Spotify - anyone heard of it?

I just read about this. Apparently some kind of streaming iTunes looking service with rights to all the majors cleared. Could be interesting? If nothing else just to see it fail miserably...

trying this now. blatant rip of itunes design-wise but looks better in many ways. all i really want to do with it is listen to whole albums easily and it seems to let you do that very well (i haven't heard the ads yet tho).

20 second xbox ad came in after 5 songs. not bad really.

needs last.fm support asap

the ads don't bother me that much either, haven't noticed if 5 songs is always the limit? in any case it's 5 songs of any length, and you can listen to "In C" for example straight through which is cool.

I love it!

I think there is progress towards spotify scrobbling happening here:

http://www.last.fm/group/Scrobble+for+Spotify

carsmile sent this link: http://code.google.com/p/scrobblify/

scrobbles perfectly

for Windows maybe!

Yeah this looks terrific, I like how easy it makes it to dip into artists with huge discographies.

Although I haven't actually listened yet, just been browsing so far.

i am so in love with this thing <3

some artist tag crapness tho

the radio is fun for discovering things totally insane and cheesy

Oh wow the quality is actually pretty good.

The radio thing is indeed cool. I'm trying to get it to find me some techno from the 50s.

the quality is good, the range not so much, but this could well prove useful.

Presumably the range will increase as they agree deals with more record companies? It seems fine for major label stuff and a quick search for eg Kompakt pulls up a lot.

does it pass the melt banana test?

the range seems identical to what's on 7digital (and therefore itunes i think). eg they have trina's first and third albums but inexplicably not her second or fourth. i dunno how much use i'll have for spotify but kudos for how well it works, the quality of the tracks etc - the tags need ironing out but i'm sure they'll do this in time.

actually it'll be most useful for stuff like the goldfrapp album this year - i didn't really expect to love it but i wanted to hear it, so obv i wouldn't buy it but couldn't be arsed blagging it. that's a ton of consumer laziness in there.

oh god i should've said i was american! fuck. could've got access to all the hip-hop and r&b which never makes it over to this godforsaken, miserable island.

Do they have a license for the US now? I don't think they did a couple of weeks ago...

Four MB albums, Deano: Teeny Shiny, Bambi's Dilemma, Charlie and Scratch or Stitch.

does not work in australia yet

Just searched for The Recession and that shows up in its entirety, and it hasn't been released here at all right?

It's really good for the one-album playback when you've no idea if you'll like it or not and can't be arsed downloading.

yeah i'm basically going through albums i've been wondering about checking out but didn't have the hd space for.

no the recession was released here, but the label didn't bother telling the pr - she only realised when she looked on amazon and found it had been there for a fortnight

"80s funk house disco" radio suggests Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers!

> Four MB albums, Deano

thanks. we don't have any, amazon.co.uk mp3 store has scratch n stitch and a couple of tracks from compilations, emusic had a lot... all these people seem to be getting their info from the same places though, they all make the same mistakes (search for broadcast on amazon - details are about duophonic / warp broadcast but the listed albums aren't)

One detail I like: when it gets to the end of what I've queued up, it just continues with the current album without me needing to ask it to. (I suppose I can see how someone might not like this, though.)

Finally got round to sorting scrobbling for this (there's a windows messenger box ticked by default in the last.fm client that somehow stops Scrobblify from working). So far I'm really liking Spotify - handy for hearng stuff you randomly think on that you haven't got in your library or for legal trying before you buy. The adverts don't annoy me in the slightest.

fails Boredoms test :(

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

anyone got a spotfiy INVITE?

If not, try the "oooh ask me please!" option on the website ("Get started" -> email in "Not invited?" field). Took about five days for me, was surprised to get it at all actually.

jordan, webmail me an email address to send an invite to.

didn't get asked for an invite here, just got straight in

This is amazing! You type in what you want to listen to, and then you are listening to it. all this needs is to work on an iphone, and then i'll buy an iphone, and then i will have achieved bliss.

Mine appears to have made it through an album without giving me any adverts. Maybe they've bumped me up to a pro account without realising it.

you can now scrobble to last.fm from within spotify (it's in 'preferences')

That's handy, saves me running that scrobblify thing at the same time.

Spotify lists 'The Prodigy' as 'Prodigy' and makes last.fm think this guy sings Smack My Bitch Up and Out of Space
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/17704623.jpg

can someone please send me an invite?

thanks!!

Er....

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

Think there's still a waiting list though.

<3 this service btw.

Got in straight away with the link I posted.

Aha they've obviously opened it up!

Downside is loads more ads (I've heard two during the same album), but you can hear them coming after a while and tune out. Still great.

thanks Chewshabadoo but I need an invitation code.

Please!

If i hear gareth jones from cardiff reciting pi again i'll scream

(advert)

And I'm not buying that White Lies record either.

