- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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Dont worry guys my CD collection is increasing (i extract it onto hard drives too). I’ll open a free music museum when all goes to shit.
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).
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.
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.
ListenBrainz is the solution for discovery
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.
…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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
A couple of years ago, I had a Napster subscription (the reborn, legal variant of it). At first, I was happy to have unlimited access to music, then after 2 years I realised that I was paying 120 EUR a year for music I’ll never own, so I cancelled the subscription and put my yearly budget for music to exactly that amount. It yields more than enough given I buy used CDs, and then digitalise them. That way I own the physical media as backup AND am able to transfer the digital, PCM-quality tracks unfettered across my devices AND with no need for DRM or shitty proprietary applications.
You gotta put in the effort, which most people are too lazy to do
Is it laziness or a lack of motivation?
I’ve been a Spotify member for 13 years and it gives me exactly what I want. Owning music is good and all, but ripping the CDs and setting it up so my family and I have access to it where ever we go is going to cost me way more than the subscription does a month, in both time and money.
In a month, sure. Over a lifetime? Not even close
Right, but you would own the music…
I run Navidrome off a free small form factor PC recycled from work. My whole family accesses it via whatever app they like that supports Subsonic API (there’s dozens), and for security it’s only accessible via Tailscale, so they need Tailscale installed and connected.
Initial cost: $0. Plus cost of the apps, which is like $5 each user. Tailscale is free for up to 100 devices. Time to set up: 1 day. Ongoing cost: the very little electricity an energy-efficient SFF PC uses - way overestimating would be $2/month. Plus whatever music we buy on Bandcamp, physical etc that we own forever.
So it’s not way more expensive in my experience, and at the end of the day I give artists I enjoy much more money than Spotify streams ever would, and I’m not supporting a piece of shit CEO pouring a billion dollars into military spending.
You idiots don’t have a 6 cd changer in your car? Pathetic!
I do it the old fashioned way. Giant binder of discs I get my passenger to flip through and swap in and out
Damn a 100 cd changer then, mad respect
Only one binder?
Also makes since since music has not changed at all since 2003
No, but I have a USB stick with over 100 albums on it, so I can listen to the same 5 albums all the time.
precisely
No man, my usb works perfectly
My car doesn’t even have a CD slot :(
For some reason pirating music libraries is really hard. Probably bc everyone uses Spotify
Get a library card! My local small town library has access to a surprising number of nearby libraries, and if I’m willing to wait a week or two for the item to be available and get transferred, I’ve been able to get some decently non-mainstream stuff for free. For more obscure stuff, bandcamp is pretty awesome.
https://1337x.to/ has been my piracy go-to for years and they’ve rarely missed.
Hint: Discography is what you’re looking for if you want everything the artist made.
Try Usenet
I pay for the discovery features. Then I get my music locally.
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
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
I mean… you own or have nothing when your Wow sub ends also.
Level 20 baby!
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 think the young generation has seen the pattern of clowns generations above them, either relying on ad-radio or Spotify, and have turned to piracy or physical media for this. My BIL recently got into buying CDs from goodwill as a good example. YT video essay I lived through the consumer generation of physical hoarding so Spotifydl is fine for me.
You can just rip it off Spotify.
Lossy
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.
And by massively underpaying the actual artists that create the content that fills the platform.
