The Giving In The Name Of Liking

Saturday, 02 December 2017 arrow_back_ios arrow_forward_ios

Hey.

No, it's not another Apple Music review, if you saw the thumbnail.

No, not that I'm really that free now, but I decided to kickstart the series of posts I promised to do months ago in a better momentum, now that I'm off my mind on a lot of stuff (mainly exams lol) and it's about that time. Time, for me to talk about why I don't about new songs at this time of the year.

THE BACKGROUND
You may have noticed. From the data, from the Twitter, that I don't like to talk a lot about songs at this time of the year, "this time" being December or end November period. And then I'll suddenly appear by the end of the year with a surprise post of ALL the stuff I did this year including the Top 20 results that probably "most" of the people are interested in. That may be part of the reason, but it is also at this time of the year that I control the song count of the number of songs I give. Don't understand? Let's talk about it more.

THE GIVING
Ask yourself: How many songs that are in your music library are songs that you liked? Think of that latest album you just listened from your favourite idol or band. You gave all 13 (on average) songs in the list? I don't mean it's not possible; I have past year examples to prove that I do give such albums. But really, how many of them? Even if you said you heard 10,000 songs till date I swear you can only remember a fraction, and what stays in your brain is even lesser.

Take Apple Music (a music streaming service) as an example. How many songs did you actually give at the point of listening to it? Or is it just the "I'm giving because I support the artist" kind of mentality that we are all familiar with? Which brings me to my next point.

THE LIKING
To be honest, not even me, can handle such variety that is song releases. If you have to review a couple of albums every week of the year, you're going to reject a few. In Klassic Note, that's what I try to do. Giving songs when I actually think I'll like them in the long run, and giving them due credit as I do so. Take Kotobuki Minako's album "My stride" for example, which still holds the record for being the only album with ALL the songs given that I liked. Ignoring how she got to that (segmentation is the answer), I can safely tell myself I've happily given every single song on that release, and that I'll still remember them when I hear them again.

Can you? Isn't that what giving songs should be like? Not just giving because there's some motivation behind our backs driven by capitalism and consumerism? Don't get me wrong; I also fall for those antics often too. Toyosaki Aki's list of songs and how I got to her best album this year even though I have every single release (besides one) of hers to date. But I can assure you the influence is at it's lowest. Maybe it's the limitation of lack of freedom of spending money, but there's more to this. And hear me out, literally.

GIVING IN THE NAME OF LIKING
Let's talk a little about the history of Klassic Note, and I'll try not to bore you further than what I've done above lol. In the past when this all started, I've been leeching off the Internet. And I swear you have done that too. Stealing music off the Internet like you're supposed to because it's free and "it's online" (quote from my dad there) is honestly, a criminal act. Ignoring that, it's also against one's thought to actually, not support the artist(s) when we have to. I've done this thinking before, which easily explains the start of my shelf-building back in 2012, where I celebrated my 5th year anniversary of Klassic Note. Further down, with digital releases becoming popular and streaming services being a thing, I started with Apple Music Japan last year in hopes of allowing the artist to (1) take a (very small) cut of the proceeds and (2) to give them an idea of what we think is good for them. Of course there are other financial reasons like an advantage for paying money to hear pre-release date digital releases before they come out or even this being an exclusivity, but this is what it is. The world may work this way, but we can tell ourselves to like their music instead of just taking them all. Remember: There is no product satisfaction in music listening.

Unlike those stuff you can buy off the streets and know what's the quality of the product after using it once, this does not happen with new music releases. It's like I tell you I add something new in that detergent your mom used to buy for two decades and changing its effect (for better or for worse) on the clothing without you knowing it (which is pretty much consumer product refinement these days lol), but still. If you would ever find the conscience that just taking music for free is wrong, then it may be time to act. But I'm not here to promote that. I'm just here to awake the world to this reality. Many artists actually suffer from sales due to the HUGE ripoff off the Internet, leading to their sales decrease and their eventual dismissal from their music labels.

WHY CONSERVATIVE?

Okay, maybe not ALL the songs.

And let me bring back to the question I started at the start of this post. Why then am I holding back to giving releases, especially at certain times of the year? I can honestly tell you there is no solid reason for this, but besides giving lesser to control song count because that is what happens when you have a music player that can only store about 180 songs back in 2009 (haha), it's about giving them in moderation. And giving them because I liked those songs. I think those songs will be remembered. They will then keep me entertained and also give me a reason to think they are great as they exist. Not the kind where I like them for... about a week and then I'll never hear them again (that's you, Linked Horizon) forever. If you ever wonder why I can mention songs on my Twitter every now and then, think about how they got in my list. Whether it's a topic song or not, an Anime theme song or not, whether I ~~liked~~ loved the artist or not (lol), whether I give that 2-track single I'll be able to get my hands on the special gift(s) or not (ok I'm guilty of that), whether I like the song, or not. Then maybe, you'll not start to just give people money just because they use the same reason to earn your money. Consumerism, everyone. It's okay to be conservative and like what we do.

THE SOLUTION
With today's digital medium and music streaming services, this decision-making process has become easier than ever. My initial plan to rebuild my music library again is to actually get Apple Music to listen to new songs as they come out, and buy them via iTunes when they are available. That, might just be the best way of supporting them, despite them being the least cut for their artists themselves. Then again, if you didn't have opinions and like to support the artists by getting products that you may not be totally happy with, I won't blame you. Because in all of us with a mind of criticism, is also a mind to forgive. And to give hope. To the artists we have heard, we have liked, and we want them to exist. And that may or may not led us to realise on the music that we truly love.

-Kaineng, on the Klassic Note

This is it, man. I'm out. I know I'm going to get killed if I post this on Twitter because people don't read till the end, and even if they do I'll get shot (or not), so this shall be it. I'll read this again to see if this makes sense at some point, but for now... I'll let what I typed soak (*wink*) in my mind a bit. Cya guys next time, and until then... yep, Entertainment News. APoL is not ready yet. I promised myself to maybe, maybe finish Chapter 17 and 16v2 by the end of the year, but NO PROMISES. I'm not man of procrastination, even in my own interests. *laughs*