Alex Ross's CD Picks On Spotify

Since 2007, The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross occasionally publishes new CD recommendations on his blog The Rest Is Noise. A complete list can be found on this official page. He also published a few recommendations on the now seemingly abandoned New Yorker blog Unquiet Thoughts.
 

Photo via Opera Chic

Here's the Spotify playlist: Alex Ross: Recommended New CDs (58 tracks from 58 CDs) About 1/3 of his choices (some 40 titles) are not on Spotify yet, mainly due to the absence of the whole Hyperion label and many Harmonia Mundi recordings. Albums are sorted by publication dates, as in the official page. Press Ctrl (CMD)+G to browse in album view. I'll update the playlist when new recommendations are posted.

My Guesswork On What's Going On Between Naxos And Spotify

Yesterday I read an unexpected and dreadful news that Naxos and ECM were threatening to leave Spotify. If it happens, the classical library of Spotify would be savagely damaged: both labels are specialized in their sub-genres and offer the only available recordings for many (often unfairly) obscure works.

Here are some facts: 1, Spotify is now making more money for rightsholders than Apple's iTunes Store, according to label sources, including UMG and Sony Music in Sweden. 2, Yesterday Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced that they now have 750,000 paying subscribers. The number is tripled since Naxos joined Spotify. 3, By doing a few searches in Spotify, you will see that Naxos is clearly the most popular classical label in Spotify. I guess this has something to do with the fact that Naxos use the composer names to tag their recordings. A curious layman who wants a taste of Beethoven might not be able to choose between Kleiber and Karajan, but more likely to pick up a Beethoven symphony played by "Ludvig van Beethoven".

Hence raises the question: why Naxos is unhappy then? To be more precisely: why Spotify is not making enough money for Naxos in Sweden, like they are doing for UMG and Sony?

I guess the possible reasons are: 1, Spotify never revealed the details of how they pay the labels. If I spend 80 minutes to listen to a four-movement (track) symphony on Spotify, then I listen through a 5-track math-rock EP in 20 minutes, how do Spotify split my money for these two labels? 80:20 or 4:5? This is a very crucial element for classical labels, and if Spotify is using the latter paying mode, by all means they need to change.

2, Classical music still holds an amazing 5.5% market share of the recorded music sales, if Naxos and other classical labels could get 5.5% of Spotify's whole payout to labels, I guess they would be happy. But I'm afraid even if the paying mode is adjusted correctly by listening time, they might still not be getting that share. Why? A curious listener might buy a Naxos Best Of Chopin on a whim, so he contributes to the 5.5% share, but it's also very likely that he listens to the Naxos disk through once and then plays the new Kanye West album which he bought with the Chopin, all day long. It is a hypothetical example, but it might not be far from the truth. Popular music fans are more likely to give repeated listens to the music they purchased, than casual classical fans. When this comes to Spotify, it simply means that no matter how you calculate the royalties, classical labels would get less share than they have in physical sales. Classical music's identity crisis is the result of our music education, not the fault of Spotify. And you can only make the situation worse if you choose to make your music less accessible on technically the best music service in the world.

So what should Spotify do to comfort Naxos and ECM? It's really a big question for the Spotify team. I think at least they should try to make the payment method more impartial to the labels if need be, and transparent to the users (surely Spotify are not obligated to do so, but as an inovative start-up based on a totally new business model, it might a good move to let the users know how they benifit the music makers exactly, becuase when you keep it as a secret, the immediate assumption is often "not so good"), and ask the labels to be a bit more patient. If they chose to join Spotify when they only had 250,000 paying subscribers, there's no reason for them to leave now. Actually, I think Naxos should cherish the fact that their recordings beat all those full-price major classical labels in popularity on a free platform, Spotify, where the Naxos disks' price advantage means nothing. People now love you for the quality and broad range of your music, Naxos, don't fail us, please.

BTW, here's the Spotify playlist: Alex Ross 2010: Most Memorable Recordings (131 track 14 hours). Half of his choices are available. The Nico Muhly recording is another "hidden" album that you cannot find under the composer's name on Spotify. Original New Yorker post here. Enjoy, and looking forward to hear your opinions on the Naxos crisis.

Spotify Variations On The Theme Of 4'33"

Another Alex Ross copycat playlist, this time inspired by his new blog post: 4'33" Playlist. To celebrate John Cage's 98th birthday this Sunday, I composed my own variations on the theme of 4'33". See the manuscript below, and use I Ching to determine the play order.

(click to enlarge)

Here's the Spotify playlist: 4'33" (23 tracks, total time: 4'33"*23)

Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: A Spotify Playlist

Alex Ross just published an audio guide for the second chapter of his new book Listen to This on his blog, but now the post is gone (though you can still find the tracklist here). If you haven't read it yet, subscribe to The Rest Is Noise in Google Reader or other RSS readers, and you should be able to find it. I quote the first paragraph below so you can get an idea of what this playlist is about:

"In "Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues," the second chapter of my new book Listen to This, I tell of a story of pattern recognition—simple repeating figures that can be found in the music of many centuries and many genres. While I don't believe in the idea of music as a "universal language"—try telling that to a tired mom who is being forced to listen to her teenager's hip-hop, or, for that matter, the teenager who has to sit through his grandmother's Mozart records—there is, in fact, much common ground in the world's musical cultures, strands of DNA that appear everywhere. I'll focus on two such figures: a dance form called the chaconne and a pair of bass lines associated with lament. We'll go from Renaissance madrigals to Led Zeppelin, by way of Monteverdi, Purcell, and Bach, whose great Chaconne for solo violin is at the heart of the chapter. It's a story both of radical transformation and of surprising continuity."

Here's the Spotify playlist for all the music that was mentioned in this chapter: Alex Ross' Listen To This: Chapter 2 (27 tracks, total time: 2 hours) And by chance I revisited the playlist for The Rest Is Noise yesterday, here's the post, and the playlist: Alex Ross' 20th Century Limited.

I will make Spotify playlists for other chapters as well. Thanks to the new playlist folders feature, it's easy to put all the Alex Ross playlists in one place. Looking forward to getting the book soon.

Alex Ross' 20th Century Limited

Alex Ross' bestseller The Rest Is Noise is a great read for music lovers of any genre who are interested in finding out what music is about and what "contemporary music" also means beyond "now that's what I can music!". He's blog, therestisnoise.com is one of the very first classical music blogs that inspired numerous readers and other bloggers. It seems that nowadays he mainly updates his New Yorker blog Unquiet Thoughts.

He posted a twentieth-century playlist here, originally for the iTunes store. I made a Spotify playlist after that, most of the tracks are available in Spotify, for the few ones that the very recording version he chose was not available, I substituted with the best recordings I can find.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Alex Ross' 20th Century Limited Kudos to Mr. Ross, and enjoy the music.