cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/24295868
One survey by the US Library of Congress suggested that less than 20% of all recorded music was available on the internet. That’s where Rob Johnson comes in.
By day, he’s a 41-year-old working in business development for a London law firm. By night, he’s a music industry crusader – digging up obscure gems and persuading record labels to make them available online.
Some really interesting cases of “not-available-digitally” music he tracked down and the impact on the musicians are in this articles!
This just shows record labels suck at recognising music. A label is a business, they perceive music as a product they can sell, rather than art that should be available. The cover photo shook me because I couldn’t believe they were talking about Out Of Your Mind. I still listen to that quite often, even before I abandoned my self hosted music collection and went to streaming. But even now, some tracks I listen to are either different on streaming (ie different mixes or whatever) or just plain not available.
Weirdest thing for me recently was wanting to listen to one specific single version of a song, scrolling through the streaming platform and seeing “ah great that single exists” - only to find out when playing it that the label had uploaded the album version of the track as the single version.