This month in digital music libraries - June 2024
June 27, 2024 in digital music by Dan Gravell
New music players, Spotify’s devaluation of music, the Sonos app saga and AI (because everyone else is talking about it)…
Some new software to try
Musicat is another player aimed at playing local music libraries:
"U2's latest album automatically added to your library" #Musicat is a "sleek" player for local music libraries. https://t.co/61eHiMhe3i pic.twitter.com/EmFvl6OGoY
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 4, 2024
… as is Tauon, but that also has a Subsonic adapter so you could connect to Navidrome, Astiga or more:
Another week, another new desktop music player to try... https://t.co/VPnaWD9LuT This one is playlist-oriented and is #subsonic compatible. pic.twitter.com/joRgx0UEiO
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 8, 2024
And how about a retro chic hardware player?
oh my word https://t.co/kJTO1jFnon pic.twitter.com/ycb201kwYf
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 22, 2024
The Sonos app car-crash rumbles on…
It appears that Sonos are at least making noises that they are addressing the missing aspects of the new Sonos app - of particular interest to this blog are the local music library features.
Updated our #Sonos informational pages that we're keeping an eye on this continual car crash... https://t.co/YtPQyDGpLx pic.twitter.com/s235R12FIx
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 10, 2024
For Sonos owners it’s worth keeping an eye out for their monthly office hours on Reddit where the increasingly legendary u/KeithFromSonos answers questions - here’s May’s session.
Spotify - what do they really value?
On the one hand, they seem to view music as such a commodity:
Not a great look when you're also hiking subscription costs https://t.co/dpFLcIwx3g #spotify pic.twitter.com/V4GUC0jSni
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 6, 2024
… on the other they are at least about to allow high res streaming of that zero-value ‘content’.
I'm not sure what "new tools for creating playlists and managing their song libraries" means, but I'm guessing it's moated within their platform. https://t.co/za1yvJ2bGK (btw I checked and "moated" is, indeed, a word). pic.twitter.com/UJR0vOlu2P
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 18, 2024
AI all the things (or not)
As the dust settles on the disruptive effects of AI in music, are we getting more considered views as to what it all means? Maybe AI has a place, but truly creative content by organic lifeforms will continue too.
This is definitely onto something - this technology is powerful and will undoubtedly fill certain niches. I'm not sure if it's what a music lover or #intentionallistener would choose, though. https://t.co/J1LI0vnqz7 pic.twitter.com/odmS00kk0s
— bliss (@bliss_music) June 16, 2024
See you next month!
Photo by Bruno Bučar on Unsplash
