Continuing with Spotify?

I think the Spotify fallout warrants its own thread

― west elm girls (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, January 29, 2022 2:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Neil out, Joni out

obviously this pleases me greatly, but it's going to take a contemporary megastar to change minds.

Grimes' mother:

Feeling enormous pride that the artists who got this #Spotifydeleted train going are Canadian.@Neilyoung & @jonimitchell

There are sure to be more, and bigger. But it’s Canadians who led.

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 29, 2022

I no longer control it or I would in support of Neil https://t.co/hrD132gi8T

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) January 29, 2022

nagl Barry

I recently heard a rumor about me and Spotify. I don’t know where it started, but it didn’t start with me or anyone who represents me.

— Barry Manilow (@barrymanilow) January 28, 2022

it's going to take a contemporary megastar to change minds.

Well, Neil was a step forward after 270 doctors and scientists...

Lol. Cardiacs quit a couple of days before Neil but I am not sure that anyone noticed.

Well, Neil was a step forward after 270 doctors and scientists...

― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Friday, January 28, 2022 9:23 PM

yeah, which should have been the slam dunk from the get-go. and yet here we still are.

(insert generic angry outrage rant that basically sums up to)

man. this whole thing really sticks in my craw.

ugh, past my bedtime and i'm grouchy. sorry for the unnecessary attitude.

Spotify lost $4 billion in market value this week.

— scott budman (@scottbudman) January 28, 2022

I know it’s just anecdotal, but I know several people IRL who are canceling their Spotify subscriptions this week (and I have few enough IRL “contacts” that that number feels significant to me).

They paved Paradise, put up a Rogan Pod

No idea who this guy is but seeing lots of similar grim takes. And unlike Lloyd Cole, Bret's not afraid to play the 'wrong side of history' card

These artists have a right to remove content in protest. But make no mistake, their intent is to force Spotify to censor Joe Rogan so that you and I can no longer choose for ourselves whether to listen.

They’re on the wrong side of history. Truth persuades. It doesn’t coerce.

— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) January 29, 2022

Joni jumping in gives me hope that more will follow.

Worth noting here, I think, that The Best Show and Kreative Kontrol have left:

pic.twitter.com/79BJTQe0b1

— The Best Show (@bestshow4life) January 27, 2022

I hope you get the connection... pic.twitter.com/XzT3NsCPc5

— Kreative Kontrol (@VishKreative) January 27, 2022

I suspect a lot of the young popular artists who could potentially make an impact here don't care about vaccines or public health and probably an alarming number of them totally agree with Rogan. OTOH artists have their own issues with Spotify and if a significant number of people drop it it may prompt a few more to leave, or they might at least perceive themselves as having new leverage.

If you’re impressed that Spotify lost $4bn this week, just wait until you see how much they lost in the three weeks prior to that. Shares peaked at €312 last year, they’re less than half that now. The model just isn’t as profitable as investors want it to be (see also: Netflix dropping 45% of its share value in a few months).

^^^

the spotify market drop this week may get a tiny further bump downward from the news but is in line with market trends. artists dropping one at a time isn't going to occasion more than a "we're listening" statement from the company; it would take an organized action to make this more than a PR hiccup for them. Five, ten, fifteen big artists individually pulling their catalogs won't make them say "ok, we'll eat the hundred million we gave Rogan." an organized effort of fifty or more artists might -- Future of Music Coalition is as close as we have to that and I'm not sure they want to spearhead something that might be framed as partisan

it would take an organized action to make this more than a PR hiccup for them

see also: literally every other consumer protest

TIL, Neil and Joni are both polio survivors

I do want to ditch Spotify. I'm in the middle of a 3-month trial of Apple Music but I hate their UI and search functions. I'll give Qobuz a shot with their free month. One frustrating thing is having to pay some third party to migrate playlists, and the migration options seem to have frustrating limits. I just discovered the 1500-track Anthology of Dub playlist this past week, and the Spotify ---> Qobuz migration tool has a limit of 1000 tracks per playlist.

I don’t have any specialty loyalty to Spotify but I have become pretty dependent on streaming. The thing that is bumming me out is that moving to a service that would be equivalent would just be moving to another corporation… I mean, it’s not like Rogan is not in Apple because they are principled. They just lost out o a deal.

i'm continuing with spotify

“Speciality loyalty” = morning brain

My spotify and hulu subscriptions are intertwined, so if I ditch spotify for another platform I lose (free) hulu. As soon as it becomes clear where the greatest number of people are migrating to, I'll follow. But for now I'm stuck.

and the Spotify ---> Qobuz migration tool has a limit of 1000 tracks per playlist.

split the 1500 tracks into two playlists of 750, migrate them both, then drag and drop the second playlist into the first playlist, right?

As I said on the other thread, between collaborative playlists, and the family plan, I'm not sure how I could readily disentangle myself from using this platform. If I had a single-user subscription, I may just hop over to Qobuz or Apple (mixed results with the free version of SongShift last night, migrating playlists over to my Qobuz trial, but not insurmountable).

xp - merging playlists: may or may not be possible once they're migrated; last night's brief experience gave me a fixed imported playlist that I could neither add to nor delete from.

oh, weird? i shouldn't talk - i've never heard of Qobuz until this morning - but i just figured any playlist could be edited, if you made it in the first place! kinda weird.

i really hate my opinion on spotify and the alternatives, so much that for once i'll stfu

is it easy to import spotify playlists to another plataform?

Xp - yeah, was odd. 37 of 40 tracks matched by SongShift, figured I could add the ones it couldn’t find manually on Qobuz but no: that imported playlist was read-only. The attempt to do the same with one of the ILX c20 classical playlists was hopeless - barely a 10% match.

If I pay actual money to some service to migrate my Bacharach list (738 tracks) and the Dub list and wind up with a 10% match rate, I will be hot under the collar.

The thing that is bumming me out is that moving to a service that would be equivalent would just be moving to another corporation… I mean, it’s not like Rogan is not in Apple because they are principled. They just lost out o a deal.

Rogan signed with Spotify in May 2020, and Apple launched podcast subscriptions over a year later. So AFIK they wouldn’t have been in the running when Rogan made his deal (in fact, it was deals like his which got Apple serious about building out exclusive podcasts of their own)… which may not alter your overall rationale

Do people have to be paid subscribers to hear Rogan on Spotify? I figured it was just to get people to the platform. Apple surely would have made a deal with Rogan to keep people using their platform exclusively, but probably didn’t need to as much as Spotify did.

Right, I don’t think that was part of their business plan at the time. Maybe they would’ve signed him in a different scenario, who knows (in which case Young would presumably be pulling his music from Apple)

Idk, I found a Steve Bannon podcast on Apple. Is it still okay to switch to Apple? Maybe I’ll go to YouTube where absolutely no white supremacists or QAnon nuts exist?

It's his reach and influence that makes the difference, the size of his audience.

I mean, Spotify pulled a bunch of archived episodes - with Gavin McInnes and others - so there was pressure from the beginning not to spoil the platform with his show. The issue then becomes whether giving disinformation on Covid is a deal-breaker for an episode of his that Spotify chooses to host.

I dislike Spotify for a few reasons, but yes switching to Apple or Amazon for political reasons (or even the sole reason of disseminating Covid misinformation) does not make a lot of sense. Some people earlier were suggesting that the fact Spotify directly pays Rogan, rather than simply making money off ads a la YouTube, is worse but idk if I find that super convincing.

That said afaict, Qobuz and Tidal don't have the "we murder workers" problem that Apple and Amazon do nor the "paying Joe Rogan $$$" problem, so it's a little disingenuous to frame this as just "Spotify or Apple? what's the diff"

Maybe so. I’ve never heard of Qobuz until about an hour ago. Admittedly I’ve never tried Tidal.

It was initially challenging to get past the "Tidal? lol" reaction, I'll admit

The thing that is bumming me out is that moving to a service that would be equivalent would just be moving to another corporation… I mean, it’s not like Rogan is not in Apple because they are principled. They just lost out o a deal.

otm. also, to the extent that this list of top 100 podcasts on apple podcast is accurate, the current #10 podcast in the united states (on apple podcast) is the Joe Rogan Experience Review, a podcast where some enormous fucking loser spends 45 minutes dissecting the latest joe rogan podcast

#15 is the ben shapiro show.

ben shapiro is worse than joe rogan (but not as popular). he is a hitler youth

the matt walsh show at #35, what a wonderful person he is

i survey the landscape of american podcasts and i want them all to disintegrate my own brain

let me check google/youtube real quick, see if there is any joe rogan-esque content on there

I moved to Tidal from Spotify about 3 months ago after being on Spotify since it originally launched and for the most part I've been content with it. There are a few things that I miss from Spotify, but nothing that would compel me to go back.

The increased emphasis on podcasts combined with the Helsing.ai thing are what pushed me to pull the plug. I'm also trying to shift more of my spending/listening to Bandcamp, but I'm too hooked on streaming at this point to abandon it completely.

I mean, Tidal is now majority-owned by a gross tech bro, if you're looking for a "political" reason to avoid that too

gross how?

Dorsey? I'm half joking (though he's not my type of fellow). He hasn't paid Rogan $100m, that's for sure. If I were a heavy Spotify user, and not invested in Amazon or Apple, I'd prob switch to Tidal - the UI is v similar

The arguments that other platforms also feature reprehensible content are valid but imho the Spotify/Rogan issue is different because of the extent to which Spotify has made Rogan the face of their brand. Rogans show is one of the most popular media properties out there and Spotify's play for him was explicitly about identifying themselves w/him in a bid to lure his audience, which imho puts it in another category than just "I can find people saying worse stuff on other platforms too". Ben Shapiro is a monster & is platformed by Apple Podcasts, but at least they are not repeatedly giving him big public bearhugs the way Spotify does w/Rogan, giving him the PR boost that his views are something Spotify considers normal & mainstream.

That’s a good way of putting it.

they are all tech companies and as a result they are all going to do the awful things that tech companies do. there is no ethical consumption under something something. my point was more that if you decide to switch from Spotify to another streaming service (for whatever reason), you'll get a very comparable product, which wasn't always the case.

WmC, think about how much better dub music is gonna sound in CDQ…

The open letter from health experts, which inspired Young's action, also has specific reasons why they took issue with Rogan/Spotify (and which illustrates why the case is different from other podcast apps passively platforming all those awful but nonexclusive podcasts out there)

So is there a convenient way to, without registering for them, or signing up for a free trial or whatever, see what kind of content the other services have? Like run a few searches and see if they have the same stuff as Spotify?

listening to remain in light on qobuz, do they stream special mixes of certain albums? i'm wondering if some of the new shit i'm hearing in tracks isn't just because of improved sound quality but because it's like some audiophile SACD or whatever

i will say i am noticing the depth of field in recordings a lot more, where things are supposed to 'sit' in the mix is far more apparent

Pertinent question, it seems: How does one pronounce Qobuz? Like, if you're actually talking to someone and you say Spotify or Apple Music, it's easy, but what if you're talking about Qobuz?

Ko-buzz? Quo-buzz?

former ilxor "some dude" with a Spin piece:

https://www.spin.com/2022/01/neil-young-spotify-joe-rogan

Ku-buuss, but you have to say it in a French accent.

i basically cannot remember the name qobuz. i have to glance at the app every time

re: the sentiment of groovypanda's embedded tweet there

yeah, that shit is not cool. this "wrong/right side of history" argument is for tunnel-visioned blowhards. i think we should formally bring back the censure (which twitter started to do a bit with their "this might be misleading info" thingy they started to add to t®ump tweets before they rightfully banned him completely). let these assholes parrot their stupid libertarian scare tactic rhetoric all they want, just put an audio drop over it every thirty seconds that says something like, "this is opinionated misinformation and not based in fact." like yeah, you have free speech it's just that every word that comes out of your mouth is fucking stupid.

Something that’s been nagging away at me for the last two weeks of comparison: is this (ever so slightly better, richer, spacier) Qobuz track just… a tiny bit louder?

I did a very unscientific test today with some jazz and, yes: the Qobuz version AirPlayed to my stereo was maybe 1-1.5dB louder than the same off Spotify. But if I switch to the Spotify Connect version (streamer direct, not AirPlay) the levels appear to the same.

It’s just apples and oranges cos you can’t know how each platform has encoded their tracks, if they’ve normalised or whatever. I found the same frequency-sweep test-tone disc on both platforms - on Qobuz it was 15dB louder! They seemed to have normalised each track.

So… who knows what I’m hearing here. Volume diff, negative effects of 320kOGG to AAC on the fly for AirPlay, genuine improvements due to bitrate.

(No reason for anything to be less than 16/44.1 lossless over wifi thesedays, I’ll grant you that).

Volume diff, negative effects of 320kOGG to AAC on the fly for AirPlay, genuine improvements due to bitrate.

It'd be weird for me to decide now to drop Spotify when their bed-making with Rogan happened two years ago and I didn't do it then.

But I also don't use Spotify much as I buy all of my music digitally and use Amazon Music for 99% of the listening if I go exploring.

Mostly used Spotify cos of weird quirks like how they have Obituary's Slowly We Rot and Amazon doesn't and I only own that album in vinyl form

281 For Sale from $10.00

https://www.discogs.com/master/105649-Obituary-Slowly-We-Rot

That was one example, I'm not paying $10 a month for that one album

Just saying though, Rogans deal was signed in 2020 and he began the worst of his COVID transgressions last April. Neil Young incident a weird line in the sand for me, personally. It wasn't based on anything new Rogan or Spotify did, it was based on a gambit Young took that everybody knew would not result in him being dropped.

I still support his move 100% and hope more artists do it. But the social media HEY EVERYONE WE NEED TO CANCEL SPOTIFY MEMBERSHIP campaigns popping up now, like...why was their relationship with Rogan not worthy of cancelling membership 10 months ago, or when doctors put Rogan on blast?

