they took out the goddamn album art window???
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Monday, March 2, 2020 bookmarkflaglink
disaster
― Thybulle on the Dash (Spottie), Monday, 2 March 2020 21:44 (four years ago) link
If you're seeing less album art, rather than more, something is probably wrong. Maybe restart?
― glenn mcdonald, Monday, 2 March 2020 21:51 (four years ago) link
I don't understand why there isn't a single music player that has a good "let me zoom in on the art without distraction" UI, not even as a modal dialog.
― lukas, Monday, 2 March 2020 21:54 (four years ago) link
Glen: is the backward search text in the desktop app a known bug? It’s driving me crazy.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 01:56 (four years ago) link
I've heard of it happening to people, but I can't find any information about it, sorry...
― glenn mcdonald, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 02:37 (four years ago) link
WHAT is this giant green play button suddenly sitting at the top of my playlist, and why does it insist I shuffle my carefully ordered mix?
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 05:02 (four years ago) link
Ugh and the edit function is now minimized and not sticky. These are very irritating changes
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 05:05 (four years ago) link
i rolled back my app to an earlier version and set it to never auto update after they removed my search bar a year or two ago,.. it seems like most updates tamper frivolously with essential features?? Lol
― lumen (esby), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 05:18 (four years ago) link
You guys need to give Tidal a shot, lol
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 06:04 (four years ago) link
some really classy distribution by blooming jazz records
https://i.imgur.com/nd52dEU.png
― corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 12:11 (four years ago) link
the shittiest company
https://twitter.com/DanBoeckner/status/1234862578830102536/photo/2
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 17:18 (four years ago) link
When underpaying artists for their labor isn’t enough to keep your company going pic.twitter.com/kaSIUUL8gB— Jabroni And The Air-rifle (@DanBoeckner) March 3, 2020
How is that not payola?
― DJI, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 18:46 (four years ago) link
Buying ads is not payola.
― glenn mcdonald, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 21:35 (four years ago) link
You never got coverage in music mags if your label didn't advertise in it
― Oor Neechy, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:30 (four years ago) link
music mags didn't make money off of distributing your music
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:36 (four years ago) link
So it’s like Tower Records (R.I.P.) soliciting labels to place ads in Pulse! magazine.
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:42 (four years ago) link
no, it's like if Revolver Distribution had a publication of its own and in order to get distribution you had to buy ads in their publication. It's absolutely payola.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:43 (four years ago) link
How is Spotify equivalent to Revolver Distribution here?
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:45 (four years ago) link
how are they similar to a magazine?
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:46 (four years ago) link
Spotify is closer to being a distributor than they are to being a publication
They’re closer to being one record store of many on the same digital “block,” no?It also kind of sounds like studios having to pay theaters to run movie trailers.
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:47 (four years ago) link
(My analogy wasn’t that they’re similar to a magazine, it was that they’re similar to Tower Records.)
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:48 (four years ago) link
I suppose. Spotify has, what, 30% of the streaming market?
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:49 (four years ago) link
lol I forgot that Tower owned Pulse, sorry about that
I suppose one big difference is that Tower Records was actually a profitable business once haha
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:50 (four years ago) link
Now, if they were soliciting payment to place songs on curated playlists, feature certain artists on “hero” images, etc., I agree that would seem shady. Do they do that?
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 22:59 (four years ago) link
why would they ever admit that they do
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:01 (four years ago) link
I don’t know, but presumably someone would find out and write an article about it
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:05 (four years ago) link
Why would you pay to advertise if it didn't get you onto the only place you can make money? I would be less skeptical of this scheme if Spotify hadn't done everything they could over the last few years to jam themselves in-between artists and listeners and push listeners into listening exclusively to Spotify-created (whether curated or algorithmic) playlists.
I feel like the streaming services should be treated as a common carrier and allow anyone to build value-added services on top of them. At this point, all the vertical integration is pretty clearly NOT A GOOD THING.
― DJI, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:14 (four years ago) link
presumably someone would find out and write an article about it
this already happened years ago fyi
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:17 (four years ago) link
here let me google that for you etc
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:18 (four years ago) link
https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6670475/playola-promotion-streaming-services
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:19 (four years ago) link
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/19/spotify-sponsored-content/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHzL2RJZd1tc1VAHw9WAwL0Uuiwvkcc9Ibyltq2zlFaE6wiY_BjbjYPC4AS3Pm8NLP3ePY3HMbpeFCCdyc-q59S9snQpeGbVhsbBov4QFXxNXzYHFVrCIxL89toWXi3qAhRjAZHJ2H5xAXWETQW376MUXHtgktwFuCOLCN001WlV
and it's (of course) a game of whack-a-mole - every time something like this draws attention/bad press they back away from it, and then move on to the next payola scheme
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:20 (four years ago) link
Thanks — the first article is subscriber-only, and the second seems to be about a test of something similar to what I was talking about, but maybe marked as “Sponsored”? (though I genuinely appreciate you Googling it for me)
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:24 (four years ago) link
The rising value of Spotify playlists has spurred a new form of payola—the decades-old illegal practice of paying for a song to be broadcast on the radio—with massive amounts of money changing hands behind the scenes. An August 2015 exposé by Billboard quoted an unnamed major-label executive who claimed playlist adds were being sold for “$2,000 for a playlist with tens of thousands of fans to $10,000 for the more well-followed playlists.”
https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/spotify-playlist-black-market/
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:26 (four years ago) link
https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/03/spotify-cuts-off-playlist-payola-service-spotlister.html
Ah, that sounds like more like what I was talkin about!
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:27 (four years ago) link
so they were doing it (blatantly), it leaked to Billboard, they stopped doing it, and now they've moved on to some slightly more convoluted scenario (because they still aren't making money)
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 3 March 2020 23:28 (four years ago) link
guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHzL2RJZd1tc1VAHw9WAwL0Uuiwvkcc9Ibyltq2zlFaE6wiY_BjbjYPC4AS3Pm8NLP3ePY3HMbpeFCCdyc-q59S9snQpeGbVhsbBov4QFXxNXzYHFVrCIxL89toWXi3qAhRjAZHJ2H5xAXWETQW376MUXHtgktwFuCOLCN001WlV
makes u think
― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 00:04 (four years ago) link
really wish the big green shuffle button on iOS would go away.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 02:04 (four years ago) link
All those payola articles are about non-Spotify services selling placement on THEIR playlists, which has always been against the Spotify terms of use. Buying a marquee ad doesn't get you on Spotify-owned playlists, it just gets you the marquee ad. You can definitely argue about whether selling marquee ads is good or bad or fair or unfair, but it's not payola.
― glenn mcdonald, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 02:25 (four years ago) link
Huh, sounds like 3rd-parties are monetizing the “value-added services” being requested above, how about that(!)
― tamagotchi revival artist (morrisp), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 02:38 (four years ago) link
some high-priority major-label artists/songs are so aggressively featured on some of the big-name playlists (far beyond their apparent ability to actually draw streams) that i'd frankly be very surprised if there weren't some kind of back-scratching/arm-twisting going on, whether or not it technically violates 'terms of use'
― dyl, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 04:20 (four years ago) link
if there were something like payola, it'd probably sneak in through some bias in the algorithms. A similar sort of bias could also exist within the thinking of a popular radio DJ, though, and it wouldn't be labeled as payola. payola is ultimately a bit meaningless on a platform where you can just choose music yourself anyway.
― latin hypercube in shitspace (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 04:59 (four years ago) link
Every time this thread gets bumped I just want to say “yes I have heard of it” but I’ve resisted until nowBut yes I’ve heard of it
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 05:03 (four years ago) link
but have you heard that they've actually reported positive earnings in some quarters?
― latin hypercube in shitspace (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 4 March 2020 05:11 (four years ago) link
― DJI, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 05:21 (four years ago) link
but... you can't pay to be featured on those lists
― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 09:28 (four years ago) link