I feel like the oldest man in the thread with about 100gigs of self-ripped music to which I still own the CD’s… Also with the signature look of superiority, of course.

Frank Zappa put it this way [paraphrased]

In the 1960s the music execs were into Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington. They had no idea what was going on, so they just threw money at any band that came along. You had a wide variety of music.

The first set of execs hired young guys who ‘knew what the kids want.’ Those guys played it safe, so in the 1970s you had stadium rock and disco.

Now AI ‘knows’ exactly what people want.

I don’t use Spotify. It feels kind of soulless.

Bandcamp was the best, I think. They’re still around, but their future is uncertain after being bought and sold. They have human written posts about like “the best doom in Texas” or “what’s new in punk”.

Whenever I talk to people that say they like music, and I suggest they buy albums instead of renting them from Spotify, they look at me like I’m crazy. They’d rather sell their soul for a little convenience. (And these aren’t poor people or teenagers with no money. I worked in tech and all my peers were six figure salary. They can afford to buy three albums a month for $18. Which frankly isn’t much more than a subscription, but then you get to keep something and eventually have a huge library)

I think algorithms overall are affecting music and how it reaches people. The rise of songs as background music for things they have nothing to do with is becoming blatant. “Messy” came out of know where and suddenly everyone knew about it and it was in tons of videos. I had never heard of that woman before (which could be for a number of reasons) but suddenly, boom, it’s everywhere. Now it’s “Anxiety.” I used to (naively) think that people were just naturally coming across music and things were just popular. But without the charade of people “calling” in to request a song, the act of discovering music feels very soulless. It’s like, “here, please choose your new favorite song from these preselected songs.”

fuxk spotify

I routinely added new music I’ve discovered from elsewhere to my Spotify.

I rarely listen to playlists created by Spotify (i also don’t listen to other people’s playlists either but significantly more than the Spotify one)

I have hundreds of playlists, most of them are ideas i had that i haven’t added to so many of them have only a few songs in them.

Another example i have a playlist that is One - Metallica, One - U2 and Chris Cornells mashup of the 2 songs

Just 3 songs because that’s all it needs to be

I don’t engage much with other people through it, and i don’t even “like” all of the songs i listen to.

I’ve heard other people complain greatly about the algorithm they use but I’ve had a really good experience with it to date.(Helped me find me things i enjoy listening to and also things i would never have found myself)

I feel it’s because i put a fair amount of time injecting music into my experience that isn’t dictated by Spotify i have this different experience.

I like to choose a specific song as a seed, and let Spotify keep playing after that.

That’s what has worked very well for me, but i feel if i didn’t often start with something I’ve heard elsewhere it would not have worked so well for me.

Some notes, i listen to guitar driven music mostly. But also enjoy classical music and piano as well, but most of the new stuff i seek to seed track on Spotify is new modern rock.

This works very well for me, but it does what i want.

The other reason i still use Spotify is that after trying Tidal and Deezer I rarely can’t find what I’m trying to listen to.

Honestly the only thing i like about Spotify actually is the catalogue and that it isn’t google or apple.

Ive had more that l than a few … Intergalactic Journeys… Thinking about a repository of music and nanny different versions of it. Still hoping something turns up in 5 to 10 years

And lastly i absolutely loathe when they add things or make changes as well as their playlist creation functions.

I use Spotify to conveniently stream an album to decide whether or not to download it into my ipod. Imo offline devices are, were and will keep being the best option (while on an airplane, on a road trip with no signal) and I get the feeling to own my music and to know the context of the artist I am listening to.

soulseek is the new napster

sail away

Songza, followed by its post-purchase rebirth as Google’s Play Music, was the pinnacle. We need to bring back professionally human curated playlists.