more. On UBI, I couldn't agree more, I guess that's a different conversation to some extent but de-commercialising art would be fantastic. At the same time while there is money involved the system should still be fair across the board, even if everyone was on UBI it wouldn't be right to pay as little as streaming services do per play while the streaming services and labels are raking it in. On your other point with automation etc, AI art and AI music really does depress me. Why the hell is THAT what people have chosen to use AI for? Isn't it great that we've managed to automate things people live for so we have more time for our soul destroying meaningless jobs? :)

It's more that it's based on the number of streams from across the board rather than tracking per subscription. Let's say that someone paying £10.99 a month (so £11 for simplicity) for Spotify only listens to 110 different tracks over the month, each with only 1 listen. In a fair system, that's 10p a stream per track, directly going to the tracks the consumer is actually listening to (then it'd be split between label, platform, artist etc afterwards). As it stands the £10.99 goes into a big pot with the rest of the subscriptions, Spotify takes its cut (bigger than it should be) and distributes royalties based on total plays, so it doesn't matter that the £10.99 from that user is 50% unknown indie band X, that money will still go towards paying royalties for total numbers. You're not paying for the music you listen to, you're paying Spotify for the potential access to everything they could possibly have in their catalogue, then they split your money based on total popularity. It means there's no real direct support between consumer and artist, other than the (in the grand scheme of things) miniscule increases in plays. Look at it this way- you used to pay £9.99 for a new album or whatever but even as a superfan if you listened to that album 100 times over (10 tracks, 1000 plays), you've generated 3p for that artist. Of course the £9.99 would be before retailer, label etc but I guarantee that used to be more than 3p.

Both Amazon and Apple are marginally better on this I believe but I'm loathe to trust them (particularly Amazon) given their track records as corporations.

I'm sure we're all vaguely aware of this phenomenon but I saw this Guardian article today which really hit it home: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...indie-musicians Not only do Spotify barely pay artists (unless you're literally Taylor Swift) - 0.003p a stream, but starting from early next year they won't even be paying smaller artists at all if they don't get 1000 streams a year. Doesn't sound like much, but when you realise that's about 2/3rds of music on the platform that's a huge "saving" for the streaming giant. This alongside the imminent collapse of bandcamp (thanks Epic Games) makes me despair for the future of the industry- Bandcamp was one of the few places left where fans could choose to directly support artists. Musicians used to make the most money from recorded music, that collapsed due to the death of physical sales and the (necessary) rise of streaming, then it was supposed to be tours and live music, which collapsed over COVID and still hasn't fully recovered in many ways- not to mention tours are SO much more expensive for fans as a result, additionally there are huge costs involved in touring. Merch (including the semi revival of vinyl) is legitimately one of the few revenue streams left for many artists. Of course it wasn't perfect before, labels have always been predatory particularly towards young musicians... but it feels like you just can't win now, no one can just make a living in this climate unless you're really on the top end. I recently saw on social media the mid-level moderately successful band Meadowlark (multiple BJSC artist, some of you may know them) are splitting up and I 100% believe it's partly because of the climate, even saw it in one of Kate McGill's posts on discord: On a personal level, I would’ve loved to work in the frontline of this industry but a big reason I went into a stable job in education as a technician with a salary was the state of it right now, it’s so unstable for anyone but people right at the top. But there aren't many alternatives, we can't just not use streaming services. This is one of the reasons I use Apple Music, it pays artists better- certainly not well enough, it's marginally less exploitative, but all of the streaming giants have the same problems at their core. I suppose the reason I post this here is we're all music fans, Spotify wrapped has just come out which puts a spotlight on this again and we all like stats etc, but can we do anything as consumers? Pressure from fans to create a fairer system where plays directly translate on an individual level from listener to artist? "Democratisation" of the industry is all well and good until you realise that if you can't make a living from music, smaller artists, particularly those at the low-mid level will start to die out, you just can't sustain a career and there's only so much a musician can output if they're putting all their time into an unrelated full time job. I know some bigger artists have thrown their weight behind this but I really do worry we're seeing the makings of the death of the music industry as we know it, thanks (once again) to corporate greed.

