Over the years I've given Spotify over $500 and I have nothing to show for it. I finally pulled the plug on Spotify this last summer, now I allocate $15 a month to buy CDs or digital albums from bandcamp. Going to treat myself to Snapcase's Progression Through Unlearning 25th Anniversary Vinyl for Christmas.
This is one of my favourite videos you've ever done, I've been ranting ad nauseam about this phenomenon for years and it's gotten to the point where I actually end up writing off various new artists, generally that others have shown me, because they're only available on say, Soundcloud, or something. Why would I bother to get into something that I can't own physically or even really download? The artist(s) could just decide "Oh this really wasn't my best" or whatever and scrub the whole album, and then it's just gone. This led me whole hog, about 6 years ago, back into metal and it's vast underground, I've gotten into collecting physical music again, amassing100+ cassettes and close to half as many CDs, as well as some sweet vintage gear to play everything. It adds a different layer to the whole thing, making everything so much more substantial and deep, getting to read the liner notes, look at old band photos, finding out about new bands through reading a thanks list! You just don't get that through Spotify. You and this channel are also solely to blame for me getting into Foobar and digital collecting and cataloging of music, though that primarily now holds me over until I can get a physical copy or as a way to play things I just can't find physically. All this being said, would you ever consider doing CD releases for the Zweihander albums? That's something I've quietly been wondering for awhile, after I heard Ear Slayer years ago. That still might be my favourite Zweihander album, could just be nostalgia.
Watching this reminded me of a time when I used to actually go to stores and they had those little kiosks where you could play snippets of music to figure out what to buy. In fact, it's inspired me to head over to the local Rasputin store once I finish this quest in WoW. And it also reminds me of "You'll own nothing and be happy". Some people call it a "conspiracy theory", but there's literally an article about it from the WEF (the global corporate-fascist billionaires that Bernie used to talk about) from 2016. Just look at how society is moving. Our media consumption is dominated by streaming platforms now, where you don't own any of it and can lose access at any time. But most people are happier than ever just because the value proposition for consumers is insane. Personally, I'm slowly transitioning back to physical media. Sony's recent debacle was finally a wake-up call. I'm not even invested in anything on Sony's store, but just the idea that they almost screwed over so many people like it's nothing, I'm not going to risk that happening to me.
I don't think this is only a spotify problem. It's hard to find anything new and interesting on the internet, because of algorithms, cross-website cookies and tracking. If an algorithm decides you like something, it's going to force feed it to you whether you want it or not and if something is popular it's much more likely to be recommended so it's harder to stumble upon some cool niche stuff.
I've bought all of your albums, and I love the fact that I can just download them in a format of my choosing and keep them on my computer or my mp3 player, without the possibility that a company loses a license or just decides to remove them one day. Whenever I buy or download an entire album, I always make sure that the first time I play it, I play it from start to finish, in order. Sometimes, that's just the way the album is meant to be played, and I respect that. I respect that artists are capable of building mood and atmosphere, or telling a story. I am exactly the kind of listener that music streaming services hate. I like to repeat a single track SO MANY TIMES. Tens, hundreds, or thousands of times over and over. When it comes to podcasts, or podcast-like content, I pay close attention to how the hosts do their delivery, and I choose my favorites based on that. I'm not going to just hop on and go "Ok, give me a random True Crime podcast", I'm gonna go "Ok, I'm feeling like true crime, let's hit up That Chapter". A lot of how I discover music and artists is through other media. Games, movies, anime, free background music on RUclips videos. Over the years, I've developed a keen ear for music, and value its contribution to the atmosphere, world, and moment building in audiovisual media. Sometimes, I'll fire up a game just so that I can sit around, look at the game world and listen to the music.
The only problem in your logic is the false dichotomy of being able of ONLY using autogenerated playlists OR ONLY looking into artists. I wholeheartedly agree with most of your analysis, and all your criticism of autogenerated playlists, and how these actors in the industry try to train the users to their selfish interests, and exploit the monopsony. But that false dichotomy is blinding a bit your point of view, because it is not that polarized. Autogenerated playlists SHOULD ONLY be a tool to either discover or fill silence in the background.
Same thing, I actually like the algorithm. I use it though to find new artist just how he explained at the beginning of this video. That's how I find a lot of small artists/bands and for the most part they actually blow a couple years later. I like to think it's because I found them at 5 digit monthly listeners and told everyone I know about said artist and years later they blow up.
I did say that using playlists to discover music was good... but that's not what the video is about. It's specifically about trusting the playlists and ignoring the artists. So, if you use it to discover artists... and then you go follow them on other platforms outside of spotify, you're doing it right.
It certainly is a multi layered issue and there's some pro's to go with the huge list of cons, but on a macro scale I absolutely agree that this is horrible for art and artists.
yes listening to 30 hours of playlists to find one new artist is very efficient. why don’t they have a Metal top 500 ? they can easily do this. they have the data. and yes. even small artists will make the top 500 if they have some good stuff.
I still use Spotify for a lot of my listening but that's because I'm not rich enough to support all my favourite bands. I do however mostly listen to my personal collection via local files at home and on my phone. I usually buy 5-6 albums on bandcamp fridays and spin those until I feel done with them (this has not happened yet, I'm actually behind on my listening). Or if the band manages their own store then I order from them directly. So I could ditch Spotify right now If I wanted to and be completely fine with it.. With one exception.. Podcasts. I really don't feel like starting fresh somewhere else. If I could sync my listening history to some external thing then I'd make the switch instantly but afaik one can't simply export the entire feed and import it somewhere else? Also, Spotify as a player is pretty OK. My episodes are synced perfectly when I switch devices (unlike Google Podcasts), so I can't be bothered... But yeah, support your favourite bands and artists in anyway you can. Don't put all of your trust in a playlist.
Honestly I started hating streaming years and years ago when music would just randomly drop off the platforms all the time. I make playlists I like based on the music in them, I don't want algorithms telling me what to listen to, I'm perfectly fine with finding new music if I want to.
I hate streaming services, I kinda miss the iPod days before streaming was really a thing, at least when I downloaded a whole album I listened to it as intended by the artist before choosing and picking my favorites, the world is going downhill my man
Good video. For the section around 15:00 to 17:00 I was just wondering whether you had considered that a significant proportion of listeners (and by extension buyers) of your music might have come from having discovered your music on Spotify? Because if they are you might be getting considerable revenue benefits from Spotify indirectly that you attribute to Bandcamp just because it is monetised there. (That would be kind of like saying you get more money from sponsors/merch on videos than RUclips clicks, although those sponsorships/merch sales come as a direct result of the clicks.) I'm open to having my mind changed on this, but if you actually think that Spotify has such a miniscule effect on your Music in terms of listeners and revenue then you could leave the platform for a while to see if Bandcamp numbers are noticeably influenced. Cheers
You might be right about this but ultimately its user choice. If an individual is happy with the crap hes being sold, so be it. Its business. Microtransactions are hated but they are there because this generation go for them. Music has been around me my whole life. From early days of pirate cassettes through Morphious, kaza and so on. I had tones of authentic products as well, went to concerts and so on. I check Spotify recommandations but to me, those are not good enough. Ive been following my artists and always will. We grew up in era where music was accessable via TV and Radio, so establishing your direction/taste was not that easy. Glory days of MTV and VIVA. If todays geberation is following some stupid ass algorithm, Spotify is not blame, they are. With the internet access, with proper motivation anyone can do proper research ad establish what, and eho they want to listen. I still have some MP3/FLACs along with a leather Metal CD case with hand writing thst is 20 years old lol. Buttom line, if you are into music hard, you wont fall for that shit. Spotify found a way to make money of consumer lack of awareness/ music taste / preference that geberates revenue - good for them. Lemings will always fall for black friday, adds, and randomly recommend music, pay for extra paid content and 200 USD license keys - we wont.
