With the launch of the Apple Music Classical app in various languages, the global classical market may be ushering in a big change: this is the first streaming client specially developed by a leading high-tech enterprise for classical music, and its arrival does prove that the mainstream market recognizes the commercial value of classical music products. I also took advantage of the heat to experience the bilingual version of this mainstream classical**stream**Chinese-English,Although it is not much different from Apple**app at the pure sound level,But the overall interface、Classification、Retrieval is indeed more suitable for the vast classical**recording。 This is undoubtedly good news for classical** consumers. But when I hear a lot of semi-advertising arguments such as "Apple Classical is a new way of life", I still have a question mark in my heart: Is the existing classical **stream** really good enough to change the way of listening to music?
For many users, including me, in the current market environment, streaming is more like a low-cost audition platform, and has not become the main channel for us to appreciate it, and even the bulk of product consumption. Many long-term classical** consumers with high viscosity still prefer to use physical records (such as CDs or vinyl, even SACD and Blu-ray CDs) as a slightly conservative listening medium; Choosing to use streaming** is often used as an alternative to physical records under a variety of conditions.
In addition to the obsession with possessing physical products, the reason why this habit of physical appreciation is inertly retained may also be because the streaming platform is not perfect at many levels. From another point of view, the listening experience created by the classical **stream** platform may still only simplify and synthesize part of the content of the physical record on a convenient digital platform, but it has not been able to truly customize a new way of listening according to the characteristics of the stream itself. It is bound to be compared to it over and over again as a substitute for physical records.
Compared with physical records, the most obvious flaw of the streaming platform is naturally the richness of resources. Of course, many precious recordings have now disappeared into the catalog of physical records, and if there is no obsession with buying second-hand records, they can be listened to at any time on streaming platforms. However, whether it is Apple Classical Music or comprehensive software such as Spotify, the breadth of its content cannot include all the recordings that exist in physical form. There are still a large number of excellent unpopular recordings that have not yet been streamed or even digitized. To enjoy them, consumers have to turn to physical records. And those streamed recordings are often dominated by relatively common "big road goods", so although the streaming platform can collect thousands of different recordings for some popular tracks, there may not be the one you need. If you just move all the recordings of physical records that can be found into the streaming platform, and try to make them equal to the physical records in terms of sound quality, then the only advantage of the streaming platform is only "convenience".
Another thing that makes me have reservations about streaming platforms is the lack of content tours. The Apple Classical app does provide an introduction to some of the important track entries; Truth be told, though, these bios are no different from online encyclopedias, and they don't read much, nowhere near as good as the guided tours that come with most physical records. No matter how knowledgeable the listener is, when facing a work or interpretation that has not been heard, it needs some background knowledge to supplement, not to mention that the stream is supposed to be a platform for the public. It would be a great improvement if the content of the tour that came with the record could be streamed synchronously with the audio. This has been achieved on streaming platforms such as Naxos and Presto; However, the booklet is only available in PDF format, which means that it is almost impossible to read using a mobile screen – or rather, it is clearly not "flowing** thinking".
Perhaps more important than the guided tour is the lyrics and translations of the opera and vocal works attached to the booklet, without which the complete recordings of the opera and vocal works are bound to be quite neglected on the streaming platform. And I even think that if conditions allow, streaming platforms can develop synchronized lyrics scrolling for classical like pop. It's certainly not technically difficult (it's a must-have in pop**), but perhaps it's still a challenge to promote in classical**, since each work has a fairly large number of different recordings. I once saw on the NetEase Cloud** platform that is probably a full set of Schubert rolling lyrics and translations made by enthusiastic netizens themselves - if such a service can be popularized, when listening to vocal works, the experience brought by classical **stream** will be incomparable to physical records.
It must be admitted that the lossless sound quality provided by the streaming platform is equal to or even surpasses the average standard CD at the data level, and high-end technologies such as Dolby Atmos provided by Apple Classical have made it close to the SACD (Super Audio Disc) effect on the same audio equipment. Streaming is good enough in terms of listening, but a service shouldn't stop at the audio itself. With the drastic changes in the market, the streaming of classical ** must be the trend of the future: in recent years, many ** brands that have never entered the ** market have successively launched ** services, such as the Hyperion label acquired by Universal in 2023. However, whether it is the supply side or the demand side of the classical market, I think the current streaming products are still making a "simplified and convenient alternative" to physical records. Under this way of thinking, how can we make a "new way of life" that really makes people's eyes shine?
If you want to attract enough high-viscosity users, specialization and high-quality products must be its necessary characteristics and development trends. Of course, the advent of classical **stream** is a good sign - and let's look forward to it.
Yang Hanju text.