Music streaming done right

We’ve been reliably informed by our almost teen son that we’re “literally the only family in the world” that doesn’t have a subscription to a music streaming service.

After we lectured him about how the majority of the world actually live (well you have to) I did think maybe it’s not a bad idea.

So what is out there that means the artists get a decent deal, the family gets plenty of variety and the kids don’t get exposed to lots of songs about licking cats etc?

I don’t advocate for doing this but purely by accident I found that if your VPN suggests you’re in Romania then you can get the Tidal individual plan for 23.99 RON/month, which works out at around £4/month. Family plan is 29.99 RON so another quid or so.

Got it because Tidal allows linking/streaming to Serato DJ, using a VPN because at work. The catalogue and sound quality is top notch.

Artists typically get a poor deal from all parts of the music business don’t they?

🤷🏻‍♂️ sounds like your son’s problem rather than yours if you’re still content with your gramophone and wireless or whatever.

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/oct/31/best-streaming-service-mp3-pays-artists

it is possible that the service with the ‘best’ artist deal might not be the cheapest to subscribe to. Nor might it have the largest collection of music, but if it has the music you know you’re interested in that may not be a problem? Though you may want to check that it is the ‘right’ service for a pre-teen. After all, ceding to his wishes may backfire if it isn’t cool enough.

You’ll want to be sure that the app is available on whatever devices you use. Also that it won’t swamp whatever data allowances are on your phones if out and about.

By the way, licking cats? I assume a euphemism. Not a bad thing to do and part of the demotic in popular music.

If you have amazon prime then I believe Amazon Music is included, albeit I don’t think it has quite the range of artists as Spotify / Tidal etc.

Artists typically get a poor deal from all parts of the music business don’t they?

They get a poor deal if you buy the MP3 too so unless you stick with vinyl, ultimately there’s not much difference. See them live and buy the merchandise if you really want to support them.

The amount paid to artists depends – obviously – on the region you’re registered in for payments so by electing to pretend that you’re in Romania all you’re actually doing is robbing the people who make the content.

Apparently Napster (!) pay the most, then Tidal (though probably not if you sign up from Romania 🙄) and Spotify then YouTube the least. Everyone else somewhere in the middle.

Nowt wrong with Spotify. Just works. We have the family package shared between me, wife, daughter and my parents.

Pretty much all have 30 day trials so sign up for a few and see which works best for you.

Tidal has a top stream which shares out your mo ey according to what you actually listen if I understand correctly.  They then have a lower service that shares according to the average split across everyone (I think).  Their family plan seems good value

I think Qobuz might pay well as well but it is up a level in price

Edit:it’s tidal hifi plus that seems to feed more towards artists. With Qobuz you can actually buy tracks which might be even better

Nowt wrong with Spotify.

There’s a lot wrong with Spotify, primarily in the one area that OP actually cares about!

by electing to pretend that you’re in Romania all you’re actually doing is robbing the people who make the content.

I appreciate this, and I emailed Tidal to see if I could change it somehow but their response was that the email I used is permanently associated with Romania and account location cannot be changed. Nor can the email be used again. I didn’t even have my VPN set to Romania, it was set to UK, but Tidal recognised it as Romania.

I’m not enough of a martyr to be arsed about righting Tidal’s weird account rules so £4/month it is.

We use Spotify on the family plan, primarily because it’s the only one that had a decent kids version. So my pre-teen-going-on-19-year-old daughter can have the curated Spotify Kids app, and my actual-teenage son can have the adult version. And I can give Joe Rogan more money.

There’s a lot wrong with Spotify, primarily in the one area that OP actually cares about!

You’re arguing about fractions of a pence. They all pay shit and the only way to really support smaller artists is to go to their gigs, buy merch and CD’s/Vinyl direct from them.

And there’s this to take into account…
For instance, Spotify may pay less per stream, but it has more listeners than other more high-paying streaming platforms, so it’s possible that you meet the goal faster with streams on Spotify than on Napster.

https://www.lalal.ai/blog/music-streaming-payouts-2023/#:~:text=Tidal%2C%20a%20high%2Dfidelity%20music,%240.0125%20to%20%240.015%20per%20stream.