Apparently we are the exception to the norm. I personally just deleted my account but did find some good artists on there when I used it. Bandcamp and Qobuz are my go to's for digital purchases
One of the best videos you've ever done, and nothing but truth. I have a Spotify account only because I won an audio book on there and had to make an account to redeem it. The only thing I've used it for is listening to a couple podcasts, and that's only because the player on the podcast creator's website stopped working for me about a month ago.
My problem With Spotify is that my music is not ever really put into playlist ever That's the claim that they make is that your music will be put into playlist so they can be heard My stuff is not in any playlist at all really except for a few Not only that people who follow you on Spotify only follow you for a short while and then they unfollow you and you'll start losing thousands and thousands of followers I used to have thousands of followers on Spotify Now I'm down to two In fact I'm doing way better on SoundCloud than on Spotify I only have a hundred followers on SoundCloud and I get thousands of views every damn day and month basically on Spotify I hardly got anybody listening to my stuff as much as on SoundCloud
I've never used a music streaming service in my life. I refuse to repeatedly pay for something that I don't even own. I currently have some 2,500 MP3s on my phone that I have either ripped from bought CDs, ripped from RUclips videos, bought digitally, been provided by the bands themselves, or downloaded from other people's rips that they've uploaded online. No need for an internet connection, no subscription, no ads, no dependencies, no influences, no walled garden... and I'm intimately familiar with every single band that I have music from.
Part of the problem is people became so uncultured and lazy they need sone stupid assistant to play music for you. I’m a musician and I know exactly what I listen what I want to listen and never used a stupid thing like Alexa or Siri for anything in my life
I love music and also write and record my own so I get what you are saying, but it's no different than radio. It's all curated too and most people don't care what they listen to as long as it's something they can tolerate. It's also very cost prohibitive to outright buy a copy of everything which is why piracy was such a big deal and why subscriptions are the only real solution to piracy. The only way to fight this is for artists to stop publishing their music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, etc.
Never used it, and no plans to. I want to own my music and my files. I do occasionally listen to youtube music to discover new small artists or revisit something I don't have access on my portable devices.
Definitely looking forward to the Fubar video. I still have Spotify but I've been looking to dump it since I download any tracks I want to keep from other sources.
I've never liked Sp0t1fy. Pandora has always been the best. I mean, ripping cds and vinyls are THE best way to cultivate a music collection, but whatcha gonna do?
I’ve never used Spotify. I don’t understand why anyone would want to enjoy art that way. If you don’t want to choose the songs then just listen to the radio. Weirdos.
I always hated the ad system and the way Spotify curates music for you and always added the songs myself. The part about listening to whole albums I understand but I have never really had the same outcome. For awhile and even to this day I do sit and listen to an album in order and I felt thrown off sometimes because the mood from one song to the next didn't really flow at least with newer stuff. Music from the 30's to about the 90's I would say people cared a lot more for there music but once we had Pandora and Spotify there was a huge loss of passion. I personally use Tidal to use as a source to download but all my music is digital and has been for sometime now and it feels so much cleaner to listen that way.
This is why I bought all the albums I wanted to listen to. Well, to pay the artists AND because I wanted all my music to be worth listening to. There are a couple of albums I own that are dreck. Terrirbly recorded. Sentimental value is all they have. Presently running PC>SMSL DAC>Emotiva XDA-2 balanced preamp>NAD 208 thx balanced power amp>ADS 910 loudspeakers (The best I've ever heard.) I'm going to swap in the Schiit Audio Midgard headphone amp/preamp in place of the Emotiva in a couple weeks.
For sure it would be better if streaming services payed more to artists. Still a good tool thought. Just use it right. I just don't see a reason why not to continue have a quick, convenient access to music through platforms, continuing paying this drastically small percent for listening, be open to new music, click here and there and go in far lands of internet to discover more of band. You say I don't own this music, you are right, in a big scale I don't own nothing, I am mortal being, things I have - I rent them temporarily, even my body has expiration date, so why care that much. Also, I believe, there is no way a lot of people have possibility to support every artist they like. One of the reason, piracy was a big thing before current age, still encourage you to do it, buy albums through bandcamp, site, buy merch, attend concerts, spread the word, listen the whole album, return your love to people that sparked emotions in your heart
I don't even have a Spotify account. I watch RUclips a lot, so naturally I watch music videos too, but that's about as far as it goes for me. Otherwise I will maybe look up an artist on RUclips to hear something and see if I like such and such band or artist, but then if I'm interested I go and buy their CD's. I still VERY much rely on physical media, and try to get it when I can. Also, I don't trust other companies to provide the quality of audio I want, so I get the CD's and rip the songs for my own personal use on my computer/phone/etc. I know people love convenience of digital and streaming only services, but it severely devalues artistry, and removes value from movies/shows/tv and so on. This in turn makes people feel like art isn't worth paying for, or isn't a "real" job that you can or should make a living doing, and that's ridiculous.
a major issue ive run into as a musician is that i got off instagram, and my growth slowed way down. i now have a solid fanbase that i really enjoy, and im fine keeping a distance not having any social media, but i was thinking spotify would be good algorithmically to grow more, but ive decided that i dont want surface level listeners as much, because being off social media got me out of the numbers mindset. rn i want to move to a semi-urban/ “college town” esque region to perform more and maybe own a shop to integrate myself into the community, and grow things more organically through real connection (this is what the world needs) sorry for my blogpost i just have a lot of thoughts on this, because i also make music and have pretty strong opinions on the modern internet
one other annoying thing spotify did is put my legal name under the details of my songs, because im the legal composer/owner of the songe. bro. this pissed me off badly. still havent gotten it removed, and now just deal wity the fact that fans of the music know my personal name.
I quit all social media as well, even Mastodon. That has slowed me down as well, though it's difficult to tell as I don't have much of a following. I don't miss it.
You know what sucks not having physical media players in vehicles anymore. I had one in my old car for my CDs and the CDs sound so much better than streaming over Bluetooth with Spotify. Architects Daybreaker on the disc is super powerful on the sound system and over Spotify it just doesn't have the same impact haha. Using an mp3 player over aux is still a better option.
I've never cared for streaming services for music. I guess I've been lucky enough to always have bad signal, so I do the "mix tape" thing and a collection on my phone and play it that way. Yes I have Foobar for android. I also used to rely of friends suggestions, now I follow some reviewers on RUclips like Tankthetech and the Charismatic Voice to get some ideas for new music. I got heavily into the "Naplam records" rabbit hole, but most my playlists now are from Germany. I don't trust Pandora or Spotify, refuse to use Amazon music or RUclips music. At last check I was at 1.6TB for my collection, versus the 140GB when I left Canada in 2012.
