Music

I'm the opposite of everyone here. Spotify is so good for discovery. My discover weekly consistently finds me awesome little bands I never would have found anywhere else. The mixes and playlist generation are terrible. The service is good. Offline mode is terrible.

I still send music I think is cool to my friends and vice versa. Being able to see what your friends are listening to is also great.

I'm still switching to my own music library using listenbrainz for discovery. Hopefully i can still find good music.

The only good thing about Spotify is that you can control the algorhythm with a bit of work instead of the other way around.

I'm feeding off the weekly recommendations that are filled with the 6-8 genres I like. I don't get any mainstream garbage in my recommendations, and am finding New Songs every week.

I bet those articles come from the 3 big Labels

Imo music discovery on Spotify is best done by pursuing playlists posted by musicians you like or just hopping by related artists/album features.

The article hits the nail on the head when they say to listen to human curated content - whether it be curated by yourself or someone else, it's the best way to find something new/good.

Switched to deezer some years ago. I tested all music streaming services beforehand and found that Deezer an Applemusic have the most relevant music recommendations for me.

Both deezer and apple have all the spotify features my family wants plus lossless audio if youre into that kind of thing (like me). Since distribution is handled by tunecore etc the catalog is the same anyway. Decided on deezer because I use android. Also a neat little backdoor in their servers Ü.

This is why i only listen to music recomedations by Anatoly Bannano the internet's busiest music nerd (tm) and laurie my punk transwomen psychotic co-worker.

Oh what the hell time to hijack this thread... GIMMIE YOUR FAVORITE PLACES TO FIND NEW MUSIC!

just stop listening to automated playlists

Music industry destroyed music way before Spotify. The second it became industry.

Tidal is better

I find articles and takes of this sort to be kind of "storm in a glass of water", not really an issue if you just take a step back, and with somewhat made-up problems, e.g. pop songs used to go on for 3 or maaaybe 4 minutes, now the author complains they are just 2 mins - but the format never was conductive to "telling a proper story" at all.

If someone thinks Spotify is that bad, idk just stop using it? I've never used it and I'm doing just fine. There's plenty of other ways of discovering and accessing and living with music.

I used to really enjoy spending one afternoon a month spending my absurd grandfathered-in emusic quota on weird new folk and adjacent stuff.

Then they changed the deal and I switched to streaming. It's just not the same.

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 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.

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)

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

If this is a topic folks are interested in, I'd highly recommend Liz Pelly's new book Mood Machine. She did a lot of research in this area and really lays out how Spotify is destroying discovery and music community in the name of profits. Honestly it's horrifying, way worse than most people would assume.

An excerpt was published in Harper's too.

She also did an interview with Anthony Fantano, but I haven't watched it.

soulseek is the new napster

sail away

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.

Without reading the article:

Spotify is shit. I’m paying for a family plan for other while I find good songs everywhere else. I haven’t found a good song in 3 months using Spotify’s playlists. Even the weekly mix is shit. everything sounds the same. I want a mix of hard, heavy, slow and steady. Give me a Disney Song back to back with Black Sabbath.

I’m back to pirating and purchasing music, depending which is easier for a specific track. My songs are on an android device I only use for music.

Well, one thing I can say about YouTube Music is I've never heard any nameless Lo-Fi beat tracks. Every artist it's ever played for me is real.

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."

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.

fuxk spotify

Podcasts and playlists on mine. Been a spotify user for 15 years.

Playlist are usually genre specific. With a GrabBag playlist and "comedy" playlist. Spotify is good at throwing me new songs on a solid genre playlist. Pretty easy for my house/techno, rock, and my wayback (pre-2000s) playlist.

A mix of songs kind of throws it off, like too many different types of music and it doesn't really get "taste".

If you use spotify, make playlists separated by genres. That's the best I've seen for music discovery with spotify.