But otoh whatever reason people want to boycott something is their right and the Rogan connection is a valid reason so I'm not too concerned about it

Mike's posts are becoming incomprehensible in a way that I heartily enjoy. Hope for more of this.

I don't know about the reasons for the controversy but in my own little world I would feel fairly happy for all streaming services to collapse and the world to prove that I was sensible to keep vinyl, CDs and even a CD player. But for individual tracks still to be randomly on YouTube for my convenience.

I don't actually wish for this to happen to damage everyone else's pleasure, though.

Rogans deal was signed in 2020 and he began the worst of his COVID transgressions last April. Neil Young incident a weird line in the sand for me, personally

I get what you are saying, but at the same time during those periods (2020 and April 2021), your average person was probably just a bit distracted by the raging pandemic to worry about taking a stand against Spotify. Yeah I absolutely wish this would have happened in immediate response to Rogan’s deal, but imho better late than never. And to be honest, it’s a little weird for me get nitpicky towards Neil about not doing this sooner when the opposite would be, what, saying he missed his window and needs to shut up about it? Even if I’m skeptical that this will turn out the way we hope, I’m absolutely thrilled that Neil has actually kickstarted a genuine backlash against Spotify and ignited this conversation. Maybe this would have fizzled and been drowned out had it come during the heat of the pandemic.

I found the same frequency-sweep test-tone disc on both platforms - on Qobuz it was 15dB louder! They seemed to have normalised each track.

A test tone would probably have almost no dynamic range and be normalised to 0dBFS so that's mostly accountable for as Spoify reducing it to meet its -14 LUFS standard, I would think?

I don’t know where to stand. As a user I love spotify’s UI and the huge library that allows me to make a 50 song playlist in minutes. It’s so helpful to have so many music in any sort of social gatherings and I don’t want it to fall because I’m not a fan of the other options (tidal, apple music).

As a business model it seems doomed and the payout for artists is ridiculous.

Speaking personally I still buy at least 5 albums every month via bandcamp or vinyl.

Regarding Rogan I don’t care about him and have never seen or heard his podcast. If it helps keep Spotify afloat I guess it’s fine from a business perspective. Every other platform is filled with the same amount of toxicity, the best you can do is not give them specific attention I guess.

Just saying though, Rogans deal was signed in 2020 and he began the worst of his COVID transgressions last April. Neil Young incident a weird line in the sand for me, personally. It wasn't based on anything new Rogan or Spotify did, it was based on a gambit Young took that everybody knew would not result in him being dropped.

True, the Spotify deal wasn’t that long after Bernie’s campaign heralded the Rogan endorsement.

But when do you figure Neil Young first heard of Rogan? A week ago?

the best you can do is not give them specific attention I guess.

Don't give specific attention to the biggest podcast in the world, sure

Rogan's gotten worse recently - the "there are no black people" linked elsewhere, arguing with the guy about myocarditis and just refusing to believe anything but his anti-vax propaganda. Not really a shock that it could be a line in the sand (and yeah, what are the odds Young or Joni Mitchell or these others knew about Rogan at all).

Alessandro Cortini posted that his music is coming off Spotify on Instagram.

Don't give specific attention to the biggest podcast in the world, sure

― reggae mike love (polyphonic)

I mean I have never listened to his podcast. I know he has millions of listeners, but it’s your choice to pay attention to it.

This might be a dealbreaker:

https://www.nme.com/news/music/james-blunt-threatens-to-release-new-music-on-spotify-in-protest-against-joe-rogan-3149555

I bet the Eve 6 guy is pissed that he didn't think of that.

re this Rogan person -- I get the impression that he is very famous and listened-to in the US?

I don't think I know that many people in the UK who would even know who he is. And none at all that would listen to him for a minute.

Feel like it is quite a nationally specific matter (of the kind that, I often remark, strangely still exist despite everything supposedly being internationalised now).

he's very big in the region of my butthole

I always find these kind of comments odd. Like you don’t have dumbasses in the UK media?

he's famous because he was on newsradio with phil hartman. after that, he got into the business of describing people swallow weird shit for 15 minutes of fame. he parlayed that into a podcast career where he pumps iron and talks about newsradio, so americans trust him and kind of look for him to "set the tone" of the "national conversation"

I feel less guilty about using Spotify because I'm usually using it to listen to albums I already own physically and just don't know where they're at (many many moves). And usually anything else I listen to belongs to mega rich superstars.

But most of the bands I listen to sell like 10k albums so not buying them seems like a non-starter to me. Love Bandcamp

And none at all that would listen to him for a minute.

A minute sounds a bit generous

Island boys like Joe Rogan too
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/joe-rogan-podcast-jre-uk-b1997036.html

Also there's a UK knockoff called London Real that Trashfuture makes fun of that sounds even dumber than ol Joe.

Things that I wouldn't have predicted 20 years ago:

*A reality tv star would be President
*We'd have a pandemic that killed tens of millions globally and uproot lives for 3 years
*A shitty comedian becomes the self-appointed czar for said pandemic and gets paid $100 million doing it
*Dick Butkus joins Twitter just to troll Aaron Rodgers
*That there would be Twitter and a player named Aaron Rodgers

he's very big in the region of my butthole

― Karl Malone, Saturday, January 29, 2022 12:55 PM

i know we're not even in february yet, but post of the year. thx.

yeah already stolen

.@bellytheband appear to have changed their Spotify band photo. pic.twitter.com/njAi52XhIg

— Mark Yarm (@markyarm) January 29, 2022

It’s always a good idea to stream @NeilYoungNYA.https://t.co/g4232DaRkF pic.twitter.com/VdBP6AwceQ

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) January 25, 2022

controps, I know, but from a UK point of view Young's decision here has probably raised the profile of this guy beyond who the fuck is this

A test tone would probably have almost no dynamic range and be normalised to 0dBFS so that's mostly accountable for as Spoify reducing it to meet its -14 LUFS standard, I would think?

who is the british neil young

Richard Thompson

wow....yeah he totally is

qobuz need to hire a UI/UX designer

A slightly dumb and symbolic reason to pull from the bigger reasons--mainly that they're stealing from artists to line techbro pockets and fund military tech. But hey, if it tumbles a few dominos and starts a few conversations about Spotify and streaming being evil in general, cool.

Pull from Spotify compared to the biggee reasons, that is.

That James Blunt tweet is swell. I love that type of joke

It wasn't based on anything new Rogan or Spotify did, it was based on a gambit Young took that everybody knew would not result in him being dropped.

This has been linked to a few different times already, the letter from 270 scientists and medical folks:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/14/experts-confront-spotify-over-misinformation-in-joe-rogan-podcast.html

Yea I mentioned that upthread. But that didn't move the needle like Young did in terms of consumers

I’m not an expert on this but I come from an industry also beset by piracy, the death of physical media and failed attempts at monetising a switch to digital, and it looks to me like there just aren’t enough people willing to pay for subscriptions to make any of these models work. Spotify pays about 70% of music-derived revenue to rights-holders and has made a loss in 14 of the last 18 quarters. They clearly can’t double the amount of money provided per stream, with the model they have now, unless they also pretty much double revenue.

Where they differ from Tidal, Apple, etc, is having the free account option and ad revenue. About 170m people pay for an account and 210m don’t. You could try and force a switch to an all-Premium model but if you lost 80% of the people who don’t / can’t pay, you’d get to the penny-a-stream outcome from the other direction - losing half the streams, without generating any more money for artists.

Rogan and other exclusive podcasts they own the rights to, and that don’t cost incrementally more, the more listeners they attract, probably look like a much more solid basis for a long-term business.

I’d guess music streaming might go in the direction of films, where the finite number of people willing to pay, end up with multiple accounts for much more limited offers (Netflix, Amazon, MUBI, Shudder, etc) depending on their interests and a lot of content falls off the internet.

i think you're right quite frankly. But it's a golden age now!

I’d guess music streaming might go in the direction of films, where the finite number of people willing to pay, end up with multiple accounts for much more limited offers (Netflix, Amazon, MUBI, Shudder, etc) depending on their interests and a lot of content falls off the internet.

aaaaaand just like that we're back to CDs

What are those? Like physical NFTs?

Just saw Nils Lofgren is following suit.

Kinda wish we were increasing in terms of name recognition rather than the reverse, ha ha

https://i.imgflip.com/1zrkp.gif

holy cow that is an amazing gif

Spotify makes him hoppin’ mad!

Apparently related:

I will not be releasing any podcasts until further notice. To our #UnlockingUs and #DaretoLead communities, I’m sorry and I'll let you know if and when that changes.

Stay awkward, brave, and kind. ❤️👊🏼❤️

— Brené Brown (@BreneBrown) January 29, 2022

Get vaccinated Ian https://t.co/MKfrM0M4Yx

— Nils Lofgren (@nilslofgren) January 30, 2022

Lofgren is one of those musicians who'd have a fascinating autobiography.

running youth outreach programmes that teach the young people principles of piracy so I don't have to hear more Spotify news

— Stefan Bielik (@prstskrzkrk) January 29, 2022

Lofgren is one of those musicians who'd have a fascinating autobiography.

Nils famously wrote this jingle in return for lessons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7PEMGuA6tw

Supposedly anyone from DC/Maryland of a certain age knows it by heart.

Just saying though, Rogans deal was signed in 2020 and he began the worst of his COVID transgressions last April. Neil Young incident a weird line in the sand for me, personally. It wasn't based on anything new Rogan or Spotify did, it was based on a gambit Young took that everybody knew would not result in him being dropped.

Why care? If the cause is righteous it doesn't matter what sets it into motion, if it's not than it wouldn't have been at the time, either.

Also tbf there were people who were criticizing Spotify since the Rogan deal in 2020, greeted with "killjoy yells at cloud" energy if not ignored outright. Certainly played into my own decision to cancel last year.

Speaking of which – ILM poster sic has been silent(?) Big “my work here is done” energy!

Also tbf there were people who were criticizing Spotify since the Rogan deal in 2020, greeted with "killjoy yells at cloud" energy if not ignored outright.

as one of the killjoys I can confirm that this has long been the case here and on social media, and it has indeed been infuriating. But I'm sure glad Neil Young was finally able to galvanize so many activists

nice gesture by neil. this will ultimately mean though that we'll have left and right streaming services just cable news stations and acts will target their music to one or the other. won't fix anything.

just *like* cable news stations

In ten years in my state our homes will be individual sized planks of wood floating in an endless sea so ultimately I support whatever fuck yous the good guys have left before Waterworld begins

Framing it as an issue of politics, rather than Spotify’s funding of misinformation, misses the point IMO

i agree but subtleties like that get buried in the tribal war we are undergoing.

oh fuck off with that "both sides" bullshit

maybe things wouldn't be so "polarized" if a suicidal death cult wasn't trying to kill us all

did i say something about both sides? also, would be nice if the death cult were suicidal.

Richard Thompson

― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, January 29, 2022 3:24 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

genuine question. how does "godfather of grunge" fit into richard thompson's music? he has a pretty big catalogue and i've only heard his softer, folkier side

he's got some loud electric music too

XP! RT can really make some noise on the guitar when the mood strikes him.

Wait I thought Neil Young was godfather of grunge

I mean it’s not an exact match, but it was the first name that popped into my head too

all good. i was just wondering to get some recs to listen to

Here’s some grunge! (sort of)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8i61cG8Glk

The long solo that starts around minute 6 is pretty wild

Not really proto-grunge but I'll bet Pearl Jam or Mark Lanegan could do a nice version of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2Tc6MCkDdE

Soulseek is still there. The artists don’t get their couple dollars for coffee anymore, but neither do dangerous tech bros get millions.

This here's a company that is panicking.https://t.co/OKrMXl09UI

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 30, 2022

Not sure that’s panic, looks more like halfassed rationalization. I’ll believe it’s panic when they start taking down old Joe Rogan episodes.

xxp or you could pay for the music, and not look for rationalizations not to

They have to be weighing how many subscribers they’ll lose if a few more (and higher profile artists) pull their catalogs vs. how many they’d lose for infringing of the “free speech” of Rogan by cutting him loose and making his show available to a myriad of other platforms

Unless several people on the level of Taylor Swift pull their music I don't think there's much fear for them.

The entire podcast pivot seems like it's been a bust, though. I saw that Last Podcast on the Left got out of their deal even before this shit, I suspect that being Spotify exclusive hasn't been good for shows' numbers.

Interesting. I do know several people who are into podcasts and audiobooks but don't listen to music much, so paying for Spotify probably wouldn't even occur to them. It's not like there's a shortage of podcasts lol

Unless they want Obama/Springsteen, Brene Brown, Rohan, etc.

*Rogan

Brene Brown said something on Twitter about no new episodes for a while, don't know if that's Rogan related.

They've still got Harry and Meghan though.

Yeah, the Replies to that Brene Brown tweet are full of whiny Rogan fans talking about George Orwell

xxp or you could pay for the music, and not look for rationalizations not to

― False Pretenses Lad (morrisp), Sunday, January 30, 2022 3:35 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

perish the thought

tired of 'tech bros' as pejorative. it's 'ruling class.' gender and sector neutral. let's have some class consciousness ffs.

They've still got Harry and Meghan though.

Two weeks ago, Spotify shut down their in-house production group and laid off 15 staffers. This week, they advertised at least three positions on a “show team” to help Harry and Meghan complete a second episode of their weekly show designed to “elevate underrepresented voices.” (The first episode came out at Xmas 2020, was half an hour long, and featured Elton John and James Corden.)

H&M also directly hired a full-time producer as “head of audio” last July.

xxp or you could pay for the music, and not look for rationalizations not to

[Note: I buy everything I like though I stream things to see if I like them. But this isn't about me, it's about a generation or two younger than me who simply consume music differently and no sanctimonious sentiments are gonna put that genie back in the bottle.)