A video on making your own stream server would be great. Tired of using my phone to all the discography not covered by these streaming services anyway. Thank you the video,
I tried out spotify back when it was pretty new, and I stopped because I heard they paid the artists less than if you watch their music on youtube, and they also removed the only Blind Guardian album they had on there at the time.
I ditched Spotify after _Some More News_ did their video on it. I know a few musicians who are pissed at how hard they get shafted but, like with RUclips, they can't realistically go anywhere else because Spotify has a de facto monopoly on streaming and physical sales have collapsed.
I tried Spotify for about a month and hated it. I had to fight it constantly to listen to what I wanted too, and it keep serving up garbage I had no interest in.
I absolutely agree. I own vinyl for most of the records I'm into, although when I'm out I still use RUclips music because it doesn't take up 12 gig on my phone.
Spotify definitely needs to work on paying their artists better. as a musician and music lover myself id rather own my media then rent it from it large corperations that can raise prices at any point. They just want to make it so we can own anyhting anymore and charge us as much as possible.
Top video. I am old enough to remember having to take public transport to buy my music. And on arrival at the record store forgetting which one i really wanted (money was tight). I would stand there daydreaming and wishing that i had enough money to buy them all. Even music i had no idea about! Spotify and such-like actually allows me to listen to all that music i wished for. Guess what.... i don't bother. Still play the music i grew up with and a sprinkling of new music i searched out.
I never really enjoyed Spotify. Even if I was gifted free premium. I recently started buying music from bandcamp and ripping cds to my phone. And it's a way better experience. Especially because I routinely travel to places that don't have internet or cell signals intermittently. I can't express the value of having music files locally on phone storage.
I just posted on Instagram Threads the following question: What percentage of Spotify listeners look for new and unknown artists and what percentage just listen to whatever the algorithm pushes in front of them? I was going to say 15 to 20% and 80 to 85% respectively. I've had one response so far and they said 5% and 95%. Sadly, they are probably more accurate than my answer.
I only listen to albums for the story. I used Spotify before Rogan and will after. Owning music isn’t cheap and I like a lot of different genres and artists in general. I also have a couple hundred CDs, I still use but very infrequently because I can just search it anyway.
Let me explain something I'm a music lover i've been a dj and everything else right so my personal priority is that there are some artists that put out some albums and I only like one song off the album i'm not going to listen to songs that I don't particularly care for just listen to 1 song either I'm going to skip through it and listen to that 1 song or I will make a mix tape or a mixed CD like I did back in the day people has been skipping through Cds because there's a lot of people who did not want to skip button back in the day but people did it so they could listen to their favorite songs off the album that they bought that's what repeat was all for you know people did that back during the cassette tape errors fast forward through the songs that they didn't like played the A song that they did like and press record on a blank tape and make a mixed CD of all their favorite songs that's what modern streaming service is all about is you make a playlist of your favorite songs it's the digital equivalent of it you could do it on Spotify you could do it on Apple music you could do it on youtube music and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that because people's been doing it for years now. I don't for one back in the day I used to sentenced to my favorite songs come on the radio just to record it and make a mix tape some of us didn't couldn't afford to buy albums and stuff like that so we just had to listen to our favorite song call up the radio station and request a song and when they played it recorded we all did it as kids but I'm sorry I just don't set and listen to every bloody song on an album if I don't like every song but one I'm only going to listen to that one and that's why I like digital music nowadays I get to pick the songs I like put it in a playlist and beyond with my day sometimes I'll listen to one song three or four times biz it's catchy it's great I ripped all of my Cds to a digital library just to make mixed Cds in my favorite songs from each album I got to have my playlists with different songs and different artists I got to have multiple playlists and multiple genres I'm sorry but I don't listen to a whole damn album if I don't like all the songs but won i'm only listening to that one and I'll only purchase that one song if I was buying digitally because frankly I am sick and tired of having to fast forward through an audio cassette just to listen through my favorite song back in the day I'm glad digital libraries exist so I don't have to go through that and for everybody that dot the fast forward or rewind button or to skip buttons were detrimental to music no it was actually great
The RUclips algorithm gave me some really good artists I now own physical media, Band merch and went to concerts (LeBrock, Aim to Head, Implore) so yeah, you can mistreat it a bit :D
hey man, I really dig your vids thank you. I would really appreciate a guide on how to setup my own streaming Service using foobar. Can you also make a guide on how to leave it running over a rasperry pi so that my Computer does not need to run if you do it? Looking forward to the foobar vid
I really feel like auto playlist ruined genres but more so ruined discoverability. I hate saying that because it makes me sound like a genre elitist or something. But spotify can have playlist that's either wrong in the genre department or have the typical bands in it that you've already heard thousands of times over. What about the lesser known artist of certain genres? They deserve a chance too and doing your own search for music gives them that chance.
Album listening is a lost art for sure. Glad I grew up with it but admittedly have loved the convenience of modern music. I use a lot of RUclips premium to download it and make playlists but I definitely have become lazy on listening to entire albums
I like Spotify but at some point I realized that the music they promote is definitely controlled! It's only after listing for hours a day and night is when you realize that they are definitely controlling the artists that the will "boost " during traffic hour vs some late hour at 8pmish. Also I know that its common for someone to say " Oh bro , your music is exactly my playlist" seriously you guys probably do have the same playlist but I understand that its really like this for several others.
I use Tidal's 'recommended' to find new songs and from there go to the album and figure out if i enjoy the artist. Also the simmilar artits are quite good. I would have nevere discovered that much music without it. The other day i was like 'hey, what other albums did The Black Eyed Peas make in the 20o0? Quick and easy, no other way to try them. Would have never bought them otherwise.
as long as the workers get compensated enough for food, shelter, a car, clothes, and some video games, there will never be a change. I agree capitalism sucks, but people get just enough money to be complacent.
