The Male Hysteric

I ordered some zines and was thinking hey I should make a zine but was at a loss of what to make and my husband suggested I make one on how to deSpotify, which would probably be a good idea because it's actually a pretty complex topic. Spotify both maintains a music library and facilitates music discovery, and maintaining a library by yourself is not easy in itself but music discovery since Spotify has been made more difficult by Spotify killing off alternatives. So it would probably be useful, even though I guess I am not entirely deSpotified myself (I am on a big family plan with friends and acquaintances, but rarely use it).

Otherwise when it comes to actual devices, apparently there was a big snit with the Innioasis Y1 community. The guy who developed the app that drastically simplified things (I could not get the original alternative, MTKClient to work, because I'm Not Good At Computer) was kicked out of the Reddit community because he was harassing people and I'm not really sure where to go from there. I have been using my Snowsky Echo Mini more often now even though the Y1 is clearly a more versatile device, but what am I going to do if I can't actually maintain the Y1? It makes me wonder if I should get one of the more upscale devices like a HiBy R4 or whatever even though they're basically phones, just because this is kinda nuts. I don't know. Apparently the chip shortage is going to make DAPs, especially low price ones, harder to get. Snowsky is releasing a new player, the Disc, that I'm not really that hyped about but we'll see. I wish they would just put bookmarking and playlists on the Echo Mini, that would fix most of my problems.

I just got the Innioasis Y1. Why? Well, frankly the other DAP had frustrating limitations that I am hoping this one does not have, primarily with respect to audiobooks and podcasts. It kind of seems like the easiest way to get an inexpensive device that can handle audiobooks well (as in, keeping bookmarks) is by having an android base, but having an android base also causes other issues. So it's a tradeoff. I got the Y1 for $50 so right now if it doesn't work out I'm not going to beat myself up too much about it, and also if I hate the original android OS I can choose to install rockbox (though I don't know how good rockbox is for audiobooks... have not done research.

I'm not going to do a full review because I haven't used it much, and have barely uploaded all my music onto it. The Innioasis Y1 is designed to look like an iPod but feels way cheaper than an iPod, because, of course, you are only paying $50 for it. I got the blue (which is a teal color) even though my first choice would have been the teal (which is a blue color), but it still looks nice. Honestly in terms of first impression of builds, I think the Snowsky Echo Mini is probably nicer. I am definitely contemplating getting a screen protector for this thing.

The sound quality is ok -- on first impression I am not sure if it is slightly worse than the echo mini or I just haven't found the right volume (I think the Echo Mini can get way louder). One thing it does have is the ability to create themes. The Y1 is advertised as being "for kids," I guess because it doesn't have any web functionality so you can control what your child is listening to, so most of the default themes are kinda goofy looking. So the first thing I did was download a bunch of themes and am currently using a Windows 95 theme I found on Reddit.

I'm going to give it at least a week to see how it compares to the echo mini, or if I want to try running rockbox on it.

In a fit of astonishingly wasteful spending I'm getting a dedicated digital audio player. I am not sure if I'm going to end up using it... it will either be the best purchase I've made in a while or a terrible waste, but I'm getting one of the cheap ones so it's unlikely to be too terrible if I end up not using it much. Most of the reviews I see of people using them are audiophiles and I'm not sure I can actually discern anything that they're talking about when I'm listening, because I'm usually listening when I'm doing things. However that's kind of the problem, because most audio comes from my phone and the phone is the most distracting and anxiety-inducing thing in my general vicinity, being able to listen to music that's not attached to my phone should be... good? At least I hope. I think if things were going well in the world I would care a lot less about staying off my phone so much but these days you just scroll and something brand new and horrible hits you in the face every few hours. I need to be able to do my job, at least.

A very interesting episode of the podcast Hooked On Pop came out last week called Invasion of the Vibesnatchers which seemed particularly relevant to my piece on AI art generators as potential IP laundering machines. It's a very, very interesting comparison on how two similar phenomena are being dealt with in two different mediums and how, with both of them, the artists seems to lose.

Most people are not familiar with how music credits and pay works. Various methods of what might be called 'collageing' have been used in popular recorded music since forever -- from literal clips being 'sampled' and used in a new way in a new song, or melodies repeated and reinterpreted and on and on. Also, in the United States, there's a very defined structure of who owns music, and therefore who gets money every time a song is played, so when pieces of a song are used in another song who gets a cut and how is very predetermined. Because of this structure of the business, nobody wants to step on anyone else's toes too badly, so often credit will be pre-emptively awarded before there's any kind of conflict leading to lawsuit if a company thinks there might be an issue. All of this is happening under the listener's nose unless they really look for these credits. Actual disputes like over Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" are not common and when they do happen they're usually settled pretty quickly.

Now, an "interpolation" isn't as straightforward a copy as a sampled clip or a repeated line of melody. The example analyzed at the beginning of the podcast showed that no individual piece of the song could be considered really copied directly from the old song being credited, but given that it has a a similar instrumentation, similar structure, etc and certain parts that are relatively unique, like a repetitive whistled melody, the old song is given credit, and with that credit the owners of the credited song get some small cut of the profit of the crediting song.

Later in the episode the host reveals that interpolation credits in popular music have increased from about 10% per year before 2017 to about 20% per year afterward, and the major reason cited why is that, well, the record companies that own songs are encouraging it. There's a definite profit motive here -- when someone uses a song they already own to make something new, they will get a cut of the profit from that song, and the more vague the definition of "use" becomes, the more credits they can have, and therefore the more money they will make without having to even acquire more songs.

Now, I can make an argument against this practice due to the "modern media companies encourage homogeneous sludge" argument, but the more important note is how different the music industry is treating music credits versus how visual art credits simply do not work and allow for AI art to sneak in. If you made an AI music generator instead, made it scan top 40 hits back decades for its learning set, and then started posting the music as your own creation or as a way to get "free music", the RIAA would have your ass on a platter in less than a week.

And I am not saying this because the RIAA is 'good' -- it's not like the record companies, once they get that interpolation credit, are actually distributing that cut of profit fairly. But it's so demonstrative of how, when it comes to who makes money on art, it's entirely down to might makes right, and the only reason AI art is allowed to exist as "free art generation" is because it is taking exploiting artists who have no legal or financial power to stop them.

Under extremely short notice, apparently 8tracks is shutting down. I have probably a lot of feelings and opinions on this as someone who used the service a lot in the first half of the decade, but those would probably be elucidated on better in another post. Meanwhile there are instructions on attempting to preserve your playlists here. Better hurry though because it shuts down on December 31st.