Sure, all those young kids dl’ing MP3s on Slsk (who’s the boomer now, lol)

Use it all you want, just don’t fool yourself (I was responding to a comment that presented piracy as somehow the most “ethical” choice)

It’s not the consumer’s fault that artists don’t get paid well. It’s not the consumer’s fault that Spotify charges so little. It’s not the consumer’s fault that major labels didn’t negotiate better terms with streamers, nor that they don’t offer better terms to their artists.

Is that honestly the way you see yourself as a consumer? Helpless?

I don't associate "Helpless" with Spotify anymore.

I’m not helpless but when the discussion turns to “ethics” I get tired of the implication that the state of the industry is the fault of the fans.

What is so depressing to see is how many people, when suggesting alternatives to Spotify, are pointing to TIDAL, Apple Music, YouTube or even Soulseek and how few are pointing to Bandcamp, much less telling people just to go buy the music directly from the artists.

Have you ever successfully convinced a streaming diehard to start buying music again? I have not despite years of trying. Also, I use Bandcamp and Tidal for different things. Bandcamp rules but it's false to suggest it can replace the function of a streaming service. For example, none of the dancehall or afropop I listen to is going to show up there

Surprising from Rogan - https://www.engadget.com/joe-rogan-balance-things-out-spotify-disinformation-measures-085039569.html

people actually look at me cross-eyed when I tell them I buy music on Bandcamp. they'll still trot out the old canard "they make most of thier money on tour anyway!"

xp
maybe that $100m was stock options?

jon otm

also some good pr fluff in that article, morrisp. i don't believe a word of it.

I finally canceled my spotify account. Semi-arbitrarily went with Tidal, so far this is pretty much the same as spotify so it all feels pretty good. Managed to transfer all my playlists by paying a one month subscription to soundiiz. Some stuff missing from Tidal, but not too much.

Xpost Now he'll book Robert Malone AND Dr Fauci for rebuttal. Fauci will get 30 seconds and air horns will blare every 5 seconds

people actually look at me cross-eyed when I tell them I buy music on Bandcamp. they'll still trot out the old canard "they make most of thier money on tour anyway!"

― he's very big in the region of my butthole (Neanderthal), Monday, January 31, 2022 10:17 AM (one minute ago)

I have had people mock me when I tell them I "still" buy music, both digital files and physical. It's a deeply felt, unquestioned, and broadly shared cultural attitude ime

xxp - oh, I don’t know what he’ll actually follow thru with. Just surprised he’s publicly eating sh1t. Spotify may have pressured him for PR reasons

The two serious suggestions to use Soulseek I saw really annoyed me, like encourage people to go from giving peanuts to artists to making sure they get nothing? Come on.

Have you ever successfully convinced a streaming diehard to start buying music again?

Sort of? I've turned a few friends on to Bandcamp, so I consider that a minor win.

and yeah I should buy more stuff from bandcamp. It's something I do but not enough.

xxxp to myself

that's honestly good to hear jon! and yeah I agree about soulseek

"buy music when you see bands live" was my motto but then everyone stopped playing live for the past two years so then i started paying for livestreams but that didn't last very long

from the article: He also disputed the episodes being labeled "misinformation," saying that many of their opinions are shared by mainstream listeners.

Uhh, thats not what "misinformation" means my guy.

I know, right? Haha

There was misinformation in the video:

"I just realized "Chuck E.'s in Love" is Rickie Lee Jones not Joni Mitchell."

Theres simply no denying that an antivax podcast host who cant remember who Joni Mitchell is makes a great spokesperson for the music streaming service Spotify.

"’I'm not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them," he said.

Making fun of people for spying for music must be a generational thing, my age group still pays for music or listens to the radio.

Paying (-spying)

Something I was thinking of last night: people goof on Rogan for being the NewRadio guy or the host of the bug-eating show, but I feel I dont often hear people bring up what imo is a key moment on his celebrity journey: the Carlos Mencia feud, where he literally made a viral video that incited an online mob to successfully cancel the career of an A-list comedian. It was obviously over joke-stealing & not related to politics or sex crimes or whatever. But still, its kind of weird that this person who now is the standard-bearer of the free speech/anti-cancel/anti-online-mob movement was himself responsible for what I feel like is one of the earliest examples I can remember of the modern template of a celeb's career capsizing overnight due to a targeted online backlash.

yeah, it's almost like he's a fucking puppet.

It’s not so surprising as stand-up comedians primarily care about joke theft and not wearing shorts on stage.

His defense of "I'm just having conversations" rings a bit hollow when he's choosing the people with who to converse--who just so happen to hold views that get you a lot of clicks

i use free spotify and i am p sure i will never pay for music again even if that option disappeared. i obv don't think people who pay for music are stupid tho.

many xps

I think streaming and sales is a little more complicated than just streaming=lost sales, it's replaced record stores sure, but it's also replaced radio. if i turn on an oldies station and hear a bunch of my favorite songs from being a little kid, I didn't own ANY of them, I owned 2 records that my parent bought me for a long time, but I didn't buy music at all, just radio and MTV

also, there's an amount of my listening that's just curiosity, like if some thread on ILM is getting a lot of traffic or, say, Taylor Swift has a new album out and everyone is freaking out about it. I will listen to it once or (maybe) twice, but in an earlier era I certainly wouldn't have bought it, I just wouldn't have heard it

There is definitely the category of albums that I'll check out and like enough to listen to 5-10 times, but don't love enough to buy (and/or they're not sold in physical format anyway)

(and also wouldn't have bought or probably even heard pre-streaming)

I haven't read this piece about local libraries setting up free streaming services yet, but it might be interesting: https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/library-music-liz-pelly.

And yeah it would be a huge loss to not be able to listen to a random track once to satisfy your curiosity (though if everything in the world was on Bandcamp, you could still do that). The 5-10 listens thing is weird, because I invariably forget about those albums and I'm not sure how I feel about that

Are you cool with forks making Spotify playlists out of every rolling thread without permission?

Bandcamp gives you a "hey if you like it so much, consider buying it" message after 3 or so plays

The radio/MTV replacement thing seems so key to Spotify's success - capturing low-engagement listeners who just want to thoughtlessly put on playlists like "Cooking Music" or "Road Trip Jams" where previously they would have just thoughtlessly switched on the radio.

I would guess that the $120/year that I pay for Spotify premium is fairly comparable to the amount I used to pay for new CDs at a record store. At one point, I might have also spent about that much (if not more) in used CDs, but that's not money that an artist would have seen. So, although streaming generally pays less to artists than CDs did, I don't feel like I was really contributing all that much to artists' revenue streams in the CD era. And now I'm listening to vastly more music (or at least a much wider range of music) than I once did.

i've found the ability to pay artists more or less directly through bandcamp to be really empowering fwiw. kind of feels like you're a patron in a weird way. it's fun, especially for amazing music that's also really low-profile.

Does anyone remember the "anti-used CD store" crusade that certain artists embarked on, just a year or so before streaming became an issue? I remember both Garth Brooks and Bonnie Raitt complaining about not making money from used CD sales.

I do remember that, Garth Brooks in particular was super fired up about that. I don't really remember Raitt being involved, but could be.

If he hated used CDs, streaming must have made Garth's head explode like a balloon.

except technically he does get paid every single time someone engages with his song commodity

It's like the La Croix of getting paid for music -- they wave a few dollar bills around in the same room and the artist hopes to catch a little whiff.

'lightly essenced royalties'

Its ironic bc Garth was also the main innovator/offender in that era of bullshitty schemes to artifically goose sales numbers, like 3-for-1 packages & including CDs with concert tix, etc. Few artists put as much effort into filling peoples homes with discs they didnt want.

Garth has never been on Spotify iirc

would have been amazing if one of those free apple music albums you couldn't get rid of was garth brooks but i guess he wasn't cool enough

Garth had his own service, and eventually teamed up with Amazon.

i probably buy 100+ albums a year. if I stopped buying music for ten years, I might be able to create a $20,000 scholarship in ILX's name

What's nuts to me is how left-leaning b-list and c-list musicians are on average, and how left-leaning tech workers are compared to their bosses, and yet there's no real union with teeth for either of them. It seems like it would not be too late to parley some working class resentment to deal with some of these problems like "I work for a giant swedish tech corp that spent $100 million on this right wing alex jones loving covid misinformer" or "I think my music label's deals with streaming corporations is a joke when it comes to compensating me". In both cases the answer is work stoppage and collective bargaining and getting the public on your side, right? Not easy but not impossible.

Musicians have this problem that you can't easily demand a living wage/insurance in the tech era where reproduction and distribution of audio content is basically free once you build the software. And before the tech revolution it was given away basically for free on radio and Mtv. You'd need to create a new more radical organization with enough key membership and rights ownership to demand that for itself, causing the balkanization (netflix-hulu-hbo-amazoning) of the streaming services as prices would have to rise quite a bit. Clamping down on free video streams would help a lot too, if music labels took a real hard line against Youtube and sued the shit out of it every time a music track was posted and demanded proper royalties at a higher rate than the fraction-of-a-penny radio rate that youtube streams fetch.

Figuring out who to let in the union and who to keep out would be super ugly. Right now it's "are you on a major label, if so you are in the basically toothless US musician's or singer's union" that manages things like a silly retirement pension and does some basic rights negotiations. Probably union membership should be offered to anyone who streams enough to be something like in the top 30% of all artists with more than 1000 streams a month on average across platforms. But could it ever work? There are surely too many high profile artists who would be ideologically republican/anti-union or not want to deal with work stoppages or just enjoy complicating things.

This sort of thing needs to happen in journalism too before all online news becomes untrained speculation for free by influencers who attract an audience for the stylistic reasons and there's no more shoe leather reporting at all.

Amazon Music is featuring a curated section called (RE)DISCOVER Joni Mitchell and Neil Young at the top of its home page

Amazon, the ethical alternative

yeah, i'm pretty sure bet bezos would ♥ if amazon became the refuge for spotify deserters.

yeesh what have you done now, neil?

*it's a pretty sure bet

sry

I don't blame anyone who chooses to avoid Amazon for other issues, but "I bet they'd sponsor Rogan if they could" is a goalpost move.

yeah, bezos wants to implant chips in people for real and little joey ro don't play that schitt.

i was just saying that bezos will gladly take money from anywhere.

Young has a discount code promo going with Amazon.

gross

Any of the major outlets for streaming are "bad", but the impulse to go "people cancelled Spotify but still use other corporations therefore it was a futile gesture CHECKMATE" is lame imho

to spotify users - my humble 0.002 cent (or however much it is they pay artists):

1. the music industry & the average consumer's semi-migration from physical music retail to music streaming platforms as a primary listening choice is not the fault of either party. it's an inevitable technological advancement, moore's law in effect. it's difficult to devolve from a centralized network, but we still have plenty of choices where our money goes

2. the convenience-centric infrastructure/UX of platforms like spotify and soundcloud reduces artistic value of media by incorporating advertisements, revoking consumer ownership, and subversively promoting interactions such as amassing 'likes' & other stats, browsing other media while simultaneously consuming

3. instantaneous access affects your consumption and perception of music - i.e. your patience in listening to stuff for the first time, revisiting albums, skipping tracks

4. having a universal library of media under one banner that both artists & consumers are expected to conform to in order to achieve degrees of success creates a seriously unhealthy dependency and diverts us away from true community.

5. there is no ethical consumption under capitalism (!)

6. filesharing is not the same as piracy and is arguably better for music communities... just maybe.

our stupid band gets close to a million monthly streams on spotify. spotify pays out .003 cents per stream. 100% of that goes to our former label sony who is a part owner of spotify. this is why i’m mad

— nigh eve6 (@Eve6) January 31, 2022

honestly if you seriously think filesharing leaves artists, music and community worse off than spotify you need to give your head a wobble

just want to register that i appreciated mig's post. you don't see too much of that around here. i hope they stick around.

to some of maelin's points, we see recorded music as this inert 'thing' that is the same no matter how we access it, but i believe the reality is that the music is actually our experience of listening to it, which is undeniably different be it via a streaming media library ux or the car xm station or our own cd collection or w/e.

i gave up streaming years ago and i'm happy i did, what i hear seems to have more impact now. i do use youtube to screen stuff. i buy through bandcamp and beatport and 7digital, sometimes i get lossless versions of things i can't find through slsk. it's a messy melange but it feels more exciting and spontaneous to not have discovery ironed out in this giant black box that makes everything seamless but strangely wearying.

xp I'm happy to follow artists' lead... if you follow some who invite you to fileshare their music rather than stream or buy it, go for it

Does that Eve6 person mean "$0.003" or are they seriously getting some 1/100 of the widely cited average? No one seemed to challenge it so I'm legitimately unsure.

I see Sadie Dupuis talking and posting about the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers but there doesn't seem to be much progress with it.

As ShariVari noted upthread, there's really not a way for Spotify to pay more under their current business model (which is entirely their fault for trying to use the freebie lure to become a monopoly) but I don't know that solutions really exist.

https://www.radicalartreview.org/post/263-streams-per-dollar-the-union-of-musicians-and-allied-workers-interview

for all the music we can listen to Spotify should be like $100/month imo

Given that even Tidal -- with (traditionally) no free option -- still only gets the rate up to around 1 full cent per stream, it's getting hard to argue against users paying at least a little more.

Guess what isn't going to happen though

Science Vs editor @blytheterrell and I just sent this email to the CEO of Spotify. pic.twitter.com/aAmZnkA1uU

— Wendy Zukerman (@wendyzuk) January 31, 2022

Gimlet was a dumpster of a podcast network even before they ran themselves into the ground and had to be saved by spotify, but when they started slipping shows into spotify-exclusive territory I had to stop listening to a couple I actually love. One is Every Little Thing, which has so far remained silent. The other is Science VS, which made the above announcement tonight. (dgaf about Reply All anymore, but I don't expect them to take a stand in any way about anything ever.)

