Continuing with Spotify?

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