> Fine - but young people don’t yet have a complete mental map of what culture they enjoy.
Spotify and the likes will suggest new and different things for people to listen to. Apple has a special app just for classical music, which is the highest level of musical culture.
> Even worse: many of these (eg, Spotify) hide real access behind subscription fees. If you grew up broke, like I did, you will understand how inaccessible this real access is.
They have advertisements for those who don't pay the subscription. Radio has always had advertisements also. And nobody is too broke to afford Spotify. Every broke young person I've known have had a Spotify subscription, they're dirt cheap.
For the past 25 years, I've turned on the radio about once a year, and every time it's been just sewage. Whether that's government produced sewage or corporate produced sewage. The quality of podcasts and music streaming is on a quality level which radio never reached.
> I think the joy of broadening one’s horizons is available to all, and is also difficult to learn and a strain to continue to practice. I think it must be taught.
Very much agree.
Lol, I'm personally too broke for a Spotify subscription - as in I couldn't sign up this month with the cash in my bank account - and that has often been true during the periods of my life I have not spent working in tech. I don't think I'd even be in their youngest adult user demo anymore!
We definitely exist. It's pretty tight out there right now. The £10.99/month I see quoted buys quite a few kilos of dry pasta.
In any case, the core argument I was making specifically is that I believe human curation can provide more friction for the audience than algorithmic curation tends to, and that this is a net-good for cultural education.
I would contend with classical music being the highest strata of musical culture (and the deeper idea of culture having 'levels'), but that's subjective. So, that aside, if classical music is your thing, and you believe:
> "The quality of podcasts and music streaming is on a quality level which radio never reached."
I'd recommend Glenn Gould's The Idea of North, which is one of my absolute favourite pieces of music. It's considered pretty innovative and important:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry5MUnZoeGI
Glenn Gould wrote it specifically for radio, as it was commissioned by the CBC. So "government produced sewage". :-)
I'd also strongly recommend you give BBC Radio 3 (still often excellent, especially late at night) a try. NTS has some great classical shows, too. Perhaps you're already familiar with all of these, but - if not - they might give you a reason to turn on your radio more frequently than annually.
> Apple has a special app just for classical music, which is the highest level of musical culture.
Really? Why?
The metadata matters in a different way. A single piece with a single composer can be interpreted very differently, over time, by different conductors and orchestras.
This means classical music is very badly organised in most streaming apps. Sorting by "artist" doesn't really work if the artist is listed as an orchestra, which has probably recorded the work of more than one composer.
Roon is another example of a streaming platform that treats this metadata with the same importance.
Not the app itself of course. What I meant to say is that classical music is the highest level of musical culture.
That’s what I was asking. Why do you think that is true? Seems like the most subjective thing possible.