Reply All is currently on a hiatus, but hasn't yet made the jump to Spotify-exclusive. Heavyweight did, and my only issue with it is that I don't know about new episodes when they're released because I like keeping a separate (non-Spotify) podcast app. Just give me a 10-second episode in my feed that says "Go listen to the new episode on Spotify."

Tyler Cowen:

Some see the musician as an intellectual hero for taking a stand. Yet Young’s own record in this area is far from pristine. For years, he has spread scientific misinformation about GMO foods. While experts have consistently judged GMO foods to be both safe and useful, Young in one song referred to them as poison. As a guest on the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in 2016, Young suggested that GMO foods caused “terrible diseases.” It is hard not to wonder to what degree anti-biotech sentiments like these, ironically, might have fed the current skepticism of Covid vaccines.

thanks, no doubt there are many more bad takes out there

Does that Eve6 person mean "$0.003" or are they seriously getting some 1/100 of the widely cited average?

[citation needed] but they almost certainly mean $0.003.

here's steve albini with the old but true chestnut that the major labels are as complicit as spotify, life isn't some bad for (some) bands on (some) independent labels:

1/ There's an important thread of continuity over time about the exploitation of bands by record labels that deserves a closer look, re the current Spotify debate. https://t.co/jLfPLpjKj8

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) January 31, 2022

If my label was getting 30 USD for a million streams on the music I wrote, I wouldn't even bother opening Twitter to complain, I think it's 3000 USD.

This is also the crux of Four Tet’s legal case against Domino - treating streams as sales, for which he gets 18%, and not licensing, for which he’d get 50%.

honestly if you seriously think filesharing leaves artists, music and community worse off than spotify you need to give your head a wobble
otm

but i believe the reality is that the music is actually our experience of listening to it, which is undeniably different be it via a streaming media library ux or the car xm station or our own cd collection or w/e.

This mirrors my experience

I can’t believe Albini is still checking under his bed at night for the wicked major labels. Talk about your old men yelling at clouds. Like it or not, major labels had been for decades providing new artists with the ability to build careers and make living, at least, even if the terms were often predatory and fucked up. They’re also the reason it was possible in the 90s for suburban Nirvana fans to find Melvins, Dinosaur Jr, Jesus Lizard and Mudhoney albums at the mall. Most of the so-called legacy acts who are still selling records and concert tickets today are doing so largely due to the actions of these evil gatekeepers

i’m loving more and more of this scheme the more i hear abt it mr ponzi!

To be clear, I'm not saying the major label system was great, or even ethical. I'm just saying give me A&R bottom liners who at least knew something about music over craven tech bros any day

I remember iirc David Lowery writing a long piece on how badly Spotify screws his bands. And that was years ago. And wasn't there something about how even Pharrell was barely paid for a billion streams of his "Happy" song?

My kids have pushed back on the suggestion we switch from Spotify to something else, for some of the same reasons you all have discussed upthread, and tbh I've had a hard time convincing them that anything else is better, practically or ethically.

Personally, I'd be fine if Spotify was put out to pasture. Ek, like Zuckerberg, is so high on his own supply that he's confused convenience with necessity. Sure, Spotify makes streaming easy, but of course they're not the only ones, and I don't think most would miss Spotify specifically if it were supplanted. Just as Facebook (the platform) doesn't really provide some unique experience, either. A lot of the other tech companies, like Amazon or Google, actually provide services that people need (shopping or server hosting or search engines and email, production suites, storage and so on). Spotify and Facebook, companies like that, have done a bit of cynical black magic to convince people (like my kids) that they need their services, too, but I think it's all a hustle. Spotify is itself a disposable product built on the backs of other people's labor that devalues its own product by making it seem as disposable as Spotify itself.

honestly if you seriously think filesharing leaves artists, music and community worse off than spotify you need to give your head a wobble

I'm going to push back on this a little bit. While I don't think it leaves things "worse off", I'd be really curious to see how folks think filesharing in lieu of our current streaming model leaves artists, music and community better off. I mean, I know the danger of Spotify's $9.99 model sets an unrealistic bar that screws every artist. But I'm not sure how replacing that with a zero revenue generating option helps in the days of little touring and crumbling physical media pressing/distribution issues.

but did you give your head a wobble before posting that?

I did, still didn't shake loose a compelling reason why filesharing is better.

The quick answer is that file sharing is at this point a niche concern mostly engaged in by hardcore music nerds who're likely to be spending plenty of cash on music anyway.

Whether it would be less damaging in a world where everyone currently on Spotify was file sharing instead is a different question.

India.Arie out

In an Instagram statement, @IndiaArie says that she's pulling her music from Spotify because of Joe Rogan's "language around race" https://t.co/xcXF4fOZu6 pic.twitter.com/cRaZcEavQr

— Stereogum (@stereogum) February 1, 2022

migs and maelin with some good posts itt

Just as Facebook (the platform) doesn't really provide some unique experience, either. A lot of the other tech companies, like Amazon or Google, actually provide services that people need (shopping or server hosting or search engines and email, production suites, storage and so on). Spotify and Facebook, companies like that, have done a bit of cynical black magic to convince people (like my kids) that they need their services, too, but I think it's all a hustle.

I dunno - I think FB is the pits, but my wife finds the FB "Groups" really useful (and it's not like they invented groups, any more than Amazon invented e-commerce etc.). Where Meta is really working the black magic is trying to convince ppl they'll need the "Metaverse"; seems like everyone's laughing at them so far, but I'm afraid to see how successful their push may be.

also co-sign on migs + maelin.

amazing news RE: india.arie! never thought much of her music, but hey — c'mon, let's team up and do this!

Some see the musician as an intellectual hero for taking a stand. Yet Young’s own record in this area is far from pristine. For years, he has spread scientific misinformation about GMO foods. While experts have consistently judged GMO foods to be both safe and useful, Young in one song referred to them as poison. As a guest on the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in 2016, Young suggested that GMO foods caused “terrible diseases.” It is hard not to wonder to what degree anti-biotech sentiments like these, ironically, might have fed the current skepticism of Covid vaccines.

Oh for fuck's sake. I could do a detailed takedown of this if anyone's really interested. Suffice to say tho, there are false equivalences and false equivalences, and this is just straight biased whataboutism bullshit.

I still have a lot of anti-GMO friends who are otherwise very intelligent on other matters. lots of people got swept up in anti-GMO mania and acting as if it's inextricably linked to anti-vaccine and being completely anti-science across the board is nutbar.

Neil was cringe-worthy in his anti-GMO stance, yes. but this is definitely ad hominem tu quoque shit.

Cheers. I'm not say "ALL GMO IS BAD" and tbh I don't really know the specifics of Neil's stance. But I see that reflexive "how dare you question the virtue of genetic modification?" defense reflex pop up fairly often in echo chambers of scientism. It's just bullshit. Very much along the same lines as "you will eat your nuclear waste corn flakes and you will like it".

(The precautionary principle is a real, rational and reasonable approach to new technologies. Rogan's Russian-sponsored antivax disinformation is none of that.)

Neil's advice on overcoming depression (i.e. to find someone who's turning and you will come around) is sadly outdated and potentially harmful

At least we keep on rockin in the free world amirite

it's clear that they're trying to say "FITTING THAT NEIL HATES ANTI-VAXXERS, HE CREATED THEM", just like everybody blaming Nirvana for Puddle of Mudd

A man DOES NOT need a maid.

I hit the city and I lost my band
watched pfizer's needle take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done

Please take my advice,
please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Apply a warm washcloth to the tired eyes.

it's a good thing that like 10 people bought The Monsanto Years

say it loud
say it clear
we don't need any
GMOs in here

it's a good thing that like 10 people bought The Monsanto Years

but every one of them started a worldwide pandemic.

lolll

Who was that dick who would give a 5 minute Grammys speech every year about the "dangers" of "stealing music" through file sharing? The "academy" is suspiciously quiet about the current state of industry support, almost as if they no longer feel threatened.

What are the 3rd party playlist transfer apps? Are there some that are better than others? I'm considering giving qobuz a shot.

I used https://www.tunemymusic.com/ to rebuild some playlists from text files, can't compare it to any others but it did a good job and supports transfers between services including qobuz.

I used Soundiiz to transfer my Spotify playlists to Deezer when my Spotify Premium Trial expired. Deezer's UI seems even worse than Spotify though so I'm barely using it now and I might just go back to the old download/sample/buy method.

Who was that dick who would give a 5 minute Grammys speech every year about the "dangers" of "stealing music" through file sharing?

That was the head of the RIAA, and when he did that at the 2002 ceremony, it was the beginning of the end of the music industry.

fwiw, normal spotify + ublock origin is pretty good! no ads, only downside is sometimes you get paused in the middle of the album for an ad that ublock blocks and then you have to try to figure out where in the album you left off.

Looks like Spotify stock has recovered from Friday's crash (fwiw)

I'm thinking about the gradual shift happening on the part of musicians of hatred of "their" label becoming hatred of "the" streaming platforms. When you hated your label you could at least think of people you made a deal with, shook hands with, signed a contract with, were wined and dined and made a faustian bargain with, the feeling you have is parseable: a sort of literary trope that comes from the worlds of bad marriages, magic or the mafia.

The new technological world, a musician is raising a fist against an Orwellian organization never met and never consummated a deal with. How did it happen that your work got so devalued - who did this to you? It's like rueing climate change or globalization, it's not a human story like hating your label, it is a story of hating the changing world, hating soulless technology, hating modernism. Like a farmer getting pennies for her crops due to a glut in the market perhaps?

And "platform" is such an odd skeuomorphism. Yes, Spotify is elevating you above the amateur singer who hasn't bothered to release some mp3s to the world. You are standing on that platform now... with literally millions of others... and most of them are much higher than you on this platform. Really you aren't elevated, a platform is more just a rickety plank in the bobbing sea of the dangerous internet, a shifting location, a phantom platform.

Compare to the metonymous word 'label' was a sort of slap in the face to your identity, you had to align yourself with this cruddy unmusical bunch of business slimeballs who put their name on your record and hoarded the profits. But it was real, you could look at it, it had a history of supporting this or that style of music and your precursors. A label has flavor, unlike a platform.

Until now! Spotify is creating its allegiances by paying particular creators, raising them up highest on the platform.

> fwiw, normal spotify + ublock origin is pretty good! no ads, only downside is sometimes you get paused in the middle of the album for an ad that ublock blocks

This is kind of funny... I'm not sure why this rubs me the wrong way but skipping through ads on a DVR doesn't. It's the same thing isn't it?

I think the worst part is Spotify giving the labels stock in exchange for lower royalty rates. This seems like it should be illegal, and could be the basis for a class-action suit against them, but IANAL.

It's too long to paste, but one Rachel Hurley wrote an epic essay about Spotify etc. that is worth seeking out and reading and will probably get you all a-further talkin'.

Graham Nash pulling his music from Spotify.

Vegas has odds on Young-Nash Band happening before 2024.

Seems like Spotify is losing its MOJO

I see what you did there.

RH's post was a lot.

Had an email from Kristin Hersh's mailing list which seemed like a lot of hemming and hawing which I found pretty disappointing:

From Kristin re: Spotify and taking sides
For what it’s worth, I have never administered or controlled any of “my” Spotify accounts, Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave or solo. I have tried to alter them, as I found some material not representative and some catalogue missing, as well as misinformation in bios, etc. Also, Spotify’s algorithmic recommended listening often puts us squarely in the damaging fashion/product/pop star category that I fought so hard to escape. I am not allowed access to any of these accounts, though, so I let that go.

And I have been intrigued by the possibility of removing the dollar sign from music for a long time, to see if we could create a more musically literate populace via the curiosity of exploring sound through genre and era: listeners moved by music, not marketing. 50 Foot Wave was a cooperative for this reason, maintaining a distance from the recording industry. An industry I never made money from, having been held personally accountable for Throwing Muses’ recording debt and having traded my first solo album for my freedom from a corporate label. So while it’s true that I’ve made nothing from Spotify, I’ve also made nothing from record sales. I play music because I love music and I work with people in all facets of this field who feel the same way. The reason a shy feminist musician like me is working at all is because I am listener-supported by Strange Angels, who keep me humble, grateful and recording.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the free music experiment worked and we could begin to shift the paradigm yet again. This time away from shallow and toward sustainability of actual songwriters and musicians, instead of the pop star facsimile. Toward great radio, record companies and journalism; great photographers, engineers and videographers; taking “music” out of the fashion industry and putting music back in the hands of people. Where it was always meant to be, where it always was.

I have never been safe and I have at times been very angry, but with all my heart, I believe that dehumanizing others is not the way. This is just to say that nuance is real, choice is personal and respectful discourse is necessary in every sphere, in every endeavor.

“We have to transcend the tendency to take sides"
— Thich Nhat Hanh

i.e. seemed like her beef was primarily with the financial model and not with platforming dicks.

It kind of speaks to my disappointment in watching this develop over the last week. It seems to me there are two very legitimate reasons to hate Spotify - (reductively) the artist exploitative payment model and their platforming of racists and misinformation. But rather than people pissed about both working together as a united front to take on Spotify, it’s turned into somewhat of a pissing match of each anti-Spotify group sneering at the other for being anti-Spotify for the “wrong” reasons. It’s like, we have a common enemy! Stop belittling each other!

I don't think any artist should be expected to pull their music off Spotify because of the Rogan association - if they want to do so, great, but I don't know where we're supposed to draw the line on that expectation. Amazon, Google, Youtube, Facebook are all more harmful than Rogan, should I expect them to end their involvement with all of those?

Is she… saying that ppl are “dehumanizing” Rogan(?)

