- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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I still download my music. Two pros: I have control over where, when and how I listen to it. And I only download music I actually want to listen to.
One con: Finding new music is harder (I imagine).
One con: Finding new music is harder (I imagine).
That’s what radio helps with, there was also Pandora, but I didn’t know if it is still alive after Sirius XM bought them.
Find an online radio station you like and you don’t need Pandora any more.
That’s not SomaFM
Shoutcast is still running strong! Also super easy to setup your own server https://directory.shoutcast.com/
And there’s also Icecast! https://dir.xiph.org/genres
I have found a ton of new music through KEXP’s YouTube channel.
Found the Seattleite. Can’t believe I didn’t notice your name all this time and connect the dots.
I listen to C89.5! Website and app both work flawlessly.
Finding new music is harder (I imagine)
In my opinion, it’s harder, but not even necessarily because it’s harder to do it in the end. More because it’s just harder to get started.
For example, I find way more music I enjoy listening to through Bandcamp than I ever did on Spotify, but that requires having existing artists that I follow and can see their recommendations for, having a feel for which genres I actually like instead of a vague mental concept of what I like to listen to that I can then keyword search by in Bandcamp’s search/discover section, and hoping that the human curators on Bandcamp’s newsletter pick artists I like. Bandcamp doesn’t really have algorithms, so those are my only real options.
It’s more effort, but it’s infinitely more rewarding.
One con: Finding new music is harder (I imagine).
You actually should actually try to listen to web radio. Still have a subscription with Qobuz but been listening to bytefm a lot and they have some great djs (they have different shows at different time.). I personally found there more new and great artist or songs than any personalized algorithm ever did.
One con: you’re too busy writing down the songs and you cannot really do anything while listening as you also too scared of missing something. /hj
Do they not have a recently played? Can always go back through and shouldn’t be too hard to figure out the songs. Just note the time maybe atleast.
Wasn’t totally serious about my con. They do have a recently played and even an archive where you can re-listen certain shows you have missed (if you are paying member of their association).
Fair, some people may just not know about it, and some places just don’t, so spreading some knowledge, cheers.
On Bandcamp you can go on your feed page which shows albums based on the genres and artists you follow, and what fans you follow have bought.
This would be right if not for the fact that Spotify will regularly introduce you to music that you might like and otherwise might not have heard of. That can be worth paying for.
We had scrobbling services before Spotify and we will have them afterwards.
See Last.fm and ListenBrainz.org
I signed up for this about 2 months ago because someone on here recommended it. It’s absolutely garbage unless you only listen to radio music. I listen to industrial hardcore and uptempo about 90% of the time, the remaining 10% are a pretty even split between hard rock and radio music. It only recommends me radio music, not a single hardcore track.
I have subscriptions for Spotify, Tidal and SoundCloud, and all 3 of them have vastly better recommendations of you listen to less popular genres
industrial hardcore
What are some of your favourites in this category? Spotify hasn’t been giving me any good recommendations on this front either.
It’s true, some genres are better represented than others. The user base on listenbrainz is relatively small. I hope you do keep scrobbling your listens to listenbrainz because it can still help improve the recommendations for other users after you who listen to somethings you do but know a lot less than you in the genres you listen.
I would argue that this is the entire value proposition of Spotify. I may not own the music, but I have all the artist and song names. I can always re-acquire them at any time.
Except that as part of its enshittification Spotify has intentionally changed its algo to push people into more and more homogenous “beige”, nothing music. It has become so prolific that Spotifycore has become a term to describe what happens when you let Spotify autoplay.
With the rise of AI, Spotify is now producing and recommending beige music that is produced on an industrial scale, at the expense of actual artists.
Mood Machine go brrr
Mood Machine by Liz Pelly review – a savage indictment of Spotify | Music books | The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/05/mood-machine-by-liz-pelly-review-a-savage-indictment-of-spotify
This is 100% true, and the reason I left Spotify. Back to buying records and CDs online and in niche record stores (I live in a metropolis, so that works even for obscure music). I also got a tidal subscription, and I like the recommendations from there much more. Bandcamp & SoundCloud newsletters are also great for suggestions.
