I'm interested in creating something for my children to discover music beyond my own collection. My kid doesn't have a phone, and so doesn't really have any autonomy in finding and playing music (as the article points out).
I recall DIY projects with NFC-enabled printed albums or perhaps using eink tags (though expensive). Maybe I'd hook it up to some api like Bandcamp (or *arr apps if need be).
Practical and easy. It's not interactive and you can buy an wide collection of audio books (made with recycled cardboard) and listen to it with headphones
This article seems to be an answer in search of a question
I gave my kids Newpipe (that can download .opus files) and VLC (IMO it's clunky as an audio player, but they like it). Occasionally they'll want a full album, so I fire up the ol' Nicotine+ and download it.
Coupled with social apps like TikTok & Instagram and streaming companies like Spotify not allowing indie artists to grow without paying serious ad money, the larger industry is actively preventing independent music from being heard, and running undercover grifts on artists that aren't making a dime off of their work.
When people go to sites like YouTube and Spotify, it's very difficult to find an artists best work, these sites do everything to steer listeners towards big industry music, rather than helping independents to grow. Tech sites are grifting hard working musicians that aren't getting any reimbursement for their work, and there should be more accountability, because we're all being pelted with artificial and weak music as a result.
Kids love music, but they literally can't find the best of it anymore because of anti-competitive behavior by tech companies and the big music industry.
Also YouTube and tiktok are really good at recommending obscure/independent artists if you actively search for independent music. Like Spotify and YouTube aren't actively promoting and finically compensating independent artists because they are being payed off by the "industry" to suppress what you consider "good" music, they just recommend what's most likely to keep someone on their service and they pay poorly because streaming services don't have an actual business model beyond growth hacking.
I'm not speaking from inexperience, I'm a musician and label owner myself.
You may see indie music on sites like YouTube now, that's because that's what you've previously searched for, but most others have no idea of where to start in finding obscure bands they'd like and the recommendation algos only provide default picks unless you search for specific artists, there's also a ton of drivel to sort through before you find the right artists, supermarkets and gas stations only play major artists on repeat all day -- that's why the streaming numbers are so vastly lower for pop versus indie musicians, and a lot of people are completely worn out on the process of trying to find good music they like.
I dunno, personally, I was introduced to some of my favorite underground artists purely through Youtube recommendations. People like Sewerslvt, The Caretaker, Ecco2k, Astrophysics, Kero Kero Bonito, and some dark ambient projects like TOWERS/TOWERS. Maybe now that AI’s out there this won’t be possible anymore but for the time being at least, I feel like music discovery on YT is pretty good.
The thing is, for musicians, if they spend a lot of time on their work, they don't get paid anywhere near what they should, even after years of work, unless they break into the level of being on TV and Radio, most artists don't have health care or even enough to pay rent.
Just because we may know about certain musicians, doesn't mean they are doing well off of their music, tons of musicians secretly have day jobs, while the tech industry makes billions. Modern musicians often sign record contracts and find themselves in a lifetime of debt before they can even earn their first check, this is what most of their listeners don't know.
That is a common trope pushed by platforms like TikTok & IG to encourage musicians to work on the platform. TikTok does not help musicians to grow in any way unless they are already very popular (over ~100k followers). If you become a popular artist on TikTok, they invite you to HQ where they assign you a client manager that gives you help in promoting your account, but it comes with a price. Social platforms captures the profit that a musician reaps from using the platform without paying royalties in most cases in reality. The music business now is a broken system of payola if you ask artists that weren't born rich.
TikTok is also on the way out as an option as well, as it is supposedly going to be banned in September this year.
