Spotify - anyone heard of it?

from my friend's blog of okcupid first-date horror stories:

He ordered a whole pizza, did not offer to share, and was shocked when I ordered a small bread a cheese plate, because, of course, as one does when you just meet for drinks, I had already eaten. He then accused me of possibly having an eating disorder. He would know, because he used to be a talent scout and has met many women with eating disorders. (...)

Our food arrives and we switch gears. Trying to choke down what was honest-to-God a TERRIBLE cheese plate (how?!) I ask him about his job. He is surprisingly reluctant to tell me anything, considering the detail to which he described his familial problems.

"Well you said in your profile you work in your sweatpants. So you work from home?"

"Sure. I work from home."

Upon further probing I discover that after years spent as a talent scout in L.A. he moved to NYC to work in finance, but along the way uncovered how to make money by creating fake albums and posting them to spotify under different aliases. Knowing that a single listen to a song on spotify earns the artist only $.01, I cannot imagine how many made-up musical artists this guy has created in order to sustain a life in a studio apartment in Manhattan with no other source of income. Needless to say I was rather disquieted.

lolllll

This story will amuse many people.

Thanks, Glenn!

have seriously wanted to read an account - fictional or not - of the people that create the fake comps you see in spotify, and cover versions based on pre-release radio exclusives.. i remember when "100%" by duke dumont came out, it took several months to hit spotify, in which time a sound-a-like "tribute" racked up hundreds of thousands of plays. i was obsessed with who had made it, what was their name, what they ate for lunch. it was probably pizza sweatpants guy.

Aren't those just the latest iteration of the "not recorded by the original artists" albums that were used to scam less-knowledgable record buyers since at least the 1970s?

...which were mostly done by non-popular studio musicians and other record industry proles.

Do less knowledgeable record buyers tend to recognize David Bowie?

Usually those albums didn't/don't have a picture of the original artist on the cover, because that was/is probably considered too misleading for the consumer.

By "too misleading" I mean that it could lead to court cases.

Those were a monumental pain in the neck when I worked at Sam Goody. So many returns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Countdown_Singers

I am getting a message saying that in a few months Spotify won't be supported by "my platform" - but when I click to learn more I just get taken to a generic FAQ page. Not sure what platform I could possibly be using that is worthy of going out of date. I'm on desktop and mobile, using Spotify software in both cases.

Hey pgwp, that sounds weird. Where are you getting this message?

I get that message as well, I'm on an old Mac (10.6??) and Chrome is also telling me the same thing fwiw

have not clicked on the link yet cuz I'm gonna ride this old computer into the ground first

it's a blue banner at the top of the screen

Two cases is an epidemic, as far as I'm concerned. I don't know what the deal is, but I forwarded both of your reports to our internal support department.

MVP

I guess I'm not running the most up to date OS for my mac.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Mac/Updates-no-longer-available-on-this-platform-notice/td-p/1279823

psh glenn conspicuously not weighing in on egregious local files functionality limitations demonstrates his loyalties to the man

your local files are special, and the struggle enhances this feeling

I can't care about everything.

mike t-diva: I was just about to post a mighty rant about the sudden search deficiency in the functional versions (ie pre 1.0), but then it... worked again? Does it for you too?

This is probably way outside of your area, Glenn, but if you know any of the Connect folks, it's totally broken on FireTV (crashes immediately) and it looks like I'm not the only one seeing this...

I have not had crashes, but I have to uninstall/reinstall the app every time I try to use it. Otherwise my phone will never see the FireTV as a connect option.

Tried that, but it still didn't work. :(

Got it to play one time for a couple seconds, and then it crashed.

xp Anatol: Oh! It has started working again! What a relief.

No, I don't know much about Connect, and nothing at all about FireTV, but I know who does, and have passed word along...

Thank you.

Has the Connect thing mis-stepped up its game again with a recent update? I *really* want to just keep each device separate when it comes to playing (not lists etc obv); when I press play on my phone, I want my phone to play music, not my laptop or TV or toaster or whatevs. When I press play on the laptop, I want my laptop to play music, not my TV or toaster or phone or whatevs. Permute at will, it still holds.