I think the only artist I'm still really specifically into is old Eminem. Most of the music I listen to is from random different artists and genres. I mostly just listen to a random song that's stuck in my head over and over again on RUclips, I don't have a Spotify account. The only full albums I listen to's from Eminem apart from Stoney from Post Malone, all of which I got on CD. Some of the stuff I listen to's only copyright free music specifically only on RUclips, my guess being RUclips's the easiest place to put music you made for purely artistic purposes because you don't need permission to upload to RUclips. It's been ages since I listened to a whole album I just don't got the attention span anymore. I don't know why it's such a bad thing to listen to only one song at a time, I mean we don't always got time to listen to a whole album, sometimes they only release one song, I mean back in the 60's and 70's you could buy vinyls that were singles just one song, some artists are on hit wonders, and some artists one may only like one or a few songs, for example the only Kid Cudi songs I happen to like's Day n Night, Rose Golden, and The Pursuit of Happiness, I like more than one genre of music, and who cares what the artist wants? Death of the author. Once they release their art, you're free to enjoy that however you want, the author doesn't have the right to authoritarianly tell you how to enjoy their art, that's up to the interpretation of the observer not the creator, the artist makes the art, the observer gets to decide how to interpret that art. Also, algorithms don't sound like a bad thing to me, sounds like a great and novel way to discover new artists to me. I mean, not really something I'd care about cos like I said nowadays I only listen to music on RUclips if a song ends up getting stuck in my head I'll listen to it over and over again. Yeah, ads suck, just pay for premium. Simple as. Yeah, not owning stuff's kinda sucky, I have a Netflix subscription but I still collect DVDs and Blu-rays Discs (although Disney stop releasing 4K Blu-rays of their newest movies in Australia and New Zealand, which is a very deeply worrying sign of things to come) because Netflix's selection outside the USA and Canada is awful, I want to watch what I want to watch, and so I own movies I care about forever. Video games are something you can't own forever anymore, once the servers go down, because most of the game is downloaded even if you bought the physical disc or Switch cartridge now, you can't install that game any longer unless if you kept a copy of it on a hard drive, meaning if the servers go down you basically can't just buy a second hand copy of that game even on disc and if you own it but you haven't gotten it installed you can't play your own game. Meaning that eventually those games will no longer be available. Which is an extremely worrying trend as media gets more and more digitised and physical media becomes less and less common we risk losing media over time as it gets deleted if it never has any physical copies released. Maybe for video games people can make emulators, for music, movies and TV shows people can make recordings and release them to stop them disappearing but the obscure stuff might not get that treatment it might be lost for good and resorting to piracy as the only way to consume a piece of media is running the risk of getting malware from an unsafe website. I find it a terrying and worrying dystopian future we are heading towards where media becomes more and more disposable and newer art becomes less and less valued. Sure, the Mona Lisa is an important work of art but that doesn't make recent art any less valuable, worthwhile, or worth preserving and the thought of us losing that sense of value in preserving art truly terrifies me, we are moving towards and era of disposability and impermanence where you throw away the old in favour of the new and nothing lasts anymore, and we don't truly value art and that terrifies me to think that in the future I see, hear or play something I like knowing that one day I might not be able to experience it again anymore because it gets deleted and there are no physical copies. Plenty of Netflix movies I like that will never get enough attention to motivate a release on DVD, if Netflix goes away one day, I'll never get to see those movies ever again, the thought saddens me greatly. I can't look up what I like because I like most genres, I like pop, rap, metal, classical, country and western, techno, electro, dance music, trap music, classic rock from the 60's and 70's, motown, soul, R&B, jazz, blues music, blue steel, funk, reggae, two tone, ska music, drum and bass, swing music, music from arcade games and games from the NES, SNES, N64, Sega Mega Drive, and DOOM including fan made DOOM 2 maps MIDIs, moody songs, sad songs, songs about love found, songs about love lost, edgy songs, experimental songs, moody movie music, stuff like Green Day and Linkin Park, stuff like Pink, stuff like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Cold Play, Bruno Mars, Adele, etc. Don't get me wrong, I might like most genres, doesn't mean I like most songs, some genres I might like relatively few songs in that genre, sometimes my favourite songs might be the only songs I like from a particular genre. I stopped watching once you started advocating for Marxism.
Well a good portion of the artists I listen to are already dead... I think I'll keep using Spotify. Yeah, you've made your case about how it's unethical, but I don't listen to music in a setting where I'm actively looking for new music but I don't use the premade playlists eitherl, I hate machines or people who want to decide things for me. I do keep smart shuffle on and it's brought some new tunes to the playlists I have already made and has actually introduced plenty of new artists to me, so I have to give Spotify a deserved clap for that. I'm just not going to want to bother going back to ipod-days, I've got four different computers in different places, I've got two phones, I've got chromecasts, android tv, cars, a helmet with BT, bunch of different places and headphones and speaker systems where I listen to music and so far there just isn't something as easy as spotify to keep it all in control. I've got some CD's and tapes with autographs and plenty of merch from bands I've seen and liked and I will support the artists through those means, but I'm not going back to physical media. There's a handful of albums to listen to in one sitting and a vast universe with an endless entropy of shuffled music to go with through custom playlists. As much as I appreciate the shed in the woods with Ted, I just am not going to go down that road so long as spotify doesn't start forcing stuff down my throat. Sorry.
i honestly didnt know you were zweihander ive loved your tracks Ive found through spotify Ive known that spotify absolutly rapes the artists in terms of payment i just didn't know it was so much though a lot of artist i follow don't upload to the site just because the royalty's are hot shit the new DJ that they came out with is hot trash as well every now and then it will play something even closely related to what i listen to
Spotify was the best thing I recently discovered. I used to do it the old way like you suggest (blogs, google, forums, etc...) and randomly download albums with cool covers... boy were most of them garbage. Because of the high rate of bad music filling up my hard drive I ended up only downloading albums from artists I already knew, making no new discoveries. Thanks to Spotify in the last 6 months I discovered more new music than 6 years of doing it the old method. The algo has been very good and once a great song is discovered I make an effort to check out the artists other music... then search them on RUclips, then it goes from there. What I like about Spotify is how some of the songs it sends my way via the algo only have a few thousands of views on RUclips... so it takes good care of the small guy. Also most of these discoveries have been whilst at work... so you can multi task while finding new music. The bad pay argument is the only legit argument you had, but myself, even as a musician, see music as a hobby and not a career unless you're a mixer/sound engineer etc.
![Should We Hate Spotify? [An Objective View From A Professional Musician]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MXudOLStaXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Over the years I've given Spotify over $500 and I have nothing to show for it. I finally pulled the plug on Spotify this last summer, now I allocate $15 a month to buy CDs or digital albums from bandcamp. Going to treat myself to Snapcase's Progression Through Unlearning 25th Anniversary Vinyl for Christmas.
500 bucks you could've spent on physical media or digital file downloads! That's the thing, you can now own your stuff!
This is one of my favourite videos you've ever done, I've been ranting ad nauseam about this phenomenon for years and it's gotten to the point where I actually end up writing off various new artists, generally that others have shown me, because they're only available on say, Soundcloud, or something. Why would I bother to get into something that I can't own physically or even really download? The artist(s) could just decide "Oh this really wasn't my best" or whatever and scrub the whole album, and then it's just gone. This led me whole hog, about 6 years ago, back into metal and it's vast underground, I've gotten into collecting physical music again, amassing100+ cassettes and close to half as many CDs, as well as some sweet vintage gear to play everything. It adds a different layer to the whole thing, making everything so much more substantial and deep, getting to read the liner notes, look at old band photos, finding out about new bands through reading a thanks list! You just don't get that through Spotify. You and this channel are also solely to blame for me getting into Foobar and digital collecting and cataloging of music, though that primarily now holds me over until I can get a physical copy or as a way to play things I just can't find physically. All this being said, would you ever consider doing CD releases for the Zweihander albums? That's something I've quietly been wondering for awhile, after I heard Ear Slayer years ago. That still might be my favourite Zweihander album, could just be nostalgia.
But on the other side if they can't get the algorithm to push them out, the artist will just get buried. If lucky they may end up on Forgotify.