(I sure can’t relate to the quote she posted, either, in the context of the covid misinformation debate)

It’s one thing to not care about the Rogan issue, no one has to; but it’s another to say “you guys are being mean to him, let’s be more respectful”

I'm trying out Tidal, which offered me 60 days for $3. I'm currently listening to a track from one of the releases on my own label and it sounds really good. If I can embed tracks for my Stereogum column as easily as I can with Spotify, I'll switch.

I would guess that Hirsh is seeing the kind of inter-civilian argument that jvc cites and wishing that her fans don’t fight each other*, not that they be nicer to Rogan


*or that they’re yelling at her to pull her catalogue, or to take a Donnellyesque stand, or s/t

Hmm, ok. I guess folks really have lost the plot

(the “fans,” if they’re doing that)

can't wait for this topic to...fade away

Did not have Failure on my Fuck Spotify Bingo card. Good on them.

Makes me even more glad to have ordered their new album straight from them!

It's too long to paste, but one Rachel Hurley wrote an epic essay about Spotify etc. that is worth seeking out and reading and will probably get you all a-further talkin'.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, February 1, 2022 6:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Took me a while to find this, since I didn't know it was a Facebook post. I agree with some of the things she says, though it's not really about Joe Rogan/Neil Young. Apart from the brief nod at the beginning to the current controversy, she could've written the same post 5 years ago.

(Also, she set up a show for my band in Memphis 15 years ago, so it's funny to come across her again in this context.)

pic.twitter.com/yyhHTQi7fm

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) February 2, 2022

go Crusty, Snooze, Hash & Yawn!

Thanks for linking the facebook post. I agree with almost all of it except the end; I think she's a bit blasé about possible solutions. There is immense power on the part of the creators that isn't being leveraged.

Essentially, very successful artists, larger labels and tech platforms have a sort of shared interest that is currently being served barely adequately by the status quo, but less successful artists and smaller labels should stop trying to give away their product for almost-free in order to play the algorithmic lottery or get exposure of dubious value. Instead, they should create a viable independent marketplace. Do you like weird less-popular music? Join a streaming service for that. Do you like classical music and want a service that actually properly curates that kind of thing? Crucially... these services could be integrated with the big streamers, just like how big box stores started selling independent records of a large enough distribution, just like how my Amazon streaming account has a "Britbox" addon I pay extra for and can seamlessly switch from one content library to another within the app.

I think this hasn't happened yet in audio streaming in part because there wasn't enough proper competition on the platforms until now. When Spotify appeared it wasn't embraced by the big artists, just like when Netflix appeared it had only pitiful crap content; the problem was the alternatives like iTunes and Youtube were not interested in cutting deals for exclusive rights with the Beatles, Eagles, Led Zeppelin, etc. who felt that Spotify wasn't remunerative/fair enough. Or the labels bungled the kind of negotiations necessary.

I do think the most successful artists of today are making far less from streaming than the previous generation made from cd royalties and they should be upset about that and doing something to fix that too, but I don't think they deserve to be making more and I'm happy that tech platforms are reducing their hegemony and global consumers are getting so many more choices now. Anyway...

I think ideal future would be those music lovers who really love music happily paying $30, $60 or $100 a month for a really incredible library that aggregates maybe 2-10 content libraries they are really like, just like we do now for various video services, just like we did 20 years ago for television services. There should be a "best of bandcamp" addon that costs $20/month and you can add to your Spotify account and add that awesome weird stuff to your Spotify playlists. Matador and Numero Group could have $8 services marketed direct to Gen Exers, and the Beatles could gate off 50% of their catalog and make the rest including mono and extra tracks available to $5 monthly subscribers or those who pay a $50 one-time fee.

The idea that Spotify could sell it all for $10/month is absurd to me. There's no earthly reason that the technological solution for video content shouldn't also work for audio. If the ultimate problem here is "too many artists are sharing a $10/month revenue stream" the solution is to limit the number of artists getting streaming dollars at that price and offer additional price tiers for more content, either monthly or one-time purchases. Basically: it works for video.

Tiktok and youtube aren't causing movie studios and Netflix to go bankrupt and the fact that millions of songs are uploaded to Spotify each day shouldn't impoverish musicians in itself because most of that music just isn't quality enough to demand anyone's attention. On the contrary, Spotify should have pushed way harder in the pandemic to innovate around delivering live music to people stuck at home. It left that to Youtube and that was really dumb.

I do wish there would be a big name, current pop star joining this crusade. I've seen an increasing number of "lol boomers are mad about streaming" takes that I could do without.

xp the good news is that something like what youre describing seems to be among the most likely outcomes. I believe ShariVari said this upthread too - as Spotify's unsustainable model catches up with it, catalogs disperse and the streaming landscape becomes balkanized into smaller more specialized offerings, similar to whats happened with video streaming over the last 5 years.

I can see that happening too, I'm just not sure the average streaming consumer is going to be as willing to sign up for eight different audio streamers as they have been with video streamers, though time will tell. I think multiple video streamers, could still be sold as a "savings" when compared to regular old cable, but signing up for multiple audio sites will be seen as added cost that isn't replacing something else.

Yeah I agree

Yeah, you have to remember there's already been a generation or two that came up not getting conditioned to pay $$ for music.

Do you like classical music and want a service that actually properly curates that kind of thing? Crucially... these services could be integrated with the big streamers, just like how big box stores started selling independent records of a large enough distribution, just like how my Amazon streaming account has a "Britbox" addon I pay extra for and can seamlessly switch from one content library to another within the app.

i agree with this, but the problem is that these companies just get bought. here's an example:

https://www.primephonic.com

they actually editorialized around composers, performers etc, giving you insight and context, nice big images, and they had worked out the metadata really well. and well, boom apple bought them. feels like straight up anticompetitive behavior.

xpost I saw yet another 'big name' on FB saying streaming music wasn't hurting the music industry, but that 'oversaturation of inventory' is, the canard that many of us fell for back in 2002 but has long been debunked.

Tiktok and youtube aren't causing movie studios and Netflix to go bankrupt

Netflix is $18,000,000,000 in debt

home fucking is killing prostitution

-bickel

> Netflix is $18,000,000,000 in debt

Its revenue was 25 billion with 4.5 billion profit last year, guess we'll see if this little upstart can prove the naysayers wrong

Guilty lol.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/273022657_1868110773387734_1640899053630540663_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=hK4a7GaCAWEAX8Rl9G8&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.xx&oh=00_AT9Dd5cCmZPJU0Kz65kqRr8wy7YHbv3C8gfrLFTMs0R7zg&oe=61FF55A8

call me when taylor or adele or post malone or drake pull the trigger

ED SHEERAN THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE ME SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT YOU

I can see that happening too, I'm just not sure the average streaming consumer is going to be as willing to sign up for eight different audio streamers as they have been with video streamers, though time will tell. I think multiple video streamers, could still be sold as a "savings" when compared to regular old cable, but signing up for multiple audio sites will be seen as added cost that isn't replacing something else.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 2, 2022 3:03 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Especially since one of the big value propositions of an audio streaming service that has (almost) everything is that you can make or listen to playlists with all of your favorite artists mixed together. If, for instance, Sony, Warner, and Universal each have their own services with their own artists, that's no longer possible.

they tried that about 5-10 years ago, not so much the content providers as the people supplying the network - sony playstation had its own subscription music service, and several phone companies tried it, samsung Milk for instance, but they couldn't compete with spotify. (maybe the fact they weren't content providers is key, there was nothing really exclusive to these services and anyone who cared about streaming already had a spotify subscription)

mig's making a more nuanced case than that, though. like the way you can add britbox to your amazon prime subscription. you could add, say, bluenote to your spotify subscription, or, some specialized techno aggregator that represented dance labels.

I can see that happening too, I'm just not sure the average streaming consumer is going to be as willing to sign up for eight different audio streamers as they have been with video streamers, though time will tell. I think multiple video streamers, could still be sold as a "savings" when compared to regular old cable, but signing up for multiple audio sites will be seen as added cost that isn't replacing something else.

I do think that if there was a balkanization taking in the real big names - if you simply couldn't stream Taylor Swift, Kanye and Ed Sheeran through the same service* - most ppl would suck it up and pay, especially since the latest generation brought up not to pay for music has also been brought up without the knowledge of how to pirate it

* no idea if these are on the same label, replace names as necessary

the answer is don't be so fucking greedy and obsessed with constantly expanding market share
if spotify offered a sub that doubled the cost and funneled all the new money to artist payment and then incentivized "premium" the problem would be largely solved but they won't do that because CAPITALISM

and yeah i know that sounds crazy but what if spotify invested in its own future and not AI helmed death robots? which option sounds less crazy there?

Tidal just did that, fwiw. You pay $20 and the royalty $$ goes specifically to the artists you listen to (isn’t “pooled”)

they should really get rid of the free option. i mean i use it and wouldn't switch to paying but presumably a fair few people would. at the moment the free option has p much no downside for me as i don't listen to music out and about so don't need an offline fix and the adverts don't bother me that much, it's not like they come in mid song.

My kid the Apple fanboy used the current kerfuffle as an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway, switch the whole family from Spotify to Apple Music, and I gotta say it's completely seamless and painless (though note I didn't have 6000 ultra-customized playlists on Spotify, I basically just stream from it.)

if you simply couldn't stream Taylor Swift, Kanye and Ed Sheeran through the same service* - most ppl would suck it up and pay, especially since the latest generation brought up not to pay for music has also been brought up without the knowledge of how to pirate it

Totally agree with this. I used to laugh at people who paid $50/mo. for cable and occasionally watch movies I wanted to see on shady Russian sites, now I play $50/mo. to have four different streaming services, that's where the shows are and I accept it.

don't think most people would do that for music but a lot of them might.

I just don't agree that "most people" would suck it up and pay, because there has been, as noted, multiple generations raised on the idea that they shouldn't have to pay for music. I already know people who "just use youtube" to listen to music because they don't want to pay for streaming. Cable and video streaming works because people have been, in essence, trained for decades to know they have to pay for premium content.

What if the users boycotted? I mean— what if there was a date named and on that day, we all cancel our premium accounts and delete the Spotify app?

Instead of waiting for "the big names" to "step up", what if the users took a stand?

I guess it's the same answer as why a general work strike isn't very realistic either.

this is probably yet another dumb solution for fixing the music industry but:

wouldn't it make sense for artists to not immediately release their new albums to streaming services so that the people who immediately want to hear the new releases will pay for them, while more casual fans wait 3 or 6 months until these releases show up on streaming services. Similarly to movies who first show up in movie theatres or VOD and then eventually show up for "free" on Netflix or wherever.

I've thought about that before, but I'm guessing people who rely on highly charting singles aren't going to want to give up the buzz they get by the first week streaming numbers being factored into chart placings.

I'm guessing this kind of approach would work more for niche artists or genres rather than chart topping artists

not immediately release their new albums to streaming services so that the people who immediately want to hear the new releases will pay for them, while more casual fans wait 3 or 6 months until these releases show up on streaming services.

Unfortunately with pressing plant delays and the decline of the CD, this works in reverse lately. You preorder an album a month before release date, you get the downloads on release and the vinyl the following year.

silverfish, that's awfully reminiscent of the Record Store Day "FOMO" model, for better or for worse.

It doesn't really solve the issue of Spotify harboring disinformation and pushing dangerous propaganda, unfortunately. In my cynical negative guy brain, it exacerbates that problem.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/imagine-a-world-without-spotify

^alex ross being otm

multiple generations raised on the idea that they shouldn't have to pay for music.

I dunno, almost half of Spotify users pay the monthly fee (I did) -- the difference between paying four monthly fees and one seems a lot smaller than the difference between one and zero. At least, that's the way it was for me and TV -- I never had cable, and then, at some point, realized that Netflix would actually be a good deal for me -- and once I was paying one monthly fee, the barrier was down for me to add others. But I will never buy an individual DVD again, that's a different thing. (And I'm almost universally unwilling to pay $4 to watch an individual movie streaming, but I can't really justify my unwillingness there, it makes no sense.)

Yeah, somehow it's hard psychologically to "rent" a movie now, even though it's just a few bucks... don't know why

yeah I have to remind myself that I used to pretty regularly spend 10-20$ per week renting movies, so occasionally paying 5$ to see a movie at home is not a big deal

we are as financially moral as our options allow

"...I think Abraham Lincoln said that"

RE: Digital movie rentals

If it's something I really want to see, then okay fine I'll pay the $5 or whatever. But even then, it's very much a last resort and I can count the number of times I've done that on one hand. At least in the old days of physical rentals, you got to keep it for a few days and rewatch favorite parts if desired.

RE: New Yorker piece

This sums things up very well:

Ek makes for a quotable villain, yet the rage against Spotify falls into a familiar American pattern: instead of addressing systemic issues, we stage morality plays involving the misdeeds of individuals. One miscreant falls, another rises, and the song remains the same.

(cues up the Stylistics "People Make the World Go Round")

But I will never buy an individual DVD again, that's a different thing.

Am I the only person who bemoans the loss of making-of featurettes, bonus content, deleted scenes, director commentary and the like?

I do too

(I love that sh1t)

I totally miss them.

I think one/a problem with streaming is that Spotify et al. are essentially just glorified on-demand radio stations, with different users tilting more one way or the other - on-demand at one end, curated radio at the other. The issue is that this long-extant model ("free" music on the radio/internet/MTV/wherever) has been directly linked to a commerce model, but it can never work as a commerce model any more than radio can/does without "real" music sales (whether physical or digital). It's a great promotional platform, like radio is or can be, but it can't generate enough revenue to go 'round. It reminds me of that interview with DJ Shadow where he concedes he couldn't credit all the samples on "Entroducing" because every artist always wants half, but you can only divide something in half once before you start hitting significantly diminishing returns, fractions of a fraction, which helps no one. (At least that's how I remember the interview.) And fractions of a fraction is essentially what Spotify et al. are paying out, but there ultimately is no equitable solution to that issue.

