Serious question. Who’s the alternative to Spotify?
I can survive using a different service for my podcasts. So this sounds like a good shout. But I’m impressed by the fact they supposedly have as many tracks as Spotify.
Will chase this down.
I think using anotger service for podcasts is important. Podcasts are free, but Spotify has been trying to hijack the scene and ruin it for everyone.
Personally I like AntennaPod.
I prefer Pandora’s algorithm for music. But I haven’t looked into their skeletons yet.
Ok but serious question, I don’t want to personally manage my music library on a server. For movies and TV this is fine, I consume a couple of these a day but if I want a steady stream of new music streaming apps have made all this very easy and very convenient.
When my 4 year old yells out in the car for a specific song, will these cover it?
I might be in the wrong place for this sentiment, but I also seriously want to pay for my music.
The french Qobuz. Has close to perfect 1 to 1 match with content in my experience, and it has a service to help you transfer all playlists
I’m looking at the reviews and they’re not good. Apparently tracks just disappear from one day to the next, searching doesn’t work, bad UI, hi res downloads often don’t work, cancellations are being ignored, etc.
Spotify is also not good.
They arbitrarily mute playing albums instead of Spotify playlists and you can’t unmute them until you skip forward or backwards.
Downloads are a total shit show to SD cards even though it has been logged as a bug for around 8+ years.
They insert AI-generated bullshit slop into Spotify playlists to avoid having to pay royalties. Especially in ambient music playlists or jazz where people are less likely to notice.
They pay artists one of the lowest (Pandora is lowest) in the industry and have arbitrary threshold to not pay artists until they hit a certain amount of streams per month. Then when they hit that threshold, they don’t back-pay them for total streams, but instead begin counting streams for payment after that threshold that resets monthly.
They partner with AI “battlefield tracking” companies trying to build the tracking machine from “the dark knight”. Hmm, I wonder if they will use their app in the future to further their partners’ goals?
They give a bunch of money to very right wing organizations.
Really the only good thing about Spotify is Spotify connect.
Buying from, and supporting the artist directly, IMO.
Many European metal bands host their own webshop selling their merchandise, records, cassettes and CDs; many small and independent musicians sell their songs on Bandcamp (US based website that does take a cut from each payment, 15% I believe goes to Bandcamp, so that is something to keep in mind)
Honestly, the benefit of streaming services is not being able to listen to music legally. It’s discovery. Playing a song I like and getting recommended a similar song turn an artist I’ve never heard of has introduced me to a lot of great music. That’s not something you can replicate by going to the webshop of your favorite band and buying their newest album.
That’s something you could recreate with a scrobbling service like last.fm (don’t use last.fm though, they are owned by CBS).
A quick Google search leads me to ListenBrains, which is also American, but operated by a non-profit.
I’ve used neither service and my music listening habits never relied on algorithmic recomendations, so I could totally be talking out of my ass here. But it could be worth a look.
What the actual fuck? How did I not know about this? I mean… I want to pay for my music streaming, but for downloads this has changed my fucking life.
THANK. YOU.
You’d have your favorite mix tape with a bunch of radio announcer clips because they kept talking over the song intros
Source please
I haven’t done any deeper digging than this. Shout if you find something that contradicts this, pls?
Also, real talk: Bjork hating on a thing kinda makes me more inclined to dump it myself 🤣
Edit: I fucking love this parenthetical here. “Byurk who, just for your information, is a musician who makes music and probably plays some instruments…”
Replacing US big-tech with EU big-tech is the stupidest thing we could do. An oligarch is an oligarch no matter where he is and he will try to buy your government as Musk has done with the USA, the only solution is to prevent anyone from having so much money/power
It’s not that there are no millionaires, it’s that no one has more money than the government that represents the people.
The fact that the company that owns cash app also owns a music streaming service makes me laugh.
I’m sure in a few years some Block exec is going to make hay by selling it for a loss to focus on their core tenants which is being slightly better than PayPal.
Qobuz is a great French alternative
I’m testing Qobuz right now and I really like it. I’m just not sure if I’m not going to miss the mixtape, song radio and user playlist features of Spotify. I do like that Qobuz is less bloated and more focused on music though and that Qobuz’ “worst” music quality is Spotify’s best.
I love every time this topic comes up folks be like “buy directly from the artist” or " use this other platform that is less evil" and the chads going on about "just pirate stuff, haven’t payed for music in years ".
Hilarious. Myopic, limited, and / or dumb perspectives.
Would I love to pay directly to the artist? Sure, but their latest album costs as much as 6 months streaming in my country, and I only like a couple of songs, maybe. And let’s not even go to the K-pop realm where I’ve seen a mini album with 5 songs cost as much as a year of streaming.
Pirate stuff? Well, excuse me for not dwelling in waters that may lead me to be drowned. Also, guess what? Some of us have niche or varied tastes that don’t end up in some dark corner of the internet whilst most of these evil streamers have everything.
I prefer to wait every time one of these evil streaming sites puts up a 3 months free promotion or something like that and just use a new mail address with some fake info and enjoy.
A lot of albums on Bandcamp are “pay what you want”. I just got 12 albums last friday (Bandcamp friday, all the money goes to artists) for around 15$. It’s not much but it’s way more then they would get from my streams on Tidal. I do this pretty much every month, and I have hundreds of albums. There’s ton of way to support musicians, even with a few bucks.
Some of us have niche or varied tastes that don’t end up in some dark corner of the internet whilst most of these evil streamers have everything.
As far as this is concerned, you can always use Spotify/deezer downloaders. Websites like squid.wtf work well. They even come with metadata.
the amount of money from your streaming subscription that actually goes to your favourite artist is negligible (especially with Spotify, as they won’t even pay any money to niche artists before they reach a certain amount of plays). I’d rather get my collection stored for completely offline listening, available in a high quality format and playable through any music player that I currently fancy using instead of a clumsy streaming app that tries to shove podcasts in my face or doesn’t know how to shuffle properly, and then every few months spend the equivalent of two or three months of Spotify on an album that I really like on Bandcamp, preferably on a Bandcamp Friday, when Bandcamp doesn’t take any cut from the purchase.
Pirate stuff? Well, excuse me for not dwelling in waters that may lead me to be drowned. Also, guess what? Some of us have niche or varied tastes that don’t end up in some dark corner of the internet whilst most of these evil streamers have everything.
You’re welcome.