Watching this reminded me of a time when I used to actually go to stores and they had those little kiosks where you could play snippets of music to figure out what to buy. In fact, it's inspired me to head over to the local Rasputin store once I finish this quest in WoW.
And it also reminds me of "You'll own nothing and be happy". Some people call it a "conspiracy theory", but there's literally an article about it from the WEF (the global corporate-fascist billionaires that Bernie used to talk about) from 2016. Just look at how society is moving. Our media consumption is dominated by streaming platforms now, where you don't own any of it and can lose access at any time. But most people are happier than ever just because the value proposition for consumers is insane.
Personally, I'm slowly transitioning back to physical media. Sony's recent debacle was finally a wake-up call. I'm not even invested in anything on Sony's store, but just the idea that they almost screwed over so many people like it's nothing, I'm not going to risk that happening to me.
Never spent a dime on Spotify, I guess I am not missing out...
I don't think this is only a spotify problem. It's hard to find anything new and interesting on the internet, because of algorithms, cross-website cookies and tracking.
If an algorithm decides you like something, it's going to force feed it to you whether you want it or not and if something is popular it's much more likely to be recommended so it's harder to stumble upon some cool niche stuff.
I've bought all of your albums, and I love the fact that I can just download them in a format of my choosing and keep them on my computer or my mp3 player, without the possibility that a company loses a license or just decides to remove them one day. Whenever I buy or download an entire album, I always make sure that the first time I play it, I play it from start to finish, in order. Sometimes, that's just the way the album is meant to be played, and I respect that. I respect that artists are capable of building mood and atmosphere, or telling a story.
I am exactly the kind of listener that music streaming services hate. I like to repeat a single track SO MANY TIMES. Tens, hundreds, or thousands of times over and over. When it comes to podcasts, or podcast-like content, I pay close attention to how the hosts do their delivery, and I choose my favorites based on that. I'm not going to just hop on and go "Ok, give me a random True Crime podcast", I'm gonna go "Ok, I'm feeling like true crime, let's hit up That Chapter".
A lot of how I discover music and artists is through other media. Games, movies, anime, free background music on RUclips videos. Over the years, I've developed a keen ear for music, and value its contribution to the atmosphere, world, and moment building in audiovisual media. Sometimes, I'll fire up a game just so that I can sit around, look at the game world and listen to the music.
I hope you discover my music, because that's the music listener I need as a music producer.
The only problem in your logic is the false dichotomy of being able of ONLY using autogenerated playlists OR ONLY looking into artists. I wholeheartedly agree with most of your analysis, and all your criticism of autogenerated playlists, and how these actors in the industry try to train the users to their selfish interests, and exploit the monopsony. But that false dichotomy is blinding a bit your point of view, because it is not that polarized. Autogenerated playlists SHOULD ONLY be a tool to either discover or fill silence in the background.
I think many small artists would disagree. If it wasn't for Spotify, I'd never have found 60% of my music library.
Same thing, I actually like the algorithm. I use it though to find new artist just how he explained at the beginning of this video. That's how I find a lot of small artists/bands and for the most part they actually blow a couple years later. I like to think it's because I found them at 5 digit monthly listeners and told everyone I know about said artist and years later they blow up.
I did say that using playlists to discover music was good... but that's not what the video is about. It's specifically about trusting the playlists and ignoring the artists. So, if you use it to discover artists... and then you go follow them on other platforms outside of spotify, you're doing it right.
It certainly is a multi layered issue and there's some pro's to go with the huge list of cons, but on a macro scale I absolutely agree that this is horrible for art and artists.
so what your saying is that youtube and other platforms don't exist?
yes listening to 30 hours of playlists to find one new artist is very efficient.
why don’t they have a Metal top 500 ?
they can easily do this. they have the data.
and yes. even small artists will make the top 500 if they have some good stuff.
I still use Spotify for a lot of my listening but that's because I'm not rich enough to support all my favourite bands. I do however mostly listen to my personal collection via local files at home and on my phone. I usually buy 5-6 albums on bandcamp fridays and spin those until I feel done with them (this has not happened yet, I'm actually behind on my listening). Or if the band manages their own store then I order from them directly.
So I could ditch Spotify right now If I wanted to and be completely fine with it.. With one exception.. Podcasts. I really don't feel like starting fresh somewhere else. If I could sync my listening history to some external thing then I'd make the switch instantly but afaik one can't simply export the entire feed and import it somewhere else? Also, Spotify as a player is pretty OK. My episodes are synced perfectly when I switch devices (unlike Google Podcasts), so I can't be bothered...
But yeah, support your favourite bands and artists in anyway you can. Don't put all of your trust in a playlist.
I completely agree with the idea that an album is a complete piece of art as it was intended by the artist.
I’ve never really liked playlists, like you said it’s really hard to get in the mood with just one song
I think "Shuffle" players are absolutely nuts 😂 Talk about a mood killer, swinging from genre to genre every few minutes.
Honestly I started hating streaming years and years ago when music would just randomly drop off the platforms all the time. I make playlists I like based on the music in them, I don't want algorithms telling me what to listen to, I'm perfectly fine with finding new music if I want to.
Yeah, I make my own playlists too, algoritm never worked for me :D
I hate streaming services, I kinda miss the iPod days before streaming was really a thing, at least when I downloaded a whole album I listened to it as intended by the artist before choosing and picking my favorites, the world is going downhill my man
Good video. For the section around 15:00 to 17:00 I was just wondering whether you had considered that a significant proportion of listeners (and by extension buyers) of your music might have come from having discovered your music on Spotify? Because if they are you might be getting considerable revenue benefits from Spotify indirectly that you attribute to Bandcamp just because it is monetised there. (That would be kind of like saying you get more money from sponsors/merch on videos than RUclips clicks, although those sponsorships/merch sales come as a direct result of the clicks.)
I'm open to having my mind changed on this, but if you actually think that Spotify has such a miniscule effect on your Music in terms of listeners and revenue then you could leave the platform for a while to see if Bandcamp numbers are noticeably influenced. Cheers
good point
You might be right about this but ultimately its user choice. If an individual is happy with the crap hes being sold, so be it. Its business. Microtransactions are hated but they are there because this generation go for them. Music has been around me my whole life. From early days of pirate cassettes through Morphious, kaza and so on. I had tones of authentic products as well, went to concerts and so on. I check Spotify recommandations but to me, those are not good enough. Ive been following my artists and always will. We grew up in era where music was accessable via TV and Radio, so establishing your direction/taste was not that easy. Glory days of MTV and VIVA. If todays geberation is following some stupid ass algorithm, Spotify is not blame, they are. With the internet access, with proper motivation anyone can do proper research ad establish what, and eho they want to listen.
I still have some MP3/FLACs along with a leather Metal CD case with hand writing thst is 20 years old lol.
Buttom line, if you are into music hard, you wont fall for that shit. Spotify found a way to make money of consumer lack of awareness/ music taste / preference that geberates revenue - good for them. Lemings will always fall for black friday, adds, and randomly recommend music, pay for extra paid content and 200 USD license keys - we wont.
One thing I do is use Spotify to fine new music with their suggested/personalized playlists, and pay for those songs later.
Apparently we are the exception to the norm. I personally just deleted my account but did find some good artists on there when I used it. Bandcamp and Qobuz are my go to's for digital purchases
One of the best videos you've ever done, and nothing but truth. I have a Spotify account only because I won an audio book on there and had to make an account to redeem it. The only thing I've used it for is listening to a couple podcasts, and that's only because the player on the podcast creator's website stopped working for me about a month ago.
I was happy to discover your music after watching this. Nice dungeon synth tunes! Nothing like listening a whole album :)
My problem With Spotify is that my music is not ever really put into playlist ever That's the claim that they make is that your music will be put into playlist so they can be heard My stuff is not in any playlist at all really except for a few Not only that people who follow you on Spotify only follow you for a short while and then they unfollow you and you'll start losing thousands and thousands of followers I used to have thousands of followers on Spotify Now I'm down to two In fact I'm doing way better on SoundCloud than on Spotify I only have a hundred followers on SoundCloud and I get thousands of views every damn day and month basically on Spotify I hardly got anybody listening to my stuff as much as on SoundCloud
Never used it, never will
ah yes let's go back to limewire
I mean... Yes.
I've never used a music streaming service in my life. I refuse to repeatedly pay for something that I don't even own. I currently have some 2,500 MP3s on my phone that I have either ripped from bought CDs, ripped from RUclips videos, bought digitally, been provided by the bands themselves, or downloaded from other people's rips that they've uploaded online. No need for an internet connection, no subscription, no ads, no dependencies, no influences, no walled garden... and I'm intimately familiar with every single band that I have music from.
Part of the problem is people became so uncultured and lazy they need sone stupid assistant to play music for you. I’m a musician and I know exactly what I listen what I want to listen and never used a stupid thing like Alexa or Siri for anything in my life
Spotify informs you about the next concert about the artist you listen to
I believe some things on this video aren't quite factual
I love music and also write and record my own so I get what you are saying, but it's no different than radio. It's all curated too and most people don't care what they listen to as long as it's something they can tolerate. It's also very cost prohibitive to outright buy a copy of everything which is why piracy was such a big deal and why subscriptions are the only real solution to piracy. The only way to fight this is for artists to stop publishing their music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, etc.
Where else should I publish my music? I made a website with my music and it didn't get discovered, it was worse than having it on Spotify.
I'd like to see the stats of the Zweihänder albums. Full album play vs select tracks.
Never used it, and no plans to. I want to own my music and my files. I do occasionally listen to youtube music to discover new small artists or revisit something I don't have access on my portable devices.
Interesting prospective. Was enjoyable to listen to this video while I was driving home, was a blast from the past. Right on Logan.
Definitely looking forward to the Fubar video. I still have Spotify but I've been looking to dump it since I download any tracks I want to keep from other sources.
I've never liked Sp0t1fy. Pandora has always been the best. I mean, ripping cds and vinyls are THE best way to cultivate a music collection, but whatcha gonna do?
I always have appreciated your perspective Ward, thank you for providing it. Its all encompassing.
-Moto 2012
how come I can find 10 good songs a day on Tiktok. but I can’t find 10 good songs a week on Spotify
Oh my Gosh, Logan, u rock. I'll be waiting for your next video eagerly to eat it up. Godspeed.
I’ve never used Spotify. I don’t understand why anyone would want to enjoy art that way. If you don’t want to choose the songs then just listen to the radio. Weirdos.
I always hated the ad system and the way Spotify curates music for you and always added the songs myself. The part about listening to whole albums I understand but I have never really had the same outcome. For awhile and even to this day I do sit and listen to an album in order and I felt thrown off sometimes because the mood from one song to the next didn't really flow at least with newer stuff. Music from the 30's to about the 90's I would say people cared a lot more for there music but once we had Pandora and Spotify there was a huge loss of passion. I personally use Tidal to use as a source to download but all my music is digital and has been for sometime now and it feels so much cleaner to listen that way.
This is why I bought all the albums I wanted to listen to. Well, to pay the artists AND because I wanted all my music to be worth listening to. There are a couple of albums I own that are dreck. Terrirbly recorded. Sentimental value is all they have. Presently running PC>SMSL DAC>Emotiva XDA-2 balanced preamp>NAD 208 thx balanced power amp>ADS 910 loudspeakers (The best I've ever heard.) I'm going to swap in the Schiit Audio Midgard headphone amp/preamp in place of the Emotiva in a couple weeks.
For sure it would be better if streaming services payed more to artists. Still a good tool thought. Just use it right. I just don't see a reason why not to continue have a quick, convenient access to music through platforms, continuing paying this drastically small percent for listening, be open to new music, click here and there and go in far lands of internet to discover more of band. You say I don't own this music, you are right, in a big scale I don't own nothing, I am mortal being, things I have - I rent them temporarily, even my body has expiration date, so why care that much.
Also, I believe, there is no way a lot of people have possibility to support every artist they like. One of the reason, piracy was a big thing before current age, still encourage you to do it, buy albums through bandcamp, site, buy merch, attend concerts, spread the word, listen the whole album, return your love to people that sparked emotions in your heart
I don't even have a Spotify account. I watch RUclips a lot, so naturally I watch music videos too, but that's about as far as it goes for me. Otherwise I will maybe look up an artist on RUclips to hear something and see if I like such and such band or artist, but then if I'm interested I go and buy their CD's. I still VERY much rely on physical media, and try to get it when I can. Also, I don't trust other companies to provide the quality of audio I want, so I get the CD's and rip the songs for my own personal use on my computer/phone/etc. I know people love convenience of digital and streaming only services, but it severely devalues artistry, and removes value from movies/shows/tv and so on. This in turn makes people feel like art isn't worth paying for, or isn't a "real" job that you can or should make a living doing, and that's ridiculous.
a major issue ive run into as a musician is that i got off instagram, and my growth slowed way down. i now have a solid fanbase that i really enjoy, and im fine keeping a distance not having any social media, but i was thinking spotify would be good algorithmically to grow more, but ive decided that i dont want surface level listeners as much, because being off social media got me out of the numbers mindset.
rn i want to move to a semi-urban/ “college town” esque region to perform more and maybe own a shop to integrate myself into the community, and grow things more organically through real connection (this is what the world needs)
sorry for my blogpost i just have a lot of thoughts on this, because i also make music and have pretty strong opinions on the modern internet
one other annoying thing spotify did is put my legal name under the details of my songs, because im the legal composer/owner of the songe. bro. this pissed me off badly. still havent gotten it removed, and now just deal wity the fact that fans of the music know my personal name.
I quit all social media as well, even Mastodon. That has slowed me down as well, though it's difficult to tell as I don't have much of a following. I don't miss it.
You know what sucks not having physical media players in vehicles anymore. I had one in my old car for my CDs and the CDs sound so much better than streaming over Bluetooth with Spotify. Architects Daybreaker on the disc is super powerful on the sound system and over Spotify it just doesn't have the same impact haha. Using an mp3 player over aux is still a better option.
I've never cared for streaming services for music. I guess I've been lucky enough to always have bad signal, so I do the "mix tape" thing and a collection on my phone and play it that way. Yes I have Foobar for android. I also used to rely of friends suggestions, now I follow some reviewers on RUclips like Tankthetech and the Charismatic Voice to get some ideas for new music. I got heavily into the "Naplam records" rabbit hole, but most my playlists now are from Germany.
I don't trust Pandora or Spotify, refuse to use Amazon music or RUclips music. At last check I was at 1.6TB for my collection, versus the 140GB when I left Canada in 2012.
A video on making your own stream server would be great. Tired of using my phone to all the discography not covered by these streaming services anyway. Thank you the video,
I tried out spotify back when it was pretty new, and I stopped because I heard they paid the artists less than if you watch their music on youtube, and they also removed the only Blind Guardian album they had on there at the time.
Foobar setup will work on Linux too?
I ditched Spotify after _Some More News_ did their video on it. I know a few musicians who are pissed at how hard they get shafted but, like with RUclips, they can't realistically go anywhere else because Spotify has a de facto monopoly on streaming and physical sales have collapsed.
I tried Spotify for about a month and hated it. I had to fight it constantly to listen to what I wanted too, and it keep serving up garbage I had no interest in.
What do you think of copy cd's and host them with plex.
audible only has 1 chapter of chokepoint capitalism by Rebecca Giblin
I absolutely agree. I own vinyl for most of the records I'm into, although when I'm out I still use RUclips music because it doesn't take up 12 gig on my phone.
Spotify definitely needs to work on paying their artists better. as a musician and music lover myself id rather own my media then rent it from it large corperations that can raise prices at any point. They just want to make it so we can own anyhting anymore and charge us as much as possible.
Top video. I am old enough to remember having to take public transport to buy my music. And on arrival at the record store forgetting which one i really wanted (money was tight). I would stand there daydreaming and wishing that i had enough money to buy them all. Even music i had no idea about! Spotify and such-like actually allows me to listen to all that music i wished for. Guess what.... i don't bother. Still play the music i grew up with and a sprinkling of new music i searched out.
I never really enjoyed Spotify. Even if I was gifted free premium. I recently started buying music from bandcamp and ripping cds to my phone. And it's a way better experience. Especially because I routinely travel to places that don't have internet or cell signals intermittently. I can't express the value of having music files locally on phone storage.
I just posted on Instagram Threads the following question: What percentage of Spotify listeners look for new and unknown artists and what percentage just listen to whatever the algorithm pushes in front of them? I was going to say 15 to 20% and 80 to 85% respectively. I've had one response so far and they said 5% and 95%. Sadly, they are probably more accurate than my answer.
I only listen to albums for the story.
I used Spotify before Rogan and will after.
Owning music isn’t cheap and I like a lot of different genres and artists in general. I also have a couple hundred CDs, I still use but very infrequently because I can just search it anyway.
Good thing I never bothered to to make a Spotify account. I will use my MP3 player till the day I die.
I love Epic Rock Radio for finding progressive and symphonic metal artists.
One of my favorite things about your videos is the solutions you provide to problems!
Thanks for another awesome video dude
Let me explain something I'm a music lover i've been a dj and everything else right so my personal priority is that there are some artists that put out some albums and I only like one song off the album i'm not going to listen to songs that I don't particularly care for just listen to 1 song either I'm going to skip through it and listen to that 1 song or I will make a mix tape or a mixed CD like I did back in the day people has been skipping through Cds because there's a lot of people who did not want to skip button back in the day but people did it so they could listen to their favorite songs off the album that they bought that's what repeat was all for you know people did that back during the cassette tape errors fast forward through the songs that they didn't like played the A song that they did like and press record on a blank tape and make a mixed CD of all their favorite songs that's what modern streaming service is all about is you make a playlist of your favorite songs it's the digital equivalent of it you could do it on Spotify you could do it on Apple music you could do it on youtube music and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that because people's been doing it for years now. I don't for one back in the day I used to sentenced to my favorite songs come on the radio just to record it and make a mix tape some of us didn't couldn't afford to buy albums and stuff like that so we just had to listen to our favorite song call up the radio station and request a song and when they played it recorded we all did it as kids but I'm sorry I just don't set and listen to every bloody song on an album if I don't like every song but one I'm only going to listen to that one and that's why I like digital music nowadays I get to pick the songs I like put it in a playlist and beyond with my day sometimes I'll listen to one song three or four times biz it's catchy it's great I ripped all of my Cds to a digital library just to make mixed Cds in my favorite songs from each album I got to have my playlists with different songs and different artists I got to have multiple playlists and multiple genres I'm sorry but I don't listen to a whole damn album if I don't like all the songs but won i'm only listening to that one and I'll only purchase that one song if I was buying digitally because frankly I am sick and tired of having to fast forward through an audio cassette just to listen through my favorite song back in the day I'm glad digital libraries exist so I don't have to go through that and for everybody that dot the fast forward or rewind button or to skip buttons were detrimental to music no it was actually great
22:16 How do you set this up? 😭
Video coming on Wednesday
@@teksyndicate Marking this event into my calendar
The RUclips algorithm gave me some really good artists I now own physical media, Band merch and went to concerts (LeBrock, Aim to Head, Implore) so yeah, you can mistreat it a bit :D
hey man, I really dig your vids thank you. I would really appreciate a guide on how to setup my own streaming Service using foobar. Can you also make a guide on how to leave it running over a rasperry pi so that my Computer does not need to run if you do it? Looking forward to the foobar vid
I really feel like auto playlist ruined genres but more so ruined discoverability. I hate saying that because it makes me sound like a genre elitist or something. But spotify can have playlist that's either wrong in the genre department or have the typical bands in it that you've already heard thousands of times over. What about the lesser known artist of certain genres? They deserve a chance too and doing your own search for music gives them that chance.
Album listening is a lost art for sure. Glad I grew up with it but admittedly have loved the convenience of modern music.
I use a lot of RUclips premium to download it and make playlists but I definitely have become lazy on listening to entire albums
I like Spotify but at some point I realized that the music they promote is definitely controlled! It's only after listing for hours a day and night is when you realize that they are definitely controlling the artists that the will "boost " during traffic hour vs some late hour at 8pmish. Also I know that its common for someone to say " Oh bro , your music is exactly my playlist" seriously you guys probably do have the same playlist but I understand that its really like this for several others.
Apparently some Finnish metal was precisely what I needed this evening. Hyvä.
When is the Foobar video coming?
Next video. Probably the 1st or 2nd of Nov
@@teksyndicatelooking forward!
If it wasn't for Spotify and Gamepass I would be sailing the high seas day and night for that content 😂
Thanks to you I’ve now discovered Witch House. In the words of my man Sam Tripoli: NOTHIN’ BUT BANGERS! 🔥🔥🔥
SoundCloud flopped as well...
Commenting for the algorithm! I've stopped using spotify and have 0 regrets.
I make my own spotify playlist and it includes the entire albums of everyone I listen to.
I don't use Spotify cause I always found it stuiped I burn my cds to my computer and move the songs to my phones
know what you mean, too, it's hard though, the theme of the album, 2 - 3 good songs, and 8 of are hard to like, but you do.