I wanted to change to Tidal as it pays artists better than Spotify but I can’t* link it to my google smart device so ended up sacking it off and sticking with Spotify. If they sort that out I might change.

*Easily, you know for the general numpty masses, not all the IT geeks on here.

I use bandcamp to buy digital music and merch from small bands.

You’re arguing about fractions of a pence. They all pay shit

fractions of a pence yes. Cunningly ignoring the fact that Spotify has half a billion users worldwide so those fractions could add up to a lot if they paid a decent amount! Apple pays double what Spotify pay, and tidal about 50% more still. So not similar at all.

Of course the main reason Spotify pay shit all is because they’ve never actually made any money, and post a loss every year. They’ve constantly undervalued their product by giving it away for free to the majority of their customers, which does absolutely no-one any favours in the long run. What their long-term plan is, I have no idea. 🤷‍♂️

I use Tidal for proper sound quality and artist fairness. easy to connect to my chrome cast from my android phone.
Don’t think OPs lad will want to vpn to a Romanian account on his phone while out with his mates tho..
My teenager uses family Spotify tho cos he and his mates all share their play lists, the social side is much better on Spotify, and that could well be important when choosing which one
We also use Spotify in the car with it linking from the car idrive

I heard one fairly well established folk singer on the radio recently. Her entire output has been available to stream for ten years, she reckons her total income from streaming over that time is less than £1000.

she reckons her total income from streaming over that time is less than £1000.

notwithstanding the paltry payments, but I reckon that could also be down to folk-music-fans not wanting to mess about with new-fangled technology 🤔

I use Tidal for proper sound quality and artist fairness

This. Listening to American Folk as I type. Leave it on when you go to to bed with the desk amp switched off to improve artist payments.

Like all streaming, you have to bash the like button or you’ll forget the music that you like. It’s a slow learner otherwise. Still thinks I like Hip Hop sometimes.

I appreciate this, and I emailed Tidal to see if I could change it somehow but their response was that the email I used is permanently associated with Romania and account location cannot be changed. Nor can the email be used again. I didn’t even have my VPN set to Romania, it was set to UK, but Tidal recognised it as Romania.

I switched to Tidal from Spotify for the artist share reasons mostly (plus a serving of Joe Rogan flouncing)….but I had constant account issues with them similar to this, can’t remember the exact details but all sorts of weirdness, random charging and generally flaky behaviour.

Anyway, then switched to Apple music as the next least worst – it’s OK, but seems to have a slightly less complete catalogue than Spotify, and adding a family member with Android is a PITA, so not sure if I’d totally recommend. Also I find the Sonos integrated interface weird – it’s hard to break out of my purchases Library, which is 3 albums only one of which I bought and includes that U2 thing they pushed to everyone years ago. May not be Apple’s issue but still a pain for me.

I can feel a move back to Spotify coming on.

Can’t you just give the child a radio?

notwithstanding the paltry payments, but I reckon that could also be down to folk-music-fans not wanting to mess about with new-fangled technology 🤔

Probably still rocking these stickers too!… 🙂

switched to Tidal… but I had constant account issues with them

Zero issues w Tidal billing or account for me

Steal music, send the artist a tenner if you listen to a record more than once.

Vinyl isn’t as good an earner for many musicians as it was, despite the prices rising. Bandcamp is okay for musicians.

Artists typically get a poor deal from all parts of the music business don’t they?

Yep, generally because of the contracts with record companies.

They then blame the streaming platforms with which they dictated the terms to….

Anyway, then switched to Apple music as the next least worst – it’s OK, but seems to have a slightly less complete catalogue than Spotify, and adding a family member with Android is a PITA

it really isn’t, did it for the mrs, just need to create an AppleID (which you then add to Family Sharing on your iPhone) & dl the Android app. She is a complete luddite & managed it fine!!

@zilog6128 @the-muffin-man you need to get out and meet some folk music fans.