But now, since collecting records and CDs, I find myself spending much more time with individual albums and critical listening, and relying less on playlists and suggestions. Anyway, Spotify is just garbage now…
This is why I use Spotify and why it’s gotten so much worse over the last year.
My blocked artists list used to be empty, but now it feels like I’m blocking every third new artist for being AI.
There’s a reason music piracy is still niche compared to games or movies/tv.
Spotify is still a good deal to me. I’ll gladly pay $12 a month to not have to go through the hassle of torrenting and organizing music.
I love starting out with one song and just letting the algorithm do it’s thing. It comes up with new shit for me all the time.
…are people really paying for a music subscription service to listen to the same music on repeat? I pay a service because I listen to like at least 4 new albums every week, minimum.
Me too. However I recognize that many people are content to listen to the same things they enjoyed in high school forever. In which case they definitely do not need streaming
It took me 10 listens to get into Jimi Hendrix. You are consuming quantity but quality requires effort.
or self inducing yourself into liking by listening to it so much
I don’t this works with all music.
The first few listens I thought it was garbage. But I decided it must be me who is wrong, not everyone else.
Or, that taste is subjective and that there is no right and wrong. You are allowed to not like something others do.
This is true, but you should really give something a good few listens before you come to a conclusion. Good things can turn bad just as much as bad things turn good.
No, I think you’re absolutely right and it’s comforting to know there are others who do this too. I have a kind of 3-5-7 trial period for getting into new music. If it’s crap but I want to give it a chance, I’ll do 3-5 album plays; if it’s ok but has potential I might not see, 5-7 plays. Anything challenging but enjoyable gets minimum 10 plays.
About the self inducement, that is making me question myself a little. There are things that I’ve tried over and over to get into that I just cannot no matter what, but I’m seriously questioning if it really is possible to “make” yourself like something through type of, I guess familiarity?
I think the counter argument to self inducement is that I can really go off something that I hear too many times (usually on the radio). Even if the first listen wasn’t too bad.
I truly wonder where in my post I implied that I am drawing significant conclusions without giving something a good few listens. Again, I think you are making assumptions of my listening habits based on severly limited information presented to you.
Because if I listened to a minimum of 4 new albums a week then I wouldn’t have the time to repeat any.
It was applying your statistics to my habits.
This is making some significant assumptions, don’t you think? That I sample the buffet does not mean that I don’t also cherish and return to familiar recipes.
I’m assuming you have a similar amount of free time as me and are not able to fit in enough listens to become familiar.
I have no kids, no pets, and a job where I can listen to music the entirety of my shifts while working. I have music on in some capacity probably an average of 12 hours a day. 4 albums a week, even when listening to them each 6 six times, is a fraction of my listening.
Music listening is my primary “hobby” and interest.
In that case, what are your top 5 undiscovered gems that need 5+ listens to appreciate.
What are the modern Captain Beefhearts?
Dunno if I go actively searching for difficult music, so I may not have the best answer for that specifically, but here are 5 albums I consider hidden gems or underappreciated:
Horse Bitch - RIP Pistachio
Tattle Tale - Sew True
Gaytheist - The Mustache Stays
Codefendants - This Is Crime Wave
Irist - Gloria (actually an EP, if you’ll allow it).
These probably won’t take you 5+ listens to appreciate, but I do think they’re smaller releases worthy of greater attention. Hopefully that’s close enough for you. ✌️
Never heard of any of them, so a perfect response. Thanks!
this post is just to placate a group of people. i prefer streaming for new music friday. i also don’t want another crate or hard drive of shit i lost interest in.
Man, Spotify were the ones who did it. Like they made the service so significantly better and more convenient than pirating that most of those pirating actually switched.
Not a fan of the platform anymore since the heavy push for sponsored content, removal of audiobooks and the whole Joe Rogan thing, but still credit where it’s due.
The built a thing by burning investor money to artificially lower the price and sell out high on stock IPOs is still going strong I see.
I only play songs once on Spotify, if you catch my drift.
I mean… you own or have nothing when your Wow sub ends also.