At least it doesn't scrobble the adverts

jonathan from spotify sounds remarkably like Michael Vaughan

2021: https://i.imgur.com/5lhP2kN.jpg

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Sunday, June 20, 2021 5:51 PM (six days ago)

continued:

https://i.imgur.com/a4bRljp.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/RJUFtsC.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/kYtYWeM.jpg

The problem was music piracy. The solution was to distribute music without paying the artists.

Jim Anderson (the architect of the Spotify platform) says the mission of Spotify was to distribute music...NOT get artists paid.

you can read an excerpt of the interview below courtesy of @digitalmusicnws. pic.twitter.com/kzHadm3EBN

— MF STO. 😷 (@BigSto) June 30, 2021

I was just reading this (not good, IMO) New Yorker article that was linked from a Pitchfork review. It includes these quotes from Kevin Weatherly, Spotify’s head of North American programming, which I thought were “funny”:

Weatherly is hesitant to suggest that he or anyone else at Spotify makes definitive decisions about how music should be organized or presented, pointing out that the service’s A.I. is merely reactive. “We’re not arbiters of taste,” he said. “We’re not A. & R. We’re here to try to connect our audience with different types of music, regardless of genre.” (…) “Prior to Spotify, you were spoon-fed what music you listened to by traditional gatekeepers. All of that has been shattered.”

(I know Weatherly’s name b/c he was a longtime radio guy, btw)

Prior to Spotify, you were spoon-fed what music you listened to by traditional gatekeepers.

I guess, to be fair, it’s more like being fed thru a garden hose with one of those rotating nozzles.

lol

Jim Anderson left Spotify in 2014, so presenting his current (2019, actually) comments as coming from a "Spotify Exec" is a little disingenuous.

So too, admittedly, is pretending like the traditional gatekeeping power structures have been "shattered".

But, on the third hand, if you allow yourself to be "spoon-fed" music by anything, be it corporate or algorithmic, you're responsible for what you swallow.

someone "who is credited with architecting the Spotify platform" speaking on the intent of the platform seems reasonable. they'd been operating internationally with free and paid tiers for five years by 2014.

Nah. In streaming terms, 2014 is quaint olden days. Apple Music didn't even launch until 2015, so in 2014 Spotify was still competing with piracy and paid downloads. Things have changed a lot since then.

competing with paid downloads is a big part of the point

paid downloads were bad

I use foo spotify. Thereby I control what music I listen to without succumbing to automated tyranny, unless I want to. Stream youtube from foobar as well. Best of both worlds.

I like to turn on the automated tyranny, sometimes at dinner parties, so I cannot be accused of tyranny

paid downloads were bad

And Spotify is good since I am deliberately searching out artists I read about here and other fora. I don’t l,like just hot play on “Rap Caviar” or “Chill out feels”.

Hit play

sounds like u need more… Spoon-feeding

https://img.apmcdn.org/b2a983d2e065d61850c8159cfd7af557c4dfdad5/square/5f4303-20121221-spoon-transference.jpg

fwiw - I currently subscribe to two (2) streaming services* (not Spotify), and a few of the curated playlists are pretty key for me.

*I also buy CDs

Yeah I still buy cds too. Probably spend too much time on Spotify mainly as a podcast server. But I've been interspersing with single tracks of various music for the last few months.

I am intending to buy more music based on what I've listened to though.

Find the idea that they are anti music piracy but not pro paying the artist a ridiculous position. Would have hoped the principle behind the first part might inherently include the 2nd.

I do like having the packaging including a physical printed set of liner notes.

If only we had some explanation of Spotify's original business model to read, instead of some belligerent comments from a long ex-Spotify employee many years later.

Oh, wait, we do. From 2011. From that same guy.

https://startupbeat.com/spotify-101-the-freemium-music-model-why-it-works-and-the-vision-that-drives-the-social-music-startup/1947/

It's true, though, that for the first few years of its existence Spotify was not really focused on artists as a constituency, nor vice versa. It began very much as a desktop music-searching/library application, entirely focused on the listener, and on already-music-knowledgeable listeners at that. There was no editorial team or Spotify-curated playlists before the acquisition of Tunigo in 2013, and no personalized playlists before the acquisition of the Echo Nest in 2014 (which is how I joined). The reorganization that created a company division to focus on the artist experience was in 2014 or 2015, I forget exactly, and even then most artists weren't directly involved with their Spotify presence.

As streaming started getting enough commercial traction for the music business to start growing again, in 2016 and 2017, lots of other dynamics began changing, too, none of them specific or limited to Spotify. Desktop -> mobile; music geeks using streaming as a cloud library -> more casual listeners using streaming to replace radio; playlists as a cool sharing feature -> editorial/algotorial/algorithmic/personal playlists as the primary listening mode; subscription streaming as "an experiment" (as Taylor Swift put it) -> subscription streaming as most of the recorded-music economy; label-focused reporting -> artist controlled tools. Closer to global availability. Oh, and podcasts...

