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How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop
- renewiltord 2y agoDoes anyone ever comply with these "As listeners we must band together" things? I couldn't care less. I like the lo-fi sound myself and put on some Nujabes while in the kitchen. It's a good time. But whether any specific artist gets to play or not doesn't concern me that much. I've found that single artists rarely preserve the feel so much as ones in a genre.
- mingus88 2y ago[flagged]
- fkyoureadthedoc 2y ago[flagged]
- NickC25 2y agoHe's the modern GOAT of that genre for sure - but Nujabes' productions literally pay homage to the sounds of the SP1200, MPC60, etc that really made early hip-hop what it was in the early 90s. If we are to think of who is the GOAT of this genre we need to think more like Pete Rock, DJ Premier, RZA, etc
- ddingus 2y agoPunching down is rarely helpful.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dangrape123 2y ago[flagged]
- Tarq0n 2y agoIt's a collective action problem, solving it through our own behavior is impossible.
- josefritzishere 2y agoSpotify is ardently anti-consumer and anti-artist. Their business model extracts revenue by siphoning off artist royalties through label rev-share and then compounds the issue by restricting royalty payouts. Further siphoning off revenue by loading the playlist with AI-trash is not even their worst offense. They're a company begging for an artist boycott.
- izacus 2y agoYeah, can't wait to go back to Sony installing rootkits on my playback device to make sure we don't pirate their CDs.
- mingus88 2y agoThe model to look to is bandcamp
- bdcravens 2y agoIsn't this the result of consumers devaluing art? We want a $12 all you can eat plan, which tends to favor package contracts on the supply side. The direct-to-consumer model for music has been mostly rejected.
- Kuinox 2y agoThis is the result of companies screwing over consumers for years.
- steveBK123 2y agoConsumers want fast & cheap then want to find fault and point fingers when it isn't good. By historical norms, music is hilariously cheap. And $12 isn't even the floor, you can get a $17 couples plan, or a $20 family plan split 6 ways. Or $6 for students and they throw in Hulu TV with it! And theres are 2025 dollars. In peak CD mall rat era, Northeast HCOL area minimum wages were $5, gas was $2/gal and CDs were $20+ for new releases, each. Or inflating that $20, is $38/album in 2025 dollars. And teens with allowances and/or jobs would buy more than 1 per month. No matter how the pie is sliced up, there just isn't that much revenue coming in the front door.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoAI is best stated as a tool to permit wealth to access skill without skill being permitted to access wealth. I've been called a Luddite so many times on this website asking basic questions of how in a world where your labor is required in order for you to earn a living these entire reams of people are meant to continue living, and nobody has an answer.
- simonbarker87 2y agoI also wonder what everyone is supposed to do if skills are simply AI’d in to uselessness. The usual answer is something about how rich people want to rule the world and not pay for labour … but then that world will become pretty unpleasant for them to live in so that doesn’t track to me.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoThis presumes the rich are looking further ahead than next quarter which doesn't scan for me considering the sorts of things a lot of them say.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thatguy0900 2y agoRich people seem to be content with building a luxurious emergency bunker in new Zealand and then just rolling the dice on whether the world will go to shit or not. The only conclusion I can really come to is that they know the world will be going to shit no matter what they do or something.
- avidiax 2y agoRich people have a prisoner's dilemma if they are sufficiently self-aware. Maximum individual wealth and profit will come from maximally embracing AI. But if everyone does that, they are indeed rolling the dice on whether they'll instead be eating canned beans in New Zealand instead of upgrading their 150ft. yacht to a 155ft. yacht.
- qoez 2y agoAI seems like a scapegoat here when I think the real answer is simply that it was a tired genre that died out like many music fads over the years. (Everyone could learn how to make these with a 10 minute youtube tutorial which flooded the market, independent of AI.)
- ixtli 2y agoTrue but its clear that these systems allow this process to happen at rates orders of magnitudes larger than without it. That changes the severity of the problem and definitely turns it into something people need to intervene in.
- hecanjog 2y agoA genre is a conversation you have with other people.
- emsign 2y agoAnd the emphasis lies on people, without people there is no meaning.
- spinach 2y agoLofi music is a really popular genre to listen to as background music, I wouldn't say it's a tired genre. Perhaps for creators it is, but for listeners it's not.
- echoangle 2y agoHow much background music do you realistically need though? If there's a few thousand hours, would you notice if it repeated at some point? (Assuming the general style of the genre is staying similar and you don't listen to specific songs you discovered but just put on some collection of songs from the genre.) Is there new elevator music being composed all the time too?
- lanstin 2y ago
- dvngnt_ 2y agoSpotify and other streaming sites also killed mixtapes of rappers on other people's beats. The AI generated stuff will probably be good for its intended purpose white noise with a beat to help you study but its unlikely you'll find you're next favorite artist
- lawgimenez 2y agoDatpiff mixtape era was one of the best. It is where I discovered Kendrick Lamar before his fame today.
- roywiggins 2y ago> We can support musicians we like by adding them to our personal playlists and playing their music every day. We can also just buy their albums like ye olden times. Buy tracks for $1.29 like ye slightly less olden times! If you have disposable income, buy albums! It's easy and also fun.
- eppp 2y agoWho gets the money?
- spencerflem 2y agoOn Bandcamp Fridays 100% goes to the artist/label
- roywiggins 2y agoif you are putting $12/mo into a big pot via Spotify there's way less money available to pay artists than if you buy a few albums outright a month, it takes a lot of Spotify streams to earn an artist a dollar. If you stream an album a few thousand times on Spotify maybe it works out in the artists' favor, I suppose.
- adrr 2y agoSpotify the split is 70% rights holders and 30% for Spotify
- roywiggins 2y agoand crucially, it's not taking 70% of your $12/month and parceling it out to the artists you listen to, it's taking everyone's money and putting it in a big bucket and parceling out it proportionally by stream numbers, so you can't direct $8.40 to an artist by only streaming them. If you want to direct a few dollars to an artist you really do need to buy their music (or mech), or somehow give them a couple thousand streams.
- perfmode 2y agoI’d love a way to directly Cash app or Zelle my favorite artist
- fph 2y agoIs there a website that let me auto-queue music based on what I have listened to in the past, and is not a for-profit algorithm like Youtube and Spotify? With Youtube, I feel like I am the product, and they can't wait to put "sponsored" songs into my feed.
- stronglikedan 2y agoThe only good recommendation engine is Pandora's Music Genome Project. It's the only one that auto-queues songs that sound like what you've seeded. Every other service will play you other songs from the same artist or genre, even though they sound nothing like what you've seeded. And then they pepper in other things that have nothing to do with anything - the "sponsored" crap. It's just too damn bad that Pandora refuses to keep up with the competition and add higher quality streams. It sounds noticeably bad by comparison when using modern sound hardware. I just use them for recommendations now, so that I can curate my playlists in services that do offer high quality sound. They could easily be the only music service I pay for, but I'm not going to pay for subpar sound.
- stwrzn 2y ago[dead]
- rappatic 2y agoThe first two albums by Nujabes, the "godfather of lo-fi," are some of the best I've ever heard. Metaphorical Music and Modal Soul.
- portaouflop 2y agoCalling it lo-fi is almost an insult - Nujabes is a category by themselves
- rappatic 2y agoYeah, it is nothing like the lo-fi of today. Nobody else has ever made an album quite like Modal Soul and nobody will again.
- chrisweekly 2y agoThank you! Listening to Metaphorical Music right now and it's hitting me just right. (fistbump)
- Eric_WVGG 2y agoI was delighted to see Nujabes and Samurai Champloo cited right off the bat. For the uninitiated, Champloo is the second anime series by Shinichirō Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame. Where Bebop is science fiction meets jazz, Champloo is medieval Japan meets hip hop. Weirdly under-rated IMO. To this day I still bump into fellow Nujabes fans in the wild and it’s like having a secret handshake
- pcthrowaway 2y agoNujabes tragically died in 2010, at the age of 36. Another Japanese producer I like who straddles "lo-fi hip-hop" (but perhaps with more classical and vocal elements) is DJ Okiwari. Here's the track "Brighter Side" which draws on the vibe of '90s uplifting progressive hip-hop / R&B - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l23qmgf51z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l23qmgf51z0
- madmountaingoat 2y agoI do not dispute that Spotify creates "perfect fit content" tracks. What I will dispute is that, artists with generic bios and AI sounding tracks, are always Spotify tools.
- briantakita 2y agoLofi Girl still has an active audience. >100k for each video. GameChops has a channel as well with >5k & <100k for each video. The Musician's story adds to the vibe. If someone can relate to the creator, it helps to create more connection with the audience than a pure algorithm. The human curated/generated animations seem more coherent...even if it's on a loop. I like some of the new AI animations for being novel...mostly futuristic. Though this will soon become common & something new will show up.
- ZeroCooly 2y agoYou should check out the artist "Home Alone." Their stuff has a very neatly crafted vibe. It's lofi esc maybe a bit more jazzy than you'd expect. But their album covers are great and albums are coherent. Just another example of an artist doing well for themselves still.
- hoherd 2y agoSpeaking of the artists, I keep seeing articles about Lo-Fi being AI generated, but nobody ever lists who the authentic human artists are. The folks who love the genre and are making music because they love it, not just slinging out track after track where each one is being uploaded to Spotify under multiple artist names. Surely there are many genuine, human Lo-Fi artists, and I'd love to know who they are.
- josefritzishere 2y agoI used to work in the record industy. If you want to understand how artist royalties work the seminal article on the topic was written by Steve Albini and is highly reccomended. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
- nonrandomstring 2y ago> For us listeners, it’s more important than ever to seek out real artists. I can understand listening to genai music as a background space filler but music has more functions. It is a signifier and mnemonic, and sets mood for production. Everything on https://cybershow.uk https://cybershow.uk is made in house, on the fly as needed. We mostly use Ardour, Audacity and some weird old computer music tools like Csound, Puredata, Supercollider for all the beds and backings, many of which are in the old-skool, lo-fi styles because these sit behind talk as 'beds' very nicely. It would be easy to grab licensed tracks or use "AI" to make music, but we don't do that. That's mainly because its better to keep control over the feel and exactly craft everything. An example is this poetry episode [0] where everything is cut specifically for the poem, and this latest episode "Owned By Bots" where the grungy "crime beat" is a main feature [1] [0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=13 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=13 [1] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=38 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=38
- 999900000999 2y ago>The Lofi style itself is nothing new, Lofi beats bear a striking resemblance to instrumental hip hop of the 90s and 2000s. Lofi IS instrumental hip hop. Dilla was doing this in the 90s.
- Synaesthesia 2y agoDilla is still the greatest to ever do it.
- midiguy 2y agoLofi peaked long before the term lofi even came about
- dvngnt_ 2y agoThe people behind the california beat scene https://pitchfork.com/features/pitchfork-essentials/9716-the-golden-dawn-la-beat-scene-origins/ https://pitchfork.com/features/pitchfork-essentials/9716-the... made the blueprint then 'lofi' came after
- NickC25 2y agoDebatable - is Pete Rock not up on that same level? What about DJ Premier?
- 999900000999 2y agoDilla is one of the best, but I think apart of why he's so highly rated is his early departure. We're left to wonder about his potential.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoIMO it's more that his approach to rhythm truly was original and unique in contemporary music, and was so influential you hear it everywhere. In fact not only has it not faded, but it continues to grow in prominence year after year. Jazz drummers study dilla beats now. It's used in gospel music. It's very rare for a novel technique to so clearly originate from a single practitioner and then go on to be used as widely as that.
- tantalor 2y agoGlad to see the latest generation coming online has rediscovered and embraced adult contemporary genre / muzak / elevator music / smooth jazz.
- jrm4 2y agoAs a long time (actual) hip-hop fan, I do find it quite hard to muster sympathy for this weirdly isolated, and perhaps disposable, genre? Kind of like, okay, how much did you try to build with the origins of the thing you're using to make new music? Reminds me a bit of "nerdcore" hip-hop; which also made little sense because e.g. Del the Funkee Homosapien and RZA were also nerds making VERY nerdy music, but for "some reason" weren't seen as the same thing.
- cool_dude85 2y agoI mean, I don't disagree with you, but nobody should have to compete with AI on the biggest market out there. If the genre was dying because it isn't cool anymore, whatever. If more people are listening than ever, but they're just getting AI lofi to avoid paying artists, then it's bad news.
- jrm4 2y agoThis presumes AI makes competitively good music. I'm not saying it's not possible or even maybe it's happening somewhere -- but I've yet to hear really good AI hip-hop competitive with humans -- while on the other hand, the "lo-fi" I've heard already sounds like AI-level effort. Not bad, but entirely forgettable.
- midiguy 2y agoThe same thing is happening to jazz playlists. Spotify is cramming jazz playlists with bland interpretations of standards that they paid bottom dollar to desperate conservatory students for. As a long-term jazz fan, I know what I am looking for and it ain't that. But for someone new to jazz who doesn't know exactly what they are looking for, their attention is being diverted to this slop, and they may never discover any dimension of jazz music beyond it, which is kind of sad.
- calibas 2y ago> For Japanese soundtrack producer Nujabes, the “lofi” sound wasn’t an aesthetic choice. It was an artifact of creating such forward thinking music with the dusty equipment from 20 years ago. I trying to figure out where the author got this from? Audio hardware/software hasn't changed that much in 20 years, and Nujabes' lofi aesthetic seems intentional. According to Wikipedia, it originated from an effect button on Roland samplers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lofi_hip-hop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lofi_hip-hop
- itsoktocry 2y ago>I trying to figure out where the author got this from? I laughed at this too. Oh yeah, back in 2005 there was no way to get good sound from that dusty old equipment. I mean, some of the best sounding albums of all time are 50+ years old.
- nluken 2y agoI would highly recommend that folks read Liz Pelly's Mood Machine, which is referenced here via the Harper's excerpt, not just because it shows artists' perspectives on the long tail model that tech pitched to them, but because it can be read as an indictment of the platform model that increasingly dictates how we engage with art and society at large. Pelly's account really gets to the heart of the problem: these platforms are neither neutral nor meritocracies and don't care about the content that they host. Sounds obvious, yes, but reading about the concrete consequences of this fact, namely the aesthetic flattening that results from conditioning the audience to listen to music passively, definitely got me to reexamine how I was using Spotify and consuming music in general. It really drove home the fact that some people treat art as a fungible object, and that these folks are the people deciding what music we're hearing unless we really make an effort to seek it out on our own. Is the model profitable? For some. Good for society? Perhaps not. EDIT: also want to concur with others here that the problem here isn't necessarily AI but how we're selecting what music we're listening to. In the book, Pelly specifically identifies channels like Chilled Cow as being part of the watering down of this genre, since they have a similar incentive to play music at as low a cost to the channel as possible versus playing the best music available to them.
- goosejuice 2y agoI will read that but... I'm so tired of this anti-Spotify crap. Artists and listeners are free not to use it, just as they are free not to use Tidal, SoundCloud, bandcamp, YouTube, etc. It's a platform and the market is free. If it's not working out for you find a different way to market yourself. It's not like top 40 or the Grammys are fair either. Art isn't a fair industry and never will be. How many amazing artists barely made a living their entire life and some person sticks a banana on a wall and walks away with 6 million. If some producer wants to make music under 50 personas that seems perfectly within their rights. Many electronic artists do this. Spotify made a product that people want and continue to pay for. That includes me, someone who has spent thousands, likely over 10 at this point, on physical albums and live music. Some of those artists I discovered on Spotify. Access to lesser known artists is better than it ever has been and that's thanks to platforms like Spotify regardless of what kind of shitheads are running the place.
- quintes 2y agoI love lofi I was actually creating a few lofi tracks and doing so taught me a new style, mixing and mastering and release process. If course no money no followers but it’s the creative process. Lofi girl is about the only thing I listen to in that genre on Spotify. For all it’s “Ai playlist promotion is bad” Spotify will only play things that someone somehow got through their editorals
- paulpauper 2y agoI listened for 5 minutes and and was confused, as I was waiting for a track to build up to a climax, only for the track to transition to something else of a similar . It's the sort of ambient music played at a store.
- quintes 2y agoYou are correct, the tracks do typically remain in a tempo for the whole track. I play it when working and in the background at home because I enjoy the ambience and sometimes I find some unique things in a track and get inspired. It can annoy family members. It’s not for everyone. My other playlists I listen to are rock and related. Lofi has utility if such a comment I saw in this thread is a way to describe it
- jmuguy 2y agoWish on the Beat is on Bandcamp as well, although the embedded youtube track isn't available :( https://wishlyst.bandcamp.com https://wishlyst.bandcamp.com
- portaouflop 2y agoSpotify is a blight upon music and it would be better for our culture if it would cease to exist - I have been boycotting these vultures and culture-vampires since day one but apparently I’m a big weirdo Luddite for that. Buy music directly from the artist or on bandcamp, stop supporting Spotify if you give a shit about music
- mns 2y agoWithout Spotify and the rest of the streaming services most of the people would just pirate music. I would probably spend less on music than I do now on Spotify per year.
- portaouflop 2y agoYou would still give more money to artists directly though — most artists get basically nothing from Spotify
- goosejuice 2y agoThey also wouldn't know about many of the artists in the first place.
- dangrape123 2y agoThat's the point. YOu listen to shit.
