I was going to write a different post about the insidiousness of the "woke" outlook, particularly in the arts community, but it will definitely come across as far too hostile right now, so I'll save that for later.
I'm still coming to grips with the way that entertainment has become so dematerialized now. Very few people buy CDs or DVDs, preferring to stream them. A handful of people buy vinyl, but mostly for the wrong reason (as a fetish object that is looked at but not played). This has had a profound impact on the retail sector, including the fact that you can barely resell CDs anywhere in the city any longer. I had found one store that would occasionally touch classical and jazz, but that closed at least a year ago. I just read that Sikora's Classical in Vancouver is closing, which is quite sad. It was basically the only place in Vancouver that would take classical CDs, though they would only do exchange for store credit, no cash. I spent a fair bit of time there, particularly as I was getting ready to leave and I was trying to slim down my collection prior to packing it all up.
But things change, and people move on (though there are definitely losers in the new economy including unfairly paid musicians as well as out-of-work clerks). On the flip side, I am still amazed at just how much music is available on Apple Music. Pretty much any mainstream recording I've ever heard of, and an unbelievable amount of world music (the whole run of Ethiopiques, for example) and a lot of jazz. It is true that he Fantasy jazz catalog (Prestige, Riverside, Milestone, etc.) is not there (or if it is it is a public domain clone), but pretty much all of Blue Note and Atlantic and Soul Note and even Impulse is. The Fantasy catalogue used to be up on eMusic (which sells mp3s, not just offering up streams) but they lost it several years back. Interestingly enough, the Fantasy catalog popped up on Naxos jazz/classical. This is a service that is basically European-based, but does operate in Canada, though not the US (or at least the offerings are drastically reduced). This is one of the few things where Canadians have it better than Americans, probably because Canadian copyright is more in line with Europe than the US. This is likely to change after all the NAFTA changes get pushed through, so I should enjoy it while I can.
It was only a few months back that I switched my allegiance to Apple Music from eMusic. Somewhat stupidly I just haven't had the time to properly close out my eMusic account, so I have been paying for both for a while, but I will close the eMusic account before much longer. I can understand the arguments that having practically all recorded music at your fingertips devalues music and certainly albums, though I don't think that is true in my case, probably because I have a lifetime of listening to music as albums and that is still how I prefer to do it, streaming the entire album (and not shuffling or jumping between a bunch of different tracks). I have been indulging in some very deep catalogue dives lately, far too numerous to list it all, but highlights include Charles McPherson, Ali Farka Toure, Oumou Sangara, William Onyeabor, Los Lobos, Ry Cooder, J.J. Cale and Jackie Shane. It's also a very good way to get acquainted with recent recordings of pop/rock artists where I wouldn't actually buy their newest recordings (Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney for example or even Alice in Chains). So it really does feel like running around in a huge candy store with an unlimited account.
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