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Used Spotify briefly years ago.
Not a fan of streaming. No real reason, just because...
Do maintain a Google Music account for easy access to my purchased and uploaded stuff, but don't stream any 'external' content through it.
Love to buy a physical thing, whether vinyl or CD. Use the download codes to grab portable versions, but nearly always use the physical thing if listening at home (grew up in the original death throes of vinyl and still like the ritual associated with listening to it).
Even like the dirty sound of vinyl played on bog standard kit (totally different IMO to the harsh, 'clean' dirtiness of lower bitrate .mp3).
[i] after a few months it would start to skip [/i]
Got 100s of CDs, can't remember any skipping. Must have had a dodgy player.
usic and Spotify have been my 21st Century record shop. On balance I've wasted a lot less money on crap.
I very rarely spend money on crap these days, but I still regularly spend a fair bit on music, in a physical format, I really can't be doing with streaming. Yes, I can download stuff, but so what, I can just add more music from my ever expanding iTunes library to my phone, which already has as much music on it than I could listen to in a week, and when I upgrade to a new phone later this year, which will have 256Gb of storage, I will be able to carry my entire library, should I wish to - I won't, because some music just doesn't work well when being carried around, like entire symphonies, for example.
And streaming hasn't the quality of CD's ripped at 320Kb, although I know you can get lossless files, they take up much more space and don't sound any better, a fact that's been shown quite a few times, I've proved it to myself, I honestly cannot hear any difference between a 329 AAC file and an Apple Lossless or a FLAC file, through a pair of £350 UE triple driver monitors.
Also, it's just not possible to go up to one of your favourite artists and shove a memory stick with some Spotify playlists on and ask them to sign it, they're much more receptive to a small pile of their back catalogue on CD or even vinyl. Murray and Natalia of The Dears were chuffed to bits that I took along all their back catalogue a couple of weeks ago, it was the first time I'd met them in the twenty-odd years they'd been recording, that's were the connection comes that isn't there with just streaming stuff.
Another singer/songwriter I know was talking about getting a million streams of a track from her new EP, she earned less than £20, AFAIK.
That is just immoral.
With streaming, it's just another disposable commodity, there's no personal investment involved, nothing meaningful, it's all just wallpaper with no emotion.
with streaming, it's just another disposable commodity there's no personal investment involved, nothing meaningful, it's all just wallpaper with no emotion.
This is misty eyed bollards to be fair, music's emotional content has **** all to do with what format it's presented on
Getting stuff signed by the artist is not something I understand. I've had plenty of chats with bands at gigs and remember them nicely enough without having to come across as a little fanboy autograph hunter (bit like getting a selfie with them, I reckon.)
If it weren't for Spotify I wouldn't have discovered the awesome that is Synthwave.
It analysed what I listened to and put together a mix for me, I ticked the tracks I liked, and it then found more stuff etc etc. I've now got an awesome collection of artists I'd previously never heard of (and probably never would have!). I've been fortunate enough to see some of these artists live in the past 6 months.
I'm basically stating this for the people on here who don't use streaming services. They are so convenient too, especially when you want to listen to music at work without the required thought process of choosing what specifically to listen to.
When I go to gigs I refuse to even look at the band, attention seeking bastards that they are. Sometimes I just put my hoody up and face the bar all night.
Never used a streaming service and never will do. I do not want to be tied to paying a subscription
A basic Spotify sub is free, so long as you don't mind the occasional advert.
And streaming hasn't the quality of CD's ripped at 320Kb
Spotify "high quality" is 320Kbps, IIRC (Ogg Vorbis I think).
Problem I found with Spotify is for albums there can be rights issues where certain tracks have different rights and are missing in your country. It's not so bad for the majority of typical users who just listen to random tracks, not albums, and mostly new music. More annoying for my kind of use. Always full albums and mostly old music.
That said I do stream. From my NAS and/or from Onedrive where I can dump my music on my 1TB storage and it becomes available in stuff like the Groove app. Doesn't matter about rights, it's just available and I can make it offline if I want. I don't do app streaming much though. I mainly stream FLAC files from my NAS to one or more devices around the house. All ripped from CDs, which I then own forever and cannot have them disappear due to rights issues, expiry of service or lost internet connection.