Oh damn, I didn't enter this because I thought it would qualify, I just entered it because I really liked it- happy that enough of you liked it too! :wub: If I ever find an evening I can do for a listenthrough I'll bring it back again. x

Loved it, happy to see you top 10. :wub: Good to see Séyetana with a solid top 20 finish too. Congrats to Fljótavík, on the edge on my votes, great song!

This tbh!!!1!!1!!

boat

No, nowhere near as much sadly, but that's entirely me, not the contest itself, I actually really like the way the contest is now. I really enjoyed it in 2016 when I joined, I was in my first year of uni- basically I had so much more free/ flexible time compared to now. I listened to a lot more music generally too, which while it hurts to say, I find it hard to find time to listen anywhere near as much as I used to. I still whack on an album whenever I'm driving or sometimes on a day off etc but I used to listen for 4+ hours a day, easily, if not more. I work long hours during school term time, a minimum of (give or take) 55-60 hours most weeks, it can be even more on the worst weeks, and it includes at least two evenings a week and occasionally chunks of weekends. It's my choice, I get decent benefits from it, I know what I've got into and I know I can't do it long term, but there's a reason the maximum 48 hour work week exists (which I had to sign a waiver for) and the time I get to listen to music (ironically, because I mostly work in a music department) is one of the things impacted by the amount of time I don't have. When it comes to BJSC, it does make contests of 60+ songs hard to manage. I used to be able to do passive listenthroughs, where I'd have it in the background and subconsciously got to know the songs, then more active ones where I was thinking more about the song, I really have to focus on first listenthrough now which makes it less of a casual experience. In 2016 for my first few contests (even though I had a horrific DNQ streak!) I'd listen to every song at least 3 times and listen to the ones I liked more and probably both semis, I'm sad I miss DNQs from the other semi now but a lot of the time it's difficult enough to set the time aside for my own semi. Now it's unlikely that I'll get through more than 1 listen per semi/ final with the exception of songs that really stand out to me, which usually get 2 or 3. I also used to be in all the spinoffs, Unknown Pleasures and Nuggets etc and I just can't now, I stay in the main contest because I like the discoveries and it's cool if I do well, even if that is super rare- it was amazing to see We Lost The Sea do so well out of the blue, was a great feeling. I am considering entering instrumentals mind you, I'll have a think and see if I have something for it before the deadline closes. I really like them, and honestly I think I've got it figured out. Don't know why I didn't do this in the first place but streaming Chrome (or any browser) as an application then literally just playing the YouTube playlist rather than using the slightly limited (by videos being unavailable on external plugins) YouTube plugin is so much better. Makes it pretty seamless IMO. I'm really good with Discord- I use it more or less every day so although the audio channels are technically voice channels by default I've set up a channel specifically for it that mutes people as they join. It's probably a lot better on the desktop app than mobile but honestly I reckon it's the same for Synctube. It's just a case of who is available to host. While I'd be happy to do it and might be able to occasionally, like I said above I find it really hard to even make most listenthroughs these days because my work schedule is so demanding right now so I can't guarantee being reliable. But it's host's preference and it's fair that whoever's organising as host gets to choose the platform. That said, I'm more than happy to help out if anyone's interested in trying a discord host and is bit unsure of how to get it working first time though! I've been considering doing this for a while, I should really add all my votes to a personal "best of BJSC X" playlist (which I've done for like, 2 :lol: )- it just seems a daunting task to go back and do for so many. Or even an 18s, 15s, 13s etc playlist over multiple contests. I will get round to sorting it out at some point though.

Ahh back to normal. :nocheer: Thanks Leww. :wub:

So difficult to vote, Semi 1 was so strong to me. Very few songs I discounted from votes on first listen.

More or less the first time I've had a chance to look at this this week. Apple Music playlists finally done! :cheer: (I'll do the final quicker x) Also listening now. :o

Listenthroughts if I can make it, Apple Music otherwise or in addition.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say re BANKS, yay Aelandor (& N DNTN) recycle. :magic: