Continuing with Spotify?

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