Prelude to 2016 Music Lists

It's the start of the year and that is when I take a look back at the music I enjoyed for the previous year and reflect on the changes that have occurred.

For the first year since I was 10, I didn't buy a single song for myself.  I purchased a CD for Cathie for Christmas, but, that is because she still listens to CDs in the car.  I signed up with Apple Music in September of 2015. I have found that between the curated playlists, and the ability to listen to everything that I want to listen to, I don't have the time to manage purchased music.

Using the subscription model has its risks. The downside to this is I am now locked into Apple Music.  The process of moving my library of favorites and personal playlists to another service would be huge.  If the subscription model were to ever go away, the costs of building my library would also be large.

The pluses are significant.  I now have access to every song that I have ever wanted.  If I want to put Ike Turner's Rocket 88 on a playlist I just select it.  I don't have to buy Angel Olsson's new album to decide if I really like it.  Leonard Cohen's latest is really good, but, I'm not going to listen to an album about him facing the end of his life over and over, it becomes a little dark.

More significantly, if I read or hear on a podcast about a song or band, I can queue it up and listen to it while I'm walking at lunch time or taking Pippa around the neighborhood.  This has allowed me to sample more music than I have ever gone through before.

Which brings me to a story.  I was driving in my car in late 2014 listening to KISW (I don't know why). Howard Kaylan (Turtles, Flo and Eddie) was on the radio talking about his autobiography.  The DJ asked him what he thought about the current state of music, with the ease of making recordings with Pro Tools.  He said it was easier and less expensive than ever to make an album and distribute it. Because of this, artists who couldn't previously get heard, were able to get a bit of a following and make a little more money by touring.  In effect it was creating a middle tier in the industry between struggling hometown bands and large arena acts.

The follow up question was, "Does that mean there is more good music?"  And he responded that no, there is the same amount of good music as there has always been, there is just more mediocre music.

That has been my experience this year.  Instead of a 25 song playlist, I think it ended up at 37 songs.  I found a lot of great songs.  I listened to over 85 albums this year and I was able to easily narrow it down to 15 that I really liked and the top 8 were easy to decide.

I'll start publishing my lists over the next few days.