The quality of music has steadily declined since the rise of the smartphone
自智慧型手機興起以來，音樂界的品質出現穩定下滑
by Greg Kot / © 2014, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by MCT Information Services.
These pocket-size computers have made everyone’s ability to stay in touch with music—and the world—more convenient, more portable and more distracting than ever. The notion that any piece of music you can possibly crave is just a click away, anywhere, anytime, is getting more refined with each new iteration from tech companies that have in many ways usurped the role of record companies, radio stations, video channels and record stores.
“The paradise of infinite storage,” as McGill University professor (and former Clash producer) Sandy Pearlman once rhapsodized, has arrived.
It’s indisputably paradise for music fans. It has empowered them to an unprecedented degree, not only granting them immediate access to just about every piece of music ever recorded, but allowing them to play with, remix and distribute it, then discard it as soon as the next musical bauble comes along.
What about the artists?
For artists, the results have been less idyllic. The downturn in physical media—compact disc sales have been cut in half the last decade—and the transition to online music have forced musicians to take at least a temporary pay cut on recording royalties. The transition to digital put new emphasis on individual songs over albums. So instead of paying $15 for a CD, listeners downloaded a favorite track at iTunes for 99 cents. Now they’re paying fractions of a penny to stream tracks at digital platforms such as Spotify, Beats Music and Pandora. And some aren’t paying at all to acquire music; a recent study by the NPD Group concludes that mobile applications have eclipsed file-sharing services as the most widely used source of free music downloads. About 27 million mobile users have downloaded at least one song in the past year, most from unauthorized sources.
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Discussion Questions
-How do you access and store your favorite music?
-How do you feel about “the omnipresence of iPhones”? Does it bother you that they seem to be everywhere, all the time? Explain.
-Are you willing to exchange sound quality for convenience? Why or why not?
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