As noted (and as someone who has music available on vinyl, bandcamp and streaming) – no streaming service pays notably well. IMO mp3 sales are just as acceptable in supporting artists as buying the record. (Gigs, vinyl, mp3 sales, merch, it all helps).

In your use case, probably just get a Spotify family plan and investigate other options to supplement it!

I’m a heavy user of Bandcamp: labels get typically 85% of the purchase price, and you get to download the WAVs for future use (handy when things disappear off Spotify) but also then stream them via the app.  I also have a Spotify subscription, buy the odd vinyl, and get to gigs when I can.

spotify is so shit.

we use it as a family (since google play was stopped) but i hate it so much.

Spotify is awesome. I devour tonnes of weird, obscure nonsense which I’d never find any other way. Russian Drift Phonk anyone?

I don’t use it to constantly relisten to my favourite albums from decades ago when my taste was frozen in time at the 6th form Christmas party.

Just do something for your son without being all STW about it?

P.S. for all the none cat lickers, you need to broaden your horizons.

since google play was stopped

It became YouTube music

Spotify family account user here.

Use it everyday for podcasts and new music. It’s brilliant and simple to use.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>If you just listen to your old favourite bands it’s probably not the best value.</p>

@gordimhor

@zilog6128 @the-muffin-man you need to get out and meet some folk music fans.

That would mean having to listen to folk music! 🙂

Tidal family user here. Quality is better than Spotify and I’ve discovered lots of artists that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise.  I really like it.  Will buy CDs/Vinyl directly from the artists when I get the chance

Spotify’s android app is quite buggy, in case such things bother you.

Examples off the top of my head in current version:

1. the skip forward/back 15s button in the notification bar is the wrong way round
2. it will only play around 50% of cached files if you are out of phone coverage/on a flight
3. if somebody plays a track using my Google Home speaker, when using Android Auto it stops the music in my car (even the radio, nothing to do with spotify or android auto!)
4. the notification sometimes gets stuck and cannot be cleared from the lock screen. I even had 3 stuck notifications the other day. There’s a thread that’s been open for approx 5 years on their forum/bug tracker about it!

From here:https://www.headphonesty.com/2021/11/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream/

(it’s 2 years old but gives you an idea)

Quboz is best at $0.043/stream

then Tidal at 0.013

Apple at 0.01

Spotify at 0.0033

But,  Tidal do have this plus subscription where they change the balance so more goes to the artists that you personally listen to (as I understand it)

And I can give Joe Rogan more money.

$200 million of Spotify subscriptions gone to one horrendous man. There’s my main reason for shifting off Spotify.

If you’re all on Apple devices then Apple Music is great and if you use iCloud or whatever then there are various bundles that are ok value (for Apple).  As someone else said, they are relatively artist friendly too.

Especially compared to Spotify. Qobuz and Tidal look interesting as well.

For reference, I just looked at my PRS statement for last month. Here are the numbers for one particular tune. In order of royalty rate!  Rates are not fixed – they depend on how and when different countries report their stats. Sometimes Norway or Switzerland report all at once and pay high rates. Next quarter it’s all Slovakia and Turkey and rates are much lower. I am really, really, very substantially surprised to see Amazon Prime doing better than Apple here.

Tidal: 124 plays for £0.258 – (£0.0021 a play)
Amazon Prime: 1302 plays for  £0.879 (£0.00068 a play)
Apple Music: 220 plays for £0.098 – (£0.00045 a play)
Spotify: 2560 plays for £0.32 – (£0.0013p a play)
Youtube: 88,482 plays for £2.33 – (£0.000026 a play, or as Excel shows it, £2.633E-05 per play)

One play on daytime (Saturday) 6 Music: £9.54
A £1 sale on Bandcamp: £0.80ish, (after BC and Paypal’s cut)

Edit to add: Qobuz is hard to quantify due to low numbers. Seems to be anywhere between £0.0013 a play, ie less than Tidal, to £0.003, which beats Tidal.

@doris5000

Does it cost you to create accounts with them all and upload music, or is that element free to the artist?

@doris5000

Is it the same payment from non paying subscriptions as paying (Spotify) to yourself?