So the problem wasn't the piracy, or the fact that artists were losing their income from it--it was that the piracy wasn't slick and centralized enough, and random tech dudes weren't making fuck tons of money off of it?

Every day there's a new reason to hate Spotify, and more apologists inventing creative new mental gymnastics to justify it.

Uh, if that's your conclusion then I'm guessing you were always going to reach it. But you're missing a key stage in this story if you forget that it went: piracy (industry crashes) -> paid downloads (industry stays crashed) -> streaming (industry starts to recover).

(And none of these are new reasons or new "apologists". And it's not gymnastics to be walking in a direction you don't happen to like.)

Here's an interesting piece about the CDs -> Napster -> Apple power-shift (with a little bit about streaming and Spotify) from mostly the perspective of the old industry:

https://themusicnetwork.com/forget-napster-it-was-itunes-that-held-the-record-industry-to-ransom/

The labels may have gotten streamrolled by Apple to a certain extent; but visiting Sony.com to buy a Mariah Carey album was never a solution, and “why didn’t they just team up?” is way easier said than done…

Who agreed on the shockingly low sound quality, and why didn’t the labels rally for more hi-fidelity options, like FLAC and other lossless formats, especially when internet space and storage space were no longer legitimate issues?

I wonder if it's a technical or policy reason behind showing number of track plays only on album view and not on playlists or radio. I'd love to be able to see it in those other contexts.

Whenever you're not sure whether something is due to technical constraints or policy decisions, the answer is almost always "two different teams built those two things independently 8 years ago, and now that's just how they've always been...".

Ha - thanks glenn. So neither really, just: no one's felt pressure/inclination to make a change

That quote above... it's odd to think that the labels wouldn't have been all for the low quality* and the DRM and all that stuff. They knew they'd be able to sell better downloads (or streaming memberships or whatever... or I suppose vinyl) later on. It was in the best interests of Apple and the labels.

* I had to Google and refresh myself on this... originally the sold files were 128kbps with DRM, 99 cents each. They started doing 256kbps DRM-free in 2007. 256 or 320 is good for me but 128 is brutal.

*in 2007 for $1.29 per song.

Upgrades for previous purchases were available as part of a $25/year program? Yarg...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2015/01/18/itunes-drm/21964513/

anyway yeah, poor labels

I paid $25 for one year of iTunes Match just so I could convert all my crappy old Napster and Audiogalaxy mp3s to 256k

2021: https://i.imgur.com/5lhP2kN.jpg

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Sunday, June 20, 2021 5:51 PM (six days ago)

continued:

https://i.imgur.com/a4bRljp.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/RJUFtsC.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/kYtYWeM.jpg

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Saturday, June 26, 2021 8:00 AM (two weeks ago)

having trouble reading between the lines here but I'll crack it

https://i.imgur.com/5La4c1I.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/EazQ5x3.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0AFrZNC.jpg

Is this person from spotify?

recently deleted my spotify in an effort to cut down on my overall reliance on streaming - annoying and labor-intensive but overall it's a nice feeling tbh

(the labor-intensive part is organizing + ripping + transferring files, of course)

i gotta be honest sic i'm not really sure what the majority of your posts in this thread are even about. i'm guessing it's something along the lines of, there are some right-wing idiots who have podcasts streamable on Spotify, therefore Spotify is evil?

Yeah, I could do with a recap on who this CompoundBoss person is and what the connection is to Spotify

crut some spotify podcasts are exclusive to the platform and are paid millions directly by spotify. iirc this person whose disgusting tweets sic keeps inflicting on us was a guest on one of these podcasts (joe rogan).

Given that Rogan himself says stupid shit periodically, maybe picture-quoting non-Spotify-related tweets by a guy he once had as a guest is...not the most productive use of this forum?

I found a UI change that I like: the cluster of recently played stuff at the top of the Home Screen

Seriously though the 'I don't like this artist' thing in playlists like Release Radar just doesn't work at all right?

I think my top feature request would be to filter my library with the normal search filters you can use on the greater collection: genre, year, etc. I've completely lost control of my library - there's so much in it that I keep forgetting to listen to, and have to put albums into playlists to keep visibility on it.

turn the label information at the bottom of an album/single page into a live link that pulls up a label's catalog

Yeah, I really want to do that with (and for) labels, but the data is a mess. "Label" is submitted as an unstructured text field, so there end up being countless spurious variations and compound credits.

You can experience the erratic data yourself here: https://everynoise.com/research.cgi?mode=label

btw, I use your new releases by genre page every week to find tracks for DJing

Anyone getting a short loud static clip sound between tracks? been doing it all day and it's very unpleasant

How weirdly analog. I haven't seen any other reports of that. What platform are you on, and how are you listening?

this is happening for me at the moment with gescom's minidisc on various platforms (chromebook web player, mac app) but nothing else so i assumed it was a problem with that release. not a major issue as there is really no reason to listen to gescom's minidisc.