Like, people argue, hey, then how can you afford to pay Joe Rogan $100 million? And the answer, perversely, is that $100 million ain't nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially when you're talking about fairly (whatever that means) compensating literally countless artists being streamed on your platform. I think the Hurley piece (which I would have linked to, just wasn't sure how to link to her Facebook post) gives a figure that Spotify would have to hit just to raise its pay-outs a bit more, and it was astronomical. Like $11 billion or something? And as Isbell responded to someone who asked how podcasters can make all this money, "Because record labels just now started getting into the podcast business. Give it time and the podcasters won’t make much either."

Anyway, the Rogan bullshit is a content debate, not really a compensation debate.

_But I will never buy an individual DVD again, that's a different thing._

Am I the only person who bemoans the loss of making-of featurettes, bonus content, deleted scenes, director commentary and the like?

> it can never work as a commerce model any more than radio can/does without "real" music sales

I respectfully disagree... You just need some gatekeeping/limited catalog so that the overall revenues are higher, and targeted better. HBO over the past 20 years has literally leveraged $5-10/month from individual opt-in subscribers who wanted a tasty mix of exclusive new and catalog content from its stable of creators and licensed contributors. It has been culturally seismic in using that subscription money to make content that people talk about and were excited about.

If instead of a mix of its own content and licensed catalog stuff starting with the Sopranos and Deadwood and the Wire, in 2001 or so it had given $50 million dollars to Rush Limbaugh as its major play to have exclusive content, we would be thinking of HBO as a shitty, shitty platform. It would be "that movie channel that has Rush Limbaugh (who is evil)". This is what Spotify has inexplicably done for itself. Its whole model was AGAINST exclusive content for music, it was for liberating all the world's music into one super-convenient streaming library, and instead of using its revenue to finance, oh i dunno, good original music like maybe exclusive live albums or something, maybe a Friday night DJ mix party with people gathering together to listen together and then share the next day, whatever, what does it decide to identify itself with? This awful sort of next-generation trumpy person who is a charismatic no-nothing cynical valueless alt-right creep responsible for mainstreaming horrible ideas that get people killed.

> Anyway, the Rogan bullshit is a content debate, not really a compensation debate.

I agree. It's just that the Rogan BS really helped clarify for me this sort of itchy feeling I've had about Spotify, which was that in spite of it being literally the best thing that ever happened for music junkies, the company just doesn't give a shit about music really. I know it's a cliche to hate on tech companies while using them all day. It's genuinely strange to me and it shouldn't be. Netflix clearly doesn't really get the potential of visual storytelling either but my goodness at least they try.

All you have to do is go use Bandcamp for like 5 minutes and you'll realize which service actually values musicians and music, and which is trying to create a new payola system.

this was good, despite the annoying title:

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/100280-007-A/has-streaming-saved-the-music-industry/

payola? how so? (I've uploaded and sold a few albums on Bandcamp but not enough to really understand the finer points

Spotify is creating a payola system by driving everyone toward their (algorithmic or editorial) playlists, to which they can then sell access.

Would like very much to see a ProPublica style deep dive into Spotify's recent military AI investment and the connections therein.

There's not a lot of info about Helsing.ai, the startup in question, it was just founded and has about 100 people right now. It's not really Spotify's board or anything approving investment in it, it's just the founder Ek wanting to plow his money into european tech companies and not caring if the profile of those companies are totally at odds with his still running an entertainment platform.

https://siliconcanals.com/crowdfunding/helsing-raises-102-5m/

If you are looking to draw connections, the CTO is formerly of Thiel's analytics company Palantir:

https://medium.com/@ursula2000/what-i-learned-at-palantir-phase-transitions-bd1cd796d341

Re: the payola accusations... I wouldn't call offering a reduced payout for a coveted playlist spot getting exposure payola, exactly. It reminds me more of those old label compilations of this season's new rock songs offered for $0.99 in stores / through the mail. The artists on those comps probably had a reduced royalty on those albums because it was all promotional and sold at a loss.

In fact I was a little intrigued and baffled when I read about the whole scheme last year. Say you are in charge of a team that runs mostly algorithmic playlists for several big genres, your job is to make sure the stuff in those playlists stays fresh from day to day while having stuff in it that people actually like, and you are looking at the numbers of how well those playlists perform week over week and trying to tweak what goes in the playlist and why and how, it's quite interesting to think about. For Rap Caviar you are maybe tracking some of the people who consistently seem to be selecting the songs that later become popular in that genre and you sometimes sneak in stuff that is trending with those people, or trending in certain shifting geographic areas, etc. You need some sort of system to weed out old stuff that is getting bumped back up every fourth of July and Christmas for example or because it was in a recent film...

If you open up some of those playlists to artists who want to force their more mediocre songs on the public, you are making your playlists worse, more likely that the customer will switch off. Payola works in small doses on radio because the market is captured... how could it work when the customer has thousands of playlists to choose from? The whole algorithmic game is undermined whenever a crappy track winds up on a playlist or algorithmic "radio" station. You'd see that playlist gradually turning to crap.

I guess what I figured was it was just an experiment they were trying, to see if smaller labels or artists who were having trouble getting exposure but really really believed in their latest song, if they wanted to sort of put their money where their mouth was and offer their song at a discount for a while in the service, and that signal was a sort of convincing way to say, "yes, this actually is a really great song." And that maybe you might get some interesting suggestions coming from the labels/artists that way. I dunno, it could actually be quite interesting to let people take that chance.

xxxpost I have no reading comprehension so I thought the payola accusation was about Bandcamp

xxxxps Criterion Channel has all the extras btw but i bet you knew that

They don't have the Cannonball Run commentary track!

B

A

N

D

C

A

M

P

I'm also trying to shift more of my spending/listening to Bandcamp, but I'm too hooked on streaming at this point to abandon it completely.

that app comprises at least 35% of my listening (all bought stuff, but it's a mega convenient app and easy to use)

(and you can listen to not bought stuff too)

iirc Criterion Channel has extras ported from discs, and is not generating dozens of hours of new content to accompany each feature film acquisition?

*iiuc

Bandcamp’s app is getting better. They just released an update that supports queuing. Playlists seem like a logical next step and would be cool.

It’s just buying physical media from Bandcamp gets expensive

Then don’t buy it - just pay for the music if the medium is unreasonably priced. I’m in Australia so it’s always $22 with $29 shipping etc.

Am I the only person who bemoans the loss of making-of featurettes, bonus content, deleted scenes, director commentary and the like?

There are boutique labels still making these!

just seen Daily beans has just left the platform.
Not been keeping up with the exodus so is that one of many.

Bandcamp or a new player should set an artist-friendly ethical standard of 2 cents a stream royalty rate. i wonder how many artists would jump ship from Spotify if they did that.

With pay as you go "top up your account" type options vs. "heavy streaming", "lite streaming", "unlimited streaming" monthly plan options

i'm starting to feel like Bandcamp + NTS + BBC Sounds + Rinse is more than enough music for 5 lifetimes and if i really need to hear a specific track i can just google it tbh

Bandcamp doesn't pay anything to the artist if you stream without paying, right?

right but it’s not convenient. i pay in order to add it to my “library” of stuff in the app, which is very nice to use.

I guess what I figured was it was just an experiment they were trying, to see if smaller labels or artists who were having trouble getting exposure but really really believed in their latest song, if they wanted to sort of put their money where their mouth was and offer their song at a discount for a while in the service, and that signal was a sort of convincing way to say, "yes, this actually is a really great song." And that maybe you might get some interesting suggestions coming from the labels/artists that way. I dunno, it could actually be quite interesting to let people take that chance.

Even if it doesn't impact the "quality" of songs in a playlist, you dont see how this incentivizes a race to the bottom that in the end only serves to undermine artists bottom lines and boost Spotify's profits?

There was also the thing a number of years ago, it may be linked on this thread, where iirc some journalist went down the rabbithole & discovered what appeared to be "fake" artists filling out a number of playlists, with spotify apparently commissioning royalty-free playlist filler from freelancers for a flat fee. It obviously wasnt happening on Rap Caviar et al, but on some of the utilitarian playlists favored by less-engaged listeners like "rainy day jazz" or w/e. They may not even still be doing that bc it seems like it could be more trouble than its worth, but just another example of how Spotify is constantly exploring to innovative new ways to self-deal.

iirc Criterion Channel has extras ported from discs

queue has gone dark again, is that tied in with anything else. I just can't see what i have cued up following the podcast I am listening to.
Figuring taht since I'm on it I might as well stick with it until I find something else. That is play through at least the play queue i had set up beforehand. Which was continually changing up til now. Oh well.

aight finally cancelled spotify (and qobuz) going to try the $9.99 Tidal HiFi tier - this should be CD quality (no MQA encoding but I'm skeptical of that whole format, it's cheaper than Qobuz (which I love) but this whole spotify thing made me want to go through all my digital subscriptions and tighten my belt a bit, all these little things that are "only $10 a month" add up

sounds really good so far

Napster

A friend says his younger sister uses Napster, of all things (it's apparently a streaming service like any other now?). She's too young to even remember the P2P days

using Napster, having a Friendster account, playing the Hollywood Stock Exchange--the late 90s/early 00s are coming back!

all these little things that are "only $10 a month" add up

Truth bomb. I have about every subscription and didn't realize how much they all were combined and about fainted

The best thing about Tidal (for me at least) is that it integrates into Rekordbox/Serato/djay so you use the songs for mixing.

Spotify pulled that functionality two years ago and Apple Music never allowed it.

^^

Just want to add, I've started putting music on platforms that offer user-centric royalties. And so far it's worked out at about 2 cents a stream. I think this is the way forward. Deleted my music off Spotify a couple of months ago and haven't regretted it.

For any musicians on here, I would recommend giving these platforms a try. There are a couple of new ones: there is minm.co (a new site that is running smoothly with easy upload feature). Then there is resonate.is (still quite basic but they are promising an update soon so worth keeping an eye on).
The more people upload stuff on these platforms, the more traction they will get.

If any of those work with DistroKid I’ll take a look and activate them if I can.

Apparently dozens of old Rogan episodes have been removed from Spotify. Rogan also apologized for his frequent use of the n word (which India.Arie had cited when removing her music).

Mirostones, thanks for the tip! I’ll consider it.

I just took a tour of free Tidal this morning and it seems...alright. Don't know yet how advanced their algorithms are for rabbitholing purposes, and I'm still tied to Spotify for the free Hulu subscription, but I may cave and move over before too long. I'm reluctant to even take Apple Music for a spin for other reasons (i.e. I hate Apple).

Hey classical heads, how’s Tidal for a classical selection? Also is the 9.99 Hifi level better quality than “hifi” Spotify?

there's a lot of classical, I think if that's a focus Qobuz might be better but it's a bit more expensive

the $10 hifi Tidal is CD quality vs MP3 on Spotify

AFAIK Tidal hifi is FLAC, Spotify 'hifi ('very high' quality setting) is AAC 256kbit/s (or 320?).

Thanks!

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/feb/05/joe-rogan-apologises-for-using-n-word-and-racist-planet-of-the-apes-story

Some highlights:

"The podcast host Joe Rogan has offered “sincere and humble apologies” after footage emerged of him repeatedly using the N-word on his hit show.
The musician India Arie has also announced she would leave the streaming service in protest, saying she objected to Rogan’s “language around race”.
She shared an edited compilation of clips of Rogan using the N-word more than 20 times on her instagram account.
Rogan also addressed a clip that Arie shared of him telling an anecdote in which he appeared to compare being around black people with the film Planet of the Apes.
He said: “I was telling a story in the podcast about how me and my friend Tommy and his girlfriend, we got really high, we’re in Philadelphia, and we went to go see Planet of the Apes.
“We didn’t know where we were going, we just got dropped off by a cab, and we got dropped off in this all-black neighbourhood.
“And I was trying to make the story entertaining and I said: ‘We got out, and it was like we were in Africa, like we were in Planet of the Apes.’"

we got really high

oh in that case, it's totally fine then apparently????

You don't have to scratch very deep to find the racist in a lot of these bros.

i kinda like where rogan is headed. i may start listening now. pic.twitter.com/BZxFPrluZC

— ben schwartz (@benschwartz_) February 5, 2022

“what are they going to say about, joe? what? are they going to say he was a smart man? he was an informed man? that he knew what he was talking about? bullshit, man!” pic.twitter.com/lTheKTR3KG

— ben schwartz (@benschwartz_) February 5, 2022

And you got the cigarettes, that's what I've been dreaming of

people are reporting that spotify has taken down around 70 joe rogan episodes lately

https://www.jremissing.com/

aiui that’s almost 1000 hours of problematic content

Looking at that list, I was thinking... how many times has he had the former Arsenal and England goalkeeper on?! Oh, it's some nutcase.

Didnt they already remove like 40 episodes when they first made the deal with him? Great guy to get into business with, just need to memory-hole a few hundred hours of his content every couple years, no biggie.

culture wars are a waste of everyone's time. i suppose that's kind of the point.

this really does just get worse from here, doesn't it?

Napster used to be called Rhapsody and I've been subscribing to them since 2006. If there was another, earlier streaming service someone let me know. It was really annoying to see Spotify swoop in and get all the glory years later.

Eve 6 dude posting pictures of what the band looked like when they signed the contract that would wind up denying them any Spotify royalties in the present day is pretty powerful, they were literally teenagers

Eve 6 dude should point out that they didn't actually sign with Sony in 1997, they signed with RCA, whose parent company merged with Sony in 2004, the same year Eve 6 initially disbanded. I bring this up because I think it's more powerful to illustrate how their destiny has been controlled by a label they had nothing to do with that now also controls part of Spotify.

