Does streaming make us lazy?

[matthewpianist]

I'm temporarily without a streamer, and so I'm relying completely on CD and vinyl to keep me musically fulfilled. The thing is, not only is it encouraging me to pull out albums and recordings that haven't seen light of day for quite some time, but I'm also listening all the way through, which is something I've been doing less of over time.

It's made me question whether streaming is potentially making us more musically restless and perhaps a little lazy... play the same albums and playlists, cherry pick tracks etc. Streaming is on its way back to my system, but I may need to re-think how I use it. Anyone else with their own thoughts on this?

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Agree entirely - tend to use it for playlists because of this.

 

[RJW232]

Yes, defo. It hasn't been easier to listen to different types of music via the streaming services but at the same time it's so easy to play whatever you played yesterday. And than the generated playlist will includes what you played already. Plus zapping from one track to another is too easy. We're not patient enough to listen to complete songs.

I bought a second hand cd-player with the remote missing and it's such a joy to pick a cd and listen to the complete album.

 

[Al ears]

Not lazy don't stream..... 🙂

 

[jjbomber]

It's made me question whether streaming is potentially making us more musically restless and perhaps a little lazy... play the same albums and playlists, cherry pick tracks etc. Streaming is on its way back to my system, but I may need to re-think how I use it. Anyone else with their own thoughts on this?

Dead opposite would be my guess. It is so easy to listen to a vast range of different music. Before, it was a case of buying hundreds of albums and sometimes choosing which to buy and which to leave. Now, almost every album is possible. Far from lazy, it makes people more adventurous to seek out new bands or fill in the gaps in our collection.

 

[matthewpianist]

Dead opposite would be my guess. It is so easy to listen to a vast range of different music. Before, it was a case of buying hundreds of albums and sometimes choosing which to buy and which to leave. Now, almost every album is possible. Far from lazy, it makes people more adventurous to seek out new bands or fill in the gaps in our collection.

I think in my case, my physical collection is so large (circa 4k CDs and 500 LPs) that browsing through it is more likely to lead to something I haven't listened to for ages taking my eye, rather than relying on searching for something, selecting a playlist or the algorithms that most streaming platforms use to feed content.

 

[Dave_]

It's made me question whether streaming is potentially making us more musically restless and perhaps a little lazy... play the same albums and playlists, cherry pick tracks etc.

I'm temporarily without a streamer, and so I'm relying completely on CD and vinyl to keep me musically fulfilled. The thing is, not only is it encouraging me to pull out albums and recordings that haven't seen light of day for quite some time, but I'm also listening all the way through, which is something I've been doing less of over time.

No.

I gave up al forms of physical media years ago, and have been 100% streaming since.

I still listen to albums in their entirety etc, and streaming helps me to rediscover music that hasn't seen the light of day in ages.

Streaming is on its way back to my system, but I may need to re-think how I use it. Anyone else with their own thoughts on this?

I'd say the issue is down to the individual listener, and not necessarily streaming.

There's also still a large degree of snobbishness amongst hifi types that see streaming as inferior to physical media.

 

[RTHerringbone]

Dead opposite would be my guess. It is so easy to listen to a vast range of different music. Before, it was a case of buying hundreds of albums and sometimes choosing which to buy and which to leave. Now, almost every album is possible. Far from lazy, it makes people more adventurous to seek out new bands or fill in the gaps in our collection.

Yeah, this is pretty much my view on things. Most of all, I just think that streaming =/= bad or lazy, it's just a different way to access the things we love.

I still thoroughly enjoy buying and listening to records, but if I'm streaming and find a new song I really like, I can instantly use features like Track Radio on Tidal to find similar songs that other users have liked, which potentially opens up a raft of new songs that I might really enjoy too. It's not lazy, it's efficient and has huge scale.

 

[Jasonovich]

I wouldn't say streaming is lazy but it is less immersive than physical medium and more random. I might listen to a few tracks from the same artist, if I'm streaming, if it's on CD or even a file I downloaded, it isn't finished until the fat lady sings, until I finished the album.

Streaming is a good way to test which direction your music-mood is swinging, find some material you like and then purchase the physical medium or download.

Streaming has it's purposes, I don't have vinyl any more and too much fluffing about, I like my juice on the tap, yeah I guess I'm lazy 🙂

 

[daytona600]

Use LP / CD / SACD / Streaming
Streaming only option on some new music with no physical formats
Streaming also great to share playlists with friends and family

 

[Al ears]

Use LP / CD / SACD / Streaming
Streaming only option on some new music with no physical formats
Streaming also great to share playlists with friends and family

Surely that's only if they use the same stream provider.
Basically I just give them a CD..... 🙂

 

[nopiano]

It’s definitely too easy to be restless, and be searching for the next recording instead of paying full attention.

A week ago I had an afternoon of LPs and thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking at lyrics and reading about recording venues, engineers etc is all very interesting to me.

The physical exercise is good too, as most of mine are still at floor level in storage cubes.

 

[Gray]

It’s definitely too easy to be restless, and be searching for the next recording instead of paying full attention.

Has always been the case for me - long before anyone streamed, mobile disco operation meant the next record had to have been thought about, found and cued up within the playing time of the current track - I never really got out of that habit.

Streaming for me just means playing my music from SSD instead of the physical discs. I rarely listen to complete albums, though I don't skip away from tracks before they end.
I never use playlists, always get next tracks ready on the fly - but unlike my old disco days, searching and and cueing now just involves looking at and tapping a screen.
More than anyone, today's mobile DJ's have been made lazy by all forms of streaming, no 22kg record boxes for them to hump about.