Level 20 baby!
Just the albums on my favorites list in Qobuz would have been around $10,000 USD to purchase in hi-res.
I am very happy with Navidrome for over a year now. It also reminds me how I listened to whole albums when I was a teenager, what I now started doing again.
Navidrome is awesome and super easy to set up if you use a PikaPod.
I did return to my old flac and mp3 collection. Got Foobar working again, found a nice skin and I’m rediscovering music that I that skipped over. I buy second-hand CDs when I find them. I’ve managed to get a digital copy of all my favourite albums and tracks.
I will keep Spotify though. A long time ago, I got friends to share their Discovery and Release Radar playlists. With my own, I have a nice spread of recommendations.
I need regular new music. Call it a search for unexpected dopamine. Spotify still picks new tracks that I really like. I also like Spotify Connect and the easily shared collaborative playlists.
The UK has less alternatives for music discovery. I don’t like Radio, way too much talking and ads.
I’ve got rid of Netflix, Prime. I’m getting Disney+ for free at the moment. Back to physical for film and TV.
For now, Spotify recommendations is worth the cost of entry.
This is why I download all the music I want. I still listen to it primarily on youtube, but it is a ‘just in case’. I also never paid for music.
Artists love you, I’m sure.
I doubt they notice. Most artists either get income directly from fans at concerts, via merch, or through explicit patronage (Bandcamp, Patreon, etc).
The money they get from streaming isn’t remotely enough to support a professional career. Streaming is more about promotion - to get you in the door at the next concert or promote a product with a real revenue stream - than actual income.
Sure. But getting more is better than getting less, no?
Do artists benefit more from ad-dense, algorithm gamed, corporate controlled media outlets kicking them a few bucks every month?
Or is a guerilla campaign of populist free-at-download distribution better for long term concert attendance and merch sales?
Do artists benefit more from ad-dense, algorithm gamed, corporate controlled media outlets kicking them a few bucks every month?
No idea, I don’t use those.
The service I use pays (for the 2023-2024 fiscal year) around US$0.01873 per stream in royalties to labels and publishers. Spotify (as of 2025) does $0.003-$0.005 per stream, so it actually improved massively - it’s only 6 times less than Qobuz (used to be 12 times less).
Or is a guerilla campaign of populist free-at-download distribution better for long term concert attendance and merch sales?
Doesn’t work for small acts that don’t do massive, world-wide tours. Nor for fully independent artists who just don’t have the budget to do larger concerts.
The actual difference is that if you are pirating or file-sharing, you’re about 30% likelier to actually buy music
Cool. Apparently I’m not “average person”, because that doesn’t apply to me.
I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of
I pay for the discovery features. Then I get my music locally.
Isn’t the discovery free? Lol
You kinda need to listen to stuff to prime the discovery algorithms lol
Not for the real discovery (👁 ͜ʖ👁)
*laughs in physical media*
I usually have to listen to a song several times before it fully “clicks” if I like it or not, so music streaming subscription is great for being able to grab any song I think I might like and throw it in trial playlist. Back when I bought/acquired music, I would skip over most music I might like because the effort wasn’t worth it for a song I wasn’t sure if I liked or not. So streaming has worked really well for me for music discovery at least.
On the bright side, I’m still getting my $8 a month early adopter price for Google music all access (now YouTube music).
I dunno, RJD2’s Ghostwriter clicked for me immediately, among others
Yes, thats an awesome song
The internet is over, you guys. We can finally switch off our devices and take a good nap.
Return it to Big Ben when you’re done with it.
That’s where it has the best reception, right?
Go to concerts, buy physical.
Have you seen concert ticket prices lately?? Even small to mid size bands playing at 1500 person venues are $60+ for GA. It’s nuts.
Depends on where you are and depends on organisation. If it’s a small venue and a DIY type of thing, chances are that the merch money and at least part of the entrance is going directly to the band (as opposed to the 1% kickback they’d get for streaming).
I saw Castle Rat in Brooklyn the other day (great show) and it was like $25 + $10 of bs “fees”.
I don’t see many bigger bands anymore because the tickets are more than double that.
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