Womp etc

Full text of Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s note to staff: pic.twitter.com/3FHlmzV3UW

— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) February 7, 2022

things i did this week:
*bought something off bandcamp for the first time (fwiw, it's virginia astley!)
*switched over to tidal and dropped our family spotify account

tidal needs to work on their selection from japan and/or noise stuff but they had most of what i listen to lately/historically

I mostly listen to jazz, so the improvement in sound quality with Tidal just on their standard $10/month level is really noticeable. ECM stuff in particular sounds incredible.

Tempted to switch to Tidal but apparently they don't offer an older version compatible with my old iPad iOS which I leave connected to my hifi and control with my iPhone and Mac which is a pretty convenient setting...
Also, it's weird, their website/app says the Hifi standard level is supposed to cost 9.99€ but once I subscribe it's actually 12.99€. Not a big deal but still a bit annoying...

unperson I assume you were using Spotify's highest quality setting before?

I was about to jump ship from Spotify to YT Music but I chickened out and renewed with Spotify for another month. YT Music apes the Spotify design which makes it feel familiar but just having all my playlists on Spotify means its hard to cancel. Im on vacation now for 2 weeks so im just looking for ease atm.

Yeah my main issue with switching is to lose my library which took years to build (regarding playlists, it seems it's possible to transfer them)...

Maybe this is me being too hand-wavey, but all of these problems about switching and etc could be easily solved...by embracing tradition and paying for digital or physical copies of music.

Streaming is a scam, I've been saying it for a long time.

We all know its a scam

And this is precisely why Spotify can continue to do whatever it wants and are well aware of it. “Yeah, I know they’re responsible for giving a platform to racism and dangerous pseudo-science but I really like my playlists!”

hi people who can’t quit spotify, remember when there was no streaming and you still loved and enjoyed music? all of maybe 5 years ago?

12 years ago, but point taken. I'm not as precious about my playlists as some people are, but you should take a look at my completely disorganized mp3 folders and try to make sense of them. I'm not going back to that!

Bandcamp’s app is getting better. They just released an update that supports queuing. Playlists seem like a logical next step and would be cool.

― beard papa, Friday, February 4, 2022 7:11 AM (three days ago)

eheh, more like 7-8 years but yeah, touché !
That said, Spotify worked for me precisely because things were not convenient at all before that with a mix of soulseek/iTunes and transferring music from cds into iPhones/iPods etc.
and if we go back earlier, when it was only cds, well I simply listened to less things, stuck with what I could afford buying each month.
I know it's bad of course but streaming services allowed me to listen to so many new stuff and broaden my scope in music.

hi people who can’t quit spotify, remember when there was no streaming and you still loved and enjoyed music? all of maybe 5 years ago?

― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 7 February 2022 14:43 (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

spotify has been a key and irreplaceable component of my listening since 2009, but go off

Maybe this is me being too hand-wavey, but all of these problems about switching and etc could be easily solved...by embracing tradition and paying for digital or physical copies of music.

A complete list of all the music I bought in 2021:

PHYSICAL
Ahmed Abdul-Malik, Four Classic Albums 2CD
Apartment House, John Cage Number Pieces 4CD
Bad Brains, Bad Brains CD
Harry Bertoia, Complete Sonambient Collection 11CD
David Bowie, Stage (2017 remaster) 2CD
David Bowie, Welcome to the Blackout (Live London ’78) 2CD
Lester Bowie, All the Numbers 2CD
Weedie Braimah, The Hands of Time CD
Jaimie Branch, Fly Or Die Live 2CD
Anthony Braxton, Freedom Years 2CD
James Brown, Live at Home With His Bad Self CD
Cannibal Corpse, Red Before Black CD
Cannibal Corpse, A Skeletal Domain CD
Cannibal Corpse, Violence Unimagined CD
John Coltrane, Blue World CD
John Coltrane, A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle CD
Creative Construction Company, Vols. 1 & 2 CD
Bill Dixon, Envoi CD
Dr. John, Atco Albums Collection 7CD
Earthless, Rhythms From a Cosmic Sky CD
Earthless, Sonic Prayer CD
Earthless, From the Ages CD
Earthless, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons CD
Fire, Defeat CD
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Promises CD
Merle Haggard: Down Every Road 1962-1994 4CD
PJ Harvey, Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea: Demos CD
PJ Harvey, Uh Huh Her: Demos CD
PJ Harvey, Is This Desire?: Demos CD
Hampton Hawes, Complete Albums Collection 1955-1961 4CD
Julius Hemphill, Big Band CD
Irreversible Entanglements, Open the Gates CD
Khanate, Khanate 2CD
Khanate, Things Viral 2CD
Khanate, Capture & Release 2CD
Khanate, Clean Hands Go Foul CD
Hubert Laws, Morning Star/Carnegie Hall/The Chicago Theme 2CD
Hubert Laws, In the Beginning/In Concert – Carnegie Hall 2CD
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble, Now CD
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble, Where Future Unfolds CD
Loop, Heavens End 2CD
Loop, Fade Out 2CD
Loop, A Gilded Eternity 2CD
Michael Mantler, The Jazz Composers Orchestra CD
Mastodon, Hushed & Grim 2CD
Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra, Dimensional Stardust CD
Charles Mingus, Mingus at Carnegie Hall: Deluxe Edition 2CD
Roscoe Mitchell, Congliptious CD
Roscoe Mitchell, Old/Quartet Sessions 2CD
Roscoe Mitchell, Before There Was Sound CD
Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Ding Dong. You’re Dead. CD
Lee Morgan, The Complete Live at the Lighthouse 8CD
Mudhoney, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition 2CD
Ohio Players, Fire/Skin Tight 2CD
Ohio Players, Honey/Contradiction 2CD
Perturbator, Lustful Sacraments CD
Radiohead, Kid A Mnesia 3CD
Roots Magic, Hoodoo Blues CD
Roots Magic, Last Kind Words CD
Roots Magic, Take Root Among the Stars CD
Seefeel, Rupt + Flex 1994-1996 4CD
The Skatalites, Best of the Skatalites 2CD
Sons of Kemet, Black to the Future CD
Steppenwolf, Magic Carpet Ride: The ABC/Dunhill Years 1967-1971 8CD
Sunn O))), Metta, Benevolence CD
Booker T. & the MGs, Stax Singles Vol. 1 CD
Booker T. & the MGs, Stax Singles Vol. 2 CD
Cecil Taylor, Air Above Mountains CD
Cecil Taylor, Fly!Fly!Fly!Fly!Fly! CD
Cecil Taylor, Music From Two Continents CD
Cecil Taylor Quintet, Lifting the Bandstand CD
Cecil Taylor Ensemble, Göttingen 2CD
Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley, Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley CD
Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Enigma CD
Cedar Walton, Eastern Rebellion 1-4 4CD

DIGITAL
Abominable Putridity, Parasitic Metamorphosis Manifestation
Alaridos, Horca
ASC, An Increase in Entropy
Asphyxiate, Altar of Decomposed
Automaton, Dub Terror Exhaust
Automaton, Jihad
Albert Ayler Quintet, Berlin, Paris, Lörrach & Stockholm Revisited
BCUC, Our Truth
BCUC, Emakhosini
BCUC, The Healing
Beastmaker, Body and Soul
Biomorphic Engulfment, Incubation in the Parallel Dimension
Black Flower, Ghost Radio
BLK OPS, The Heroic Dose
Peter Brötzmann, Never Too Late But Always Too Early
Peter Brötzmann/Maleem Mahmoud Gania/Hamid Drake, The Wels Concert
Big Bad Brötzmann Trio, Biturbo!, Cap’n
Big Bad Brötzmann Trio/John Edwards & John Eckhardt, Hot Ass/Beauty Legs
Big Bad Brötzmann Quintet, Bambule!
Big Bad Brötzmann Quintet, Karacho!
The Bug, Fire
Cadaveric Fumes, Dimensions Obscure
Can, Live In Brighton 1975
Carbon Based Lifeforms, Stochastic
Ian Carr Double Quintet, Solar Session
George Coleman, Amsterdam After Dark
Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few, Cosmic Transitions
Diskord, Degenerations
Dispersed, Where Silence Reigns
Distant, Dusk of Anguish
Distant, Aeons of Oblivion
D-Town Brass, Ur
D-Town Brass, Demiurge
Ekulu, Unscrew My Head
Ena, Divided: Mind
Ena, Divided: Body
Ena, Divided
Ena, Divided 9 & 10
Ena, Binaural
Ena, Binaural (Part 2)
Flesh Hoarder, Relic of Putrescent Filth
Fruko y sus Tesos, Tesura
Fruko y sus Tesos, A la Memoria del Muerto
G36, Floor Weapons Vol. 1
Galvanizer, Prying Sight of Imperception
Galvanizer, Sanguine Vigil
The Gathering, Leimert Park
Lafayette Gilchrist, Towards the Shining Path
Lafayette Gilchrist, New Urban World Blues
Lafayette Gilchrist, The GoGo Suite: Live at the Windup Space
Lafayette Gilchrist, Deep Dancing Suite
Green River, Come On Down
Green River, Dry as a Bone: Deluxe Edition
Green River, Rehab Doll: Deluxe Edition
Muriel Grossmann, Union
Innov Gnawa, Innov Gnawa
Innov Gnawa, Lila
Innov Gnawa, Aicha
Intestinal Pestilence, Rotten Cadaver Forsaken
Nicole Johänntgen, Henry III
Kurushimi, Return 2: The Grove
Bill Laswell, Sacred System Dub Chamber 1 – Book of Entrance
Bill Laswell, Sacred System Dub Chamber 2 – Black Channel
Bill Laswell, Sacred System Dub Chamber 3 – The Exegesis
Bill Laswell, Sacred System Dub Chamber 4 – Version 2 Version
Bill Laswell, Sacred System Dub Chamber 5 – Book of Exit
Madam Data, The Gospel of the Devourer
Madam Data, For Agnes Martin – Six Architectures in Light and Water
Kevin Richard Martin, Red Light
Kevin Richard Martin, White Light
Kevin Richard Martin, Melting Point
Koichi Matsukaze Trio Featuring Ryojiro Furusawa, At the Room 427
Charles McPherson, Charles McPherson
Charles McPherson, Siku Ya Bibi
Meshum, Enigmatic Existential Essence
Metharoma, Pipe Dreams (Through the Alley)
Kohsuke Mine, First
Jason Moran, The Sound Will Tell You
Jason Moran/Milford Graves, Graves/Moran Live at Big Ears
Nazamba, Vex
Other Dimensions in Music, Other Dimensions in Music
Other Dimensions in Music, Live at the Sunset
Other Dimensions in Music, Now!
Other Dimensions in Music, Time is of the Essence is Beyond Time
Other Dimensions in Music, Kaiso Stories
William Parker/In Order To Survive, The Peach Orchard
John Patton, Soul Connection
Pyrexia, Gravitas Maximus
Relapso, Fierce
Relapso, Hinin
Replicant, Malignant Reality
Replicant, Worthless Desires
Replicant, Negative Life
Replicant, Hypochondria of the Machine
Replicant, Welcome to New Jersey
Replicant, Unbeing
Michi Sarmiento, Aqui Los Bravos! The Best Of Michi Sarmiento y su Combo Bravo 1966-67
Scorn, The Only Place
Ayanda Sikade, Movements
Nala Sinephro, Live at Real World Studios
Slant, 1
Slant, Vain Attempt EP
Nate Smith, Kinfolk: Postcards From Everywhere
Spirits Rejoice, African Spaces
Luke Stewart & Jarvis Earnshaw Quartet, Luke Stewart & Jarvis Earnshaw Quartet
Sunn O))), НЕЖИТЬ: живьём в России
Tong Tong, Tong Tong Greatest Hits
Trouble, The Skull
Trouble, Psalm 9
Trouble, Trouble
Trouble, Manic Frustration
Herbie Tsoaeli, At This Point in Time: Voices in Volumes
Lenny White, Big City
Lenny White, Venusian Summer
Wildflower, Better Times
Various Artists, Axaminer Sampler Vol. 5
Various Artists, Axaminer Sampler Vol. 6
Various Artists, Axaminer Sampler Vol. 7
Various Artists, Axaminer Sampler Vol. 8
Various Artists, Bangs & Works Vol.1 (A Chicago Footwork Compilation)
Various Artists, Bangs & Works Vol.1 (The Best of Chicago Footwork)
Various Artists, Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & The Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound Of Colombia 1962-72
Various Artists, Colombia! the Golden Age of Discos Fuentes. the Powerhouse of Colombian Music 1960-76
Various Artists, Perihelion 2209
Various Artists, Total 21
Various Artists, Vision One: Vision Festival 1997 Compiled

i buy 25-30 albums a year on bandcamp btw, but expecting me to buy every album i hear is obviously ridiculous, as is expecting me to listen to less music

can a mod get that unperson post pls

no, it's definitely our fault that spotify gave $100 million to a covid denying racist idiot.

Lol, ILX, the place where even Spotify can be turned into a “I was into it before it was cool” assertion.

I’m going to leave this thread now but from my perspective any argument for remaining with Spotify is extremely weak and self-serving and if you really rely on the convenience of playlists that heavily to hear music maybe it’s time for your brain to expand into other means of discovery anyway.

Thoughts about buying physical media, or cds at least, in 2022.

cd players are still less portable than ipods (lol) and, now, smartphones. But smartphones are limited in how much music you can store, and streaming eliminates that quandary.

Also, have you shopped for a car manufactured in the last 6-8 years? They don't build them with cd players anymore. So it's back to the phone problem above.

Streaming is not bad technology. It's GREAT technology. It's just run by jerkoffs.

it isn't an 'i was into it before it was cool' assertion, it is an 'i do not know what i would do without it' assertion

spotify has been key to helping me find tons of things to buy on bandcamp over the past year. I wouldn't have been able to find them directly on bandcamp, and in fact, even when I know exactly what I want to buy, it is still difficult to find a large portion of the items I want on bandcamp without doing a lot of creative searching

hi people who can’t quit spotify, remember when there was no streaming and you still loved and enjoyed music? all of maybe 5 years ago?

oh yeah, does rapidshare still work?