Also, I'd like to be able to listen to e.g. Come On Pilgrim on my laptop or TV or toaster or whatevs over breakfast, without a risk of my screen flashing ladytits in the crowded bus when I take out my phone to check the time. (Example picked for delicacy.)

Am I just clumsy and has missed an dis-connect button somewhere?

Is there any way to drop a full playlist into another playlist without doing it song by song? I'm making weekly playlists of new music atm and would like to transfer them to a monthly one, but as they're all above 60 tracks it seems like a lot of work to do it track by track. This is one of the things that was very simple in google play music, which I've now put on hold to give spotify a chance.

On a nactual computer or a phone? If the former, select source playlist in left-hand column to get all the songs in the main view, select all the songs (using shift-click, ctrl-click, ctrl-A or your local OS equivalent where necessary), drag'em to the target playlist in the left-hand column?

Yeah. Easy on computer, not sure if it can be done on phone.

Oh thanks for the tip - I've tried to do this before but could only mark one song at a time for some reason. It worked now, so thanks a lot!

Also, I'd like to be able to listen to e.g. Come On Pilgrim on my laptop or TV or toaster or whatevs over breakfast, without a risk of my screen flashing ladytits in the crowded bus when I take out my phone to check the time. (Example picked for delicacy.)

You mean Surfer Rosa, right? I managed to find a way to fix this a few weeks ago by googling it up in spotify's forums. I think the solution involved turning off notifications for Spotify, which means that in addition to album cover not displaying on your lockscreen, you also can't see the title of the song that's currently playing unless you open the spotify app. Small sacrifice, imo.

Wish I could remember which album cover compelled me to look this up.

mobile spotify on 4G works almost flawlessly for me now - on 3G it tends not to work at all

Haha yes Surfer Rosa obv duh! :-D

Those two were commonly packaged together, no?

This articles is ...not that good... sort of misses the point, or something: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/19/slave-to-the-algorithm-how-music-fans-can-reclaim-their-playlists-from-spotify

ha, this motivated me to check my discover weekly for the first time in a while, and lo, I also had the leanover on my discover weekly. not my thing at all but still better than most of the dreck that I flick through every now and then. after some initial great finds it now feels almost totally unconnected to my listening and skews heavily towards a sort of cheap slickness. its much, much worse than the last.fm recommendations, not that I use that much either

Play your Spotify music without being connected to a smartphone
http://www.thefourohfive.com/music/article/play-your-spotify-music-without-being-connected-to-a-smartphone-145

Mighty - Kickstarter Campaign
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/51215664/mighty-streaming-music-without-your-phone

Mighty is the first and only device that plays your Spotify music without being connected to a smartphone. Lightweight, durable, and small enough to clip-on to any piece of clothing, it's the perfect device for your active life. Mighty comes equipped with Bluetooth and WiFi, is compatible with iPhones and Androids, and can play 48 hours of music without any internet connection. All for under $80.

I like the idea, but I really doubt they will ship that this year.

yeah, let me know when that's in production and i'll likely buy one off the rack.

did spotify ever give a reason for getting rid of the star button? it was so convenient to be listening to a random playlist, hear a song you like, and take one second to star it and save it on the fly - esp great for my commute when i hear a song on the "today's top hits" playlist or w/e and want to remember to check out that song/artist. people keep bringing it up on the official forums and they keep saying it's not in work. they clearly had to go out of their way to get rid of an established feature...can't figure out why they did though.

you can do the same thing with the + button

and "Your Music - Songs" playlist is the starred playlist

but its not the same thing

you could write a script called "star" and use the web api?

the + button saves it to your music, not to a playlist, so if you have 100s/1000s of albums/songs saved that doesn't put it in a convenient place when you want to look it up later

i know there is still a playlist called "starred" but without the star functionality it's just like any other playlist, you have to hit options -> add to playlist -> pick playlist to put it there. not very convenient, particularly when on the go.

if there is a workaround that requires you to use the web interface vs the client then idk if that would be worth it for me ino.

yes, I was joking because it would be more work. + and saved songs works well for me. More seriously, I suppose an app could be used to copy all of the single tracks in saved songs to the starred playlist every once in awhile.

Don't even get me started on stars. Still the primary reason Spotify no longer gets my money.