Due to a recent lack of wi-fi, I reverted to playing one or two compact discs - a bit of a strange (slower) experience, but the 23 year old KI deck was as good as ever.

 

[Angle Poise-Lamp]

Only rarely stream, usually to try music from a different artist, before buying a CD. I do, however, rip all my CDs to the PC and, then just need a few clicks to start playing, so maybe that is a bit lazy although, I am still in the habit of listening to whole albums, as I always have done,

 

[Jasonovich]

All my three HiFi setups have a digital transport where all my music formats are stored DSD, Wav, Flac.
It is lazy as streaming.
This is my main preference, CD comes second and streaming a distant third.
Bluetooth? Perish the thought 😊

Ps.
My fourth HiFi setup has Aune 8th anniversary Digital Media player which I use as DT and DAC.

 

[manicm]

I don't think streaming makes you lazy. There's no lazy way of listening to music.

It's shortened attention spans, that's for sure, like my kid, he's 8, he loves the Beatles, Beach Boys, Michael Jackson, recently Daft Punk apart from all the modern stuff he listens to and at home he's all over the place, but the strange thing is in the car he'll often see most of an album through

I would stream an entire album, so the medium doesn't really matter. And some things I listen to at home I rarely listen to in the car where I prefer upbeat stuff. I won't ever listen to any 70s stuff like Pink Floyd or even Zep in the car.

When I'm out socially I prefer to discover new stuff

 

[manicm]

Streaming has probably made us lazy insofar as attending performances to discover new artists.

In that respect it has definitely been detrimental. Just like COVID killed off cinema.

 

[DiggyGun]

I think that there is still some negativity towards streaming, it just another format of music to listen to. I recall there being similar comments when CDs were introduced, using a remote control and music being longer on the CD rather than on a record.

I don’t have any records or CDs, sold them on a while ago and just stream now, either Jazz24 radio or Qobuz.

When using Qobuz, I always play the album in full, as I did with LPs and CDs.

One of the things I like about streaming is choice, if I hear something that I like on Jazz24, I can easily investigate further using Qobuz. This had led to discovering new artistes and has diversified my listening.

Another benefit I find with streaming is quality. Used to buy around four to six LPs on month based on discovering new artistes as above. Not only expensive, but found the quality to be poor, usually warped records, so needed to be exchanged. In the end, only bought from Amazon as easy to exchange the faulty LP.

Searching through saved albums on Qobuz, for me, is the same as flicking through LPs and CDs on shelves to decide what to listen to, depending on the mood.

DG…

 

[Cricketbat70]

CD's at home I have ripped to NAS. I switch between Spotify and using Bubble UPnP on my phone to stream from my NAS, at night. (Said in a few threads I need music to help me sleep) I have on a number of occasions whether it's CD or Spotify flicked through to find something to play and not found anything and fallen back to the same few playlists on Spotify, hence for the third year running Gary Numan is my #1 artist on Spotify Wrapped.

 

[Jasonovich]

CD's at home I have ripped to NAS. I switch between Spotify and using Bubble UPnP on my phone to stream from my NAS, at night. (Said in a few threads I need music to help me sleep) I have on a number of occasions whether it's CD or Spotify flicked through to find something to play and not found anything and fallen back to the same few playlists on Spotify, hence for the third year running Gary Numan is my #1 artist on Spotify Wrapped.

I actually met Gary Numan before he was famous.
I was still at school and my mate and me worked after school in a book warehouse where Gary was working, he was Bowie mad and a decent bloke in his late teens, maybe early twenties.
On occasions a book would fell off the shelf and oooops into the tall bin.
We'll tell Gary, we're going to empty the bin.
Gary would say,
You think I don't know what ya up to?
Go on, p'k orff!!
Ha ha, great bloke!

 

[Steve983]

Perhaps the main negative of streaming is that the artist is being ripped off. This is not a good thing.

 

[Shrek]

I dont find streaming music has enjoyable or engeaging has physical media.What killed of the iPod wheres all that music now ? Will streaming music end up the same way i wonder .

 

[Al ears]

Perhaps the main negative of streaming is that the artist is being ripped off. This is not a good thing.

To be fair if they felt that way they wouldn't make their material available on streaming platforms.

 

[Dave_]

Perhaps the main negative of streaming is that the artist is being ripped off. This is not a good thing.

They've always been ripped off by the industry, and never made much money from physical media either.

Streaming is just the current bogeyman.

Streaming does however give artists access to potentially billions of pairs of ears though, and many independent artists have been discovered and become successful because of it....

 

[Winter]

I'm temporarily without a streamer, and so I'm relying completely on CD and vinyl to keep me musically fulfilled. The thing is, not only is it encouraging me to pull out albums and recordings that haven't seen light of day for quite some time, but I'm also listening all the way through, which is something I've been doing less of over time.

It's made me question whether streaming is potentially making us more musically restless and perhaps a little lazy... play the same albums and playlists, cherry pick tracks etc. Streaming is on its way back to my system, but I may need to re-think how I use it. Anyone else with their own thoughts on this?

Ha . You could suppose anything with a remote also makes us lazy . Streaming for me is the way forward new artists etc etc and sounds better than cd or vinyl . Lazy yes would not want to go back to jumping up and down to change track s via vinyl for a fomat thats dated and wears out everytime it's played fact !