Arcade Fire guy does a good job a tying together Rogan frustrations with general Spotify frustrations

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/neil-young-spotify-joe-rogan-musicians/621503/?utm_source=feed

Lost me at "It’s certainly how I listen to music"

oh yeah, does rapidshare still work?

Before streaming I was just doing my music exploration by downloading a lot of music through file sharing networks, ever since the days of Napster in the late 90s, so close to 25 years ago now. Streaming has just made all of this more convenient. Never in my adult life did I buy more than 5% of the albums that I listened to (that 5% still adds up to a lot though). There's no going back really.

not a big fan of some of the sanctimony about this, because it continues to vilify the consumer at the expense of the company ("lol of COURSE *they're* terrible - they're a horrible start up! what's YOUR excuse!").

as I mentioned upthread, before the mass exodus started, Rogan had already done many of these things, and many of the people who are loudly (not necessarily ITT mind you) making the move and scolding those that won't are people who were well aware of how horrible Rogan was and ranting about him daily. these weren't people who were aloof until the Neil Young incident opened their eyes, these were people who already knew but didn't take action until after Neil Young. Which, fine....I'm not judging you for waiting, but the finger-pointing is really fucking lame.

like I fully support everybody ITT or outside this thread who is deciding to leave Spotify. I support boycotts of all kinds, and participate in them (ie Chick-Fil-A, who I haven't eaten at in like a decade). but if we're going to do "capitalist purity olympics", we can start another thread for that and decide who is the least problematic spender of all of us (I'll save you the trouble - it's not me).

and in that thread we can examine your discography too to make sure the politics of all musicians closely align with what is acceptable.

oh shit the triple reverse sanctimony dunk

but if we're going to do "capitalist purity olympics", we can start another thread for that and decide who is the least problematic spender of all of us (I'll save you the trouble - it's not me).

I think an "ethical consumption: c/d?" thread could maybe have been interesting at one point but idk

Is it even clear at this point that Spotify dropping Rogan would actually reduce his reach? This article from last year makes it seem like it could have the opposite effect: https://www.theverge.com/22632213/joe-rogan-experience-spotify-exclusive-audience-reach

The fear of getting kicked off/losing money probably also makes him self-censor.

as noted elsewhere I don’t give a shit about Rogan, the fundamental working model of Spotify is to pay nothing for content and charge for listening, and deviate from that just enough to convince people they are getting great value, which works out to no income and free content for artists convinced they need it for exposure. I’m also told by the press, but haven’t properly looked for the evidence, that streaming is the most wasteful way to consume music. If they can platform some covertly racist moron with a large reach for whatever million to drive revenue, that’s entirely compatible with their demonstrated ethics, and Ek says so in his memo. Convenience may have brought you to the service in all innocence, but now you know, staying is a choice.

Although the amount of plastics consumed by the industry dropped to 8 million kilograms in 2016 from a high of 61 million kilograms at the CD’s peak in 2000, when the study translated the production of plastics and the generation of electricity into greenhouse gas equivalents (GHGs), streaming generates far more. While GHGs peaked at 157 million in 2000 under the physical era, the generation of GHGs by storing and streaming digital files is estimated to be between 200 million kilograms and over 350 million kilograms in the USA alone.

Thank you for that, what’s the source?
(and please excuse my streaming runon sentences in the previous)

https://www.factmag.com/2019/04/09/streaming-music-emissions-study/

"When I voted for the Face Eating Tigers party, I didn't think they would eat my face."

We're not doing capitalist purity Olympics, tho— y'all are just angry that you're being called out for a weak and indefensible stance about Spotify because of your precious fucking playlists.

For me it's not the playlists as much as that my music budget won't allow for me to buy every Aleksi Perälä album. But I have to listen to them constantly.

i already cancelled my Spotify, so I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm having to do major cost cutting because I have an excess spending issue and while that was ok when I lived alone, I have to loan mom money a ton now since she can't work so I gotta cut the number of subs, like ums said above. but as I've said above, I buy all of my music and have always done so. have probably spent over $15,000 - $20,000 on music in the last decade alone. and merch, and concert tix etc....45%-50% of my spending is probably music and if I stopped buying it, I'd probably have a well funded 401(k). but fuck that shit.

the only reason I ever felt ethically comfortable using Spotify in the first place is that I was only using it to listen to material I already owned in physical format but couldn't locate the physical release (because I'm horribly disorganized), so if anything the band was getting paid multiple times (albeit, very little) on top of what I already paid them to own their music. prior to that, I never used Rhapsody, and was buying physical media exclusively.

I buy everything digitally simply because a) my last two houses have little to no living space and cds/vinyl take up a huge chunk of space and b) I'm horribly disorganized and more material is more clutter. also because I had two stereo systems eat it in the span of two years and was tired of rebuying them. and also, some of what I like is difficult to find on physical media but has digital versions available for purchase. or bands release digital only or have delayed physical releases.

so my opinion's not colored by me feeling targeted. i have precisely one playlist, which has 12 songs on it, and could be recreated on any other platform.

*like ums said above, they add up

post the 12 songs

otm

Relevant thread Stop Thinking of Yourself as a Good Person: The Ethics and Economics of Music Streaming

> The fear of getting kicked off/losing money probably also makes him self-censor

Pretty sure Rogan would make more money getting kicked off and becoming an alt-right cancel culture warrior. Hard to imagine Spotify or another platform will renew his show for more money. He's made his 100 mil, but he could still have fun as a Fox host for a few years or dip into the "i was canceled" book and speech tour circuit.

> the generation of GHGs by storing and streaming digital files is estimated to be between 200 million kilograms and over 350 million kilograms in the USA alone.

Dunno, those numbers are pretty hard to believe and the link provided seemed to source an art project not a research paper. Note that traditional music players are mechanical, using far more energy per play than solid state devices.

https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much/

Compare above, .2 grams CO2 equivalent per search query, vs. 8.91 kg CO2 per gallon of gas... seems like one trip to the record store by car would be thousands and thousands of streams...

Neanderthal, I wasn't trying to attack you, fwiw, and sorry if it came out that way. I just tend to think that in many cases, the purity Olympics stuff first happens because someone is on the defensive about their choices.

I didn't take it that way, don't worry. I'm the one that launched the initial salvo with my comments anyway :)

the 12 songs are

Steve Winwood - While You See a Chance
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
Duran Duran - Ordinary World
Donna Summer - This Time I Know It's For Real
John Parr - St Elmo's Fire
Patti Smith - Because the Night
Hall & Oates - Kiss On My List
Billy Joel - This is the Time
Elton John - Healing Hands
Billy Ocean - Carribean Queen
Mariah Carey - Love Takes Time
Bruce Hornsby - Every Little Kiss
Simply Red - Holding Back the Years

it is formless and without rhyme or reason, i stand before you naked

Hey now, hey now

weirdly, this playlist started as a playlist of songs that I used to help me get into character as GW in Del Shores's Sordid Lives back in 2014, although it's a bit of a Ship of Theseus type thing as the title of the playlist changed and there are no original songs left from the original playlist (as it was uhhh quite different genre wise then).

Are folks really that attached to their playlists? We've been building a hiphop playlist for the past year or so and it's up to over 9 hours by this point. If that just suddenly went away, Andy would certainly be able to remember my favorites and build a similar one fairly easily elsewhere. Of all the reasons to give up Spotify, that seems like an odd one — feels like the same energy as the teacher who gets mad that someone erased their chalkboard, but also can't remember what was erased.

Also Neanderthal otm. No judgment ever from us. Part of our reliance on Spotify right now stems from the fact that the record collection is in storage. It's a frustrating flurry of conflicting thoughts.

the only real playlist of actual significance that I curated was for a friend, one who likes hip hop but wanted me to pick out personal favorites, not just songs that made generic "greatest hip hop tracks of the 90s" lists.

spent hours making it and the friend never used it so fuck her and fuck Spotify!

(jk she's fine just want my playlist recognized as pure gold that it is)

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned allegiance to Spotify's curated playlists (like Rap Cavier, or whatever). Even though every service has its own variations, I thought some folks were loyal to those.

(e.g., YT Music has a playlist called Femme Fresh – terrible name, I know – that's all recent female r&b, and I definitely like that one)

There was a time when I really enjoyed Discover Weekly, but I barely listen to it anymore. The curated ones stink like payola. I wish they (or another service) leaned more into promotion of user-created playlists.

I don't listen to a lot of curated lists, but I use the radio feature a lot

just want my playlist recognized as pure gold that it is

― he's very big in the region of my butthole (Neanderthal), Monday, February 7, 2022 1:15 PM

The struggle is real, friend.😄

The only playlist I really wanted to keep was my "liked" tracks playlist which is several thousand tracks that I liked over the years. It's not really that huge of a deal but I wanted it enough that it was worth the 4.50$ it cost to transfer it over to Tidal.

Being manipulated to pay for something you created yourself is a very familiar feeling for academics like me …

I don't really have a p.o.v. on Neil Young calling for Spotify workers to resign & everyone else to withdraw their $ from certain banks, but I think it's funny that Pitchfork decided to straight-up call him a hypocrite in their reporting on it:

Despite his criticism of Spotify and big banks, Young has continued to point his fans to Amazon, which has earned heavy criticism for its inhumane working conditions and fervent union-busting.

Damn, that's cold, Pitchfork!

Are folks really that attached to their playlists? We've been building a hiphop playlist for the past year or so and it's up to over 9 hours by this point. If that just suddenly went away, Andy would certainly be able to remember my favorites and build a similar one fairly easily elsewhere. Of all the reasons to give up Spotify, that seems like an odd one — feels like the same energy as the teacher who gets mad that someone erased their chalkboard, but also can't remember what was erased.

There are some playlists that I have spent months working on (compiling and sequencing) and would feel crushed if Spotify vanished without warning. But if it announced it would shutting down in a week, I would just export the track listings as text files and rebuild them elsewhere. (I actually have some of them in a Google doc already, because I'm paranoid that a track might disappear without being grayed out and I'll forget it was ever there to begin with.)

does rogan still run ads on his show?

I went with Tidal yesterday. I like the interface and got an offer for 3 months for a dollar before the full price kicks in. It'll cost me $4.50 (one time) to convert playlists, which is fine since I'll save almost $20 with that $1 deal. I did discover that early Camper Van Beethoven is missing on Tidal but available on Spotify and Apple Music, which is odd.

YouTube Music seems to have all the CBV albums, but Amazon Music only has a few late-period ones (the band got the memo!!)

The box set is still p affordable on Discogs…

https://www.discogs.com/release/888500-Camper-Van-Beethoven-Cigarettes-And-Carrot-Juice-The-Santa-Cruz-Years

Spotify had a playlist called something like Badass Womyn at one point - Angel Olsen, Mitski, etc. indie rock - it was the first time I saw "womyn" since the early '00s.

I'm planning to switch to Tidal for the more expensive plan that gives half directly to the artists I listen to, curious to see some artists talk about how that impacts their royalty statements.

oh, I just realized that it's 10% of the monthly not half for twice the price. I'd rather just spend $2 extra on bandcamp every month, 99% of my listening will be in the car or walking with my PortaPros, don't think I need Dolby Atmos.

Isn't it 10% which goes to your single top artist? And given it's Tidal, don't they manipulate the books so it goes to Kanye and Beyonce no matter what?

Jay-Z I mean, not Kanye, forgot which arsehole was married to which for a moment.

split the 1500 tracks into two playlists of 750, migrate them both, then drag and drop the second playlist into the first playlist, right?

I've been on Qobuz for almost a month. Their desktop app design really needs some help.

I'm also trying hard to understand any real benefits of Qobuz over Tidal or Spotify. As far as I can tell Qobuz's library doesn't have anything over Spotify's besides the handful of artists who recently pulled their music. But I have yet to find any meaningful library differences.

Aah, the part where I responded to the italicized section got cut out.

Basically, I can't figure out how to combine 2 Qobuz playlists.

You don't Qobuz for the library, you Qobuz for the sound quality

Yeah, I couldn't figure that out either, or how to post-edit migrated playlists - and my trial expired a couple of weeks ago (looks like I can still play a random 30sec chunk of anything on there at 320k through the app, and my playlists are still there). I quite liked the interface, and the liner notes/credits.

xp

yep, if you're talking strictly catalog i might try deezer, they seem to have everything spotify has and some odd things that other services don't

The sound is very good but their apps could use more intuitive features imo.

yeah, honestly it's tough because i think spotify is pretty far ahead of a lot of the competitors in terms of useability

i do like that qobuz tries to make really nice actual human selected playlists or little summary playlists and articles about a certain label etc, their content can be pretty good sometimes

I wound up with Tidal instead of Qobuz largely because Tidal's UI is so close to Spotify's, with some things I like even more (placement of production credits, existence of songwriting credits, super big album art).

xp The Qobuz write-ups are cool and yea I'd like to find more playlists. I think you're right that they don't have any robot-selected playlists.

have you tried the phone app? I think it's better than the desktop

Yea I spent some time organizing my playlists yesterday and since then the phone app auto-organized them back to where they were lol.

It's still better than the desktop app tho.

the big thing the desktop app still supports that other versions do not is the ability to play folders of nested lists as one big playlist

i have now tried qobuz and tidal and i’m sticking with tidal. tidal rules

I've imported all my playlists from spotify into tidal. I'd like to be able to select them all and then dump them into a folder. is this possible

Tidal's algorithmic elements (like a radio station based on a song) still seem to lag behind Spotify, about equal to Apple Music.

Keep hoping one service will break through the sexist algorithm barrier, ie making a station based on a song by The Beths or Dry Cleaning it pays attention to genre rather than just populating a list with bands with women singing.