- portaouflop 2y agoIt’s trivial to discover new music on platforms like bandcamp, soundcloud, YouTube or even Spotify and then go and pay for the music where it reaches the artists.
- goosejuice 2y agoExactly. I've spent thousands to that effect.
- d3rockk 2y agoYeah, this article misses the mark. The author definitely frames the issue of AI-generated music and stock music in Lofi Hip Hop through a Spotify-centric lens. While they acknowledge that lofi originated and gained popularity outside of Spotify's control, particularly mentioning YouTube channels, it's BS to act like Spotify is the be-all and end-all of this (or any) genre. Disclosure: I've never paid for a Spotify account. The Truth: Lofi Hip Hop continues to flourish far beyond the profit-prioritized walls of Spotify's garden, a meticulously manicured space where genuine discovery is choked out by the weeds of algorithmic control. True artistry is blossoming in the wilder, freer spaces online. Also I really recommend Shlohmo & quickly quickly for some fresh Lofi.
- NickC25 2y ago+1 for Shlomo. For those on Youtube, check out OGDONNINJA. He has a channel of literally thousands of old-school underground boombap hip hop tracks, in their dusty and 12-bit glory.
- pipeline_peak 2y agoLo-Fi hip hop already sounds AI generated. It’s music for bubble tea shops.
- lanstin 2y agoOr noisy RTO code shops.
- fallinditch 2y agoThere seems to be a lot of anger around Spotify these days, often misplaced I reckon. One of the biggest impediments to new artists making a living from recorded music is not the existence of Spotify and other streaming platforms, rather it's the massive and growing library of existing music, some of which is excellent. But it's not impossible. My neighbor manages his music career himself. In 2024 he went from having 250,000 monthly Spotify listeners to 800,000. A few months ago he was able to give up his job and devote himself to music full time - he is getting decent streaming royalty checks. If you complain that Spotify is contributing to a generic and bland listening experience then that is totally your own fault. Spotify will give you excellent and adventurous listening experiences, but you have to put in the time to 'train' your personal algorithms first, mainly by liking tracks, saving albums and playlists, and making playlists. Also: by paying attention to DJs/curators and researching dark corners of the music blogosphere, SoundCloud and Mixcloud.
- ekam 2y agoDid your neighbor share with you what worked for him?
- fallinditch 2y agoIt's interesting, Schur (artist name) hasn't had anyone ever review his music as far as I can tell, none of his tracks have ever got much traction on YouTube, none of his releases are even listed on albumoftheyear.org, low traction on SoundCloud too. He said he gets fans via Instagram (34 k followers). He's not on TikTok. Looks like he's not on any official Spotify, or other popular, playlists. Schur's music does have a very catchy and upbeat vibe, I like his stuff. I guess it's possible he could have had a track featured on a TikTok video that went viral, without being aware of it. So for him his best channel is Instagram. I noticed that he's using Insta ads, I'm getting them in my feed, but I follow him too.
- fallinditch 2y agoI think for Schur it really is the 'vibe thing' that works for him - he makes music that resonates with people. Spotify makes it so easy to like songs and every time someone likes a track it becomes more likely to be featured in the algo playlists and so the vibe snowballs.
- joshdavham 2y ago> as most punk rockers and rap artists will tell you, once your sound hits the mainstream it’s time to move on This is a really interesting quote. I definitely feel that there are analogies in other fields as well.
- stuart78 2y agoI think it say something about the relatively low-effort nature of this genre that it could be so easily codified and displaced by AI. The human-produced examples in the article follow simple and predictable rules and already sounded pretty artificial before the robots got involved.
- cess11 2y agoI'd like to do a tangential mention of SomaFM, web radio that does electronic chill and mood music very well and has survived for a long time on donations. https://somafm.com/ https://somafm.com/
- trinsic2 2y agoI highly recommend people stop using music streaming services, they take away the control of the music listener and producers. Bandcamp might be a different story since it has a policy it stands by (for now), provides access to the music downloads and doesn't try to artificially alter their listings, but that can soon change with the new ownership.
- lyzml_AF 2y ago[dead]
- localbolu 2y agoShout out to Flow State (https://www.flowstate.fm/ https://www.flowstate.fm/) for their daily album recs which have served me as a nice alternative to Spotify's lofi for the past few years
- hoppp 2y agoI always loved lo fi hip hop, even produced some in the 2010s, but for concentration music I now moved on (or went back) to listening to old jungle.