I use Tidal's 'recommended' to find new songs and from there go to the album and figure out if i enjoy the artist. Also the simmilar artits are quite good. I would have nevere discovered that much music without it. The other day i was like 'hey, what other albums did The Black Eyed Peas make in the 20o0? Quick and easy, no other way to try them. Would have never bought them otherwise.
as long as the workers get compensated enough for food, shelter, a car, clothes, and some video games, there will never be a change. I agree capitalism sucks, but people get just enough money to be complacent.
Years of Spotify use has kind of made new music releases not exciting anymore.
i do notice it, i like the music i make, and the music on spotify when i don't listen to mine, is way off mark.
Soul seek is the GOAT.
I think the only artist I'm still really specifically into is old Eminem. Most of the music I listen to is from random different artists and genres. I mostly just listen to a random song that's stuck in my head over and over again on RUclips, I don't have a Spotify account. The only full albums I listen to's from Eminem apart from Stoney from Post Malone, all of which I got on CD. Some of the stuff I listen to's only copyright free music specifically only on RUclips, my guess being RUclips's the easiest place to put music you made for purely artistic purposes because you don't need permission to upload to RUclips. It's been ages since I listened to a whole album I just don't got the attention span anymore. I don't know why it's such a bad thing to listen to only one song at a time, I mean we don't always got time to listen to a whole album, sometimes they only release one song, I mean back in the 60's and 70's you could buy vinyls that were singles just one song, some artists are on hit wonders, and some artists one may only like one or a few songs, for example the only Kid Cudi songs I happen to like's Day n Night, Rose Golden, and The Pursuit of Happiness, I like more than one genre of music, and who cares what the artist wants? Death of the author. Once they release their art, you're free to enjoy that however you want, the author doesn't have the right to authoritarianly tell you how to enjoy their art, that's up to the interpretation of the observer not the creator, the artist makes the art, the observer gets to decide how to interpret that art. Also, algorithms don't sound like a bad thing to me, sounds like a great and novel way to discover new artists to me. I mean, not really something I'd care about cos like I said nowadays I only listen to music on RUclips if a song ends up getting stuck in my head I'll listen to it over and over again. Yeah, ads suck, just pay for premium. Simple as.
Yeah, not owning stuff's kinda sucky, I have a Netflix subscription but I still collect DVDs and Blu-rays Discs (although Disney stop releasing 4K Blu-rays of their newest movies in Australia and New Zealand, which is a very deeply worrying sign of things to come) because Netflix's selection outside the USA and Canada is awful, I want to watch what I want to watch, and so I own movies I care about forever. Video games are something you can't own forever anymore, once the servers go down, because most of the game is downloaded even if you bought the physical disc or Switch cartridge now, you can't install that game any longer unless if you kept a copy of it on a hard drive, meaning if the servers go down you basically can't just buy a second hand copy of that game even on disc and if you own it but you haven't gotten it installed you can't play your own game. Meaning that eventually those games will no longer be available. Which is an extremely worrying trend as media gets more and more digitised and physical media becomes less and less common we risk losing media over time as it gets deleted if it never has any physical copies released. Maybe for video games people can make emulators, for music, movies and TV shows people can make recordings and release them to stop them disappearing but the obscure stuff might not get that treatment it might be lost for good and resorting to piracy as the only way to consume a piece of media is running the risk of getting malware from an unsafe website. I find it a terrying and worrying dystopian future we are heading towards where media becomes more and more disposable and newer art becomes less and less valued. Sure, the Mona Lisa is an important work of art but that doesn't make recent art any less valuable, worthwhile, or worth preserving and the thought of us losing that sense of value in preserving art truly terrifies me, we are moving towards and era of disposability and impermanence where you throw away the old in favour of the new and nothing lasts anymore, and we don't truly value art and that terrifies me to think that in the future I see, hear or play something I like knowing that one day I might not be able to experience it again anymore because it gets deleted and there are no physical copies. Plenty of Netflix movies I like that will never get enough attention to motivate a release on DVD, if Netflix goes away one day, I'll never get to see those movies ever again, the thought saddens me greatly.
I can't look up what I like because I like most genres, I like pop, rap, metal, classical, country and western, techno, electro, dance music, trap music, classic rock from the 60's and 70's, motown, soul, R&B, jazz, blues music, blue steel, funk, reggae, two tone, ska music, drum and bass, swing music, music from arcade games and games from the NES, SNES, N64, Sega Mega Drive, and DOOM including fan made DOOM 2 maps MIDIs, moody songs, sad songs, songs about love found, songs about love lost, edgy songs, experimental songs, moody movie music, stuff like Green Day and Linkin Park, stuff like Pink, stuff like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Cold Play, Bruno Mars, Adele, etc. Don't get me wrong, I might like most genres, doesn't mean I like most songs, some genres I might like relatively few songs in that genre, sometimes my favourite songs might be the only songs I like from a particular genre.
I stopped watching once you started advocating for Marxism.
I don't know exactly how much better it is, but... Tidal users unite!
Should artists worry about what's happening with Bandcamp?
Yes... But not on the same level. It's still the best place... For now
Off-topic. but did you take down the forum?
When the youtube algorithm recommends tek syndicate 🤔
Well a good portion of the artists I listen to are already dead...
I think I'll keep using Spotify. Yeah, you've made your case about how it's unethical, but I don't listen to music in a setting where I'm actively looking for new music but I don't use the premade playlists eitherl, I hate machines or people who want to decide things for me. I do keep smart shuffle on and it's brought some new tunes to the playlists I have already made and has actually introduced plenty of new artists to me, so I have to give Spotify a deserved clap for that. I'm just not going to want to bother going back to ipod-days, I've got four different computers in different places, I've got two phones, I've got chromecasts, android tv, cars, a helmet with BT, bunch of different places and headphones and speaker systems where I listen to music and so far there just isn't something as easy as spotify to keep it all in control. I've got some CD's and tapes with autographs and plenty of merch from bands I've seen and liked and I will support the artists through those means, but I'm not going back to physical media. There's a handful of albums to listen to in one sitting and a vast universe with an endless entropy of shuffled music to go with through custom playlists.
As much as I appreciate the shed in the woods with Ted, I just am not going to go down that road so long as spotify doesn't start forcing stuff down my throat. Sorry.
I play just rap and a little bit of rock
Never used Spotify. I have foobar and an SMB share for my own collection, and that's just fine by me lol.
I've always loved listening to entire albums at a time. I thought I was an anomaly or something, lol. I'm 23 btw.
Yeah, plzz show how to stream our own music! :)
i honestly didnt know you were zweihander ive loved your tracks Ive found through spotify Ive known that spotify absolutly rapes the artists in terms of payment i just didn't know it was so much though a lot of artist i follow don't upload to the site just because the royalty's are hot shit the new DJ that they came out with is hot trash as well every now and then it will play something even closely related to what i listen to
People don’t give a shit , that’s putting it lightly XD.
But I still buy my songs
People actually just... listen to the playlists? That's insane.
The playlist people will be fine with AI generated music as well. I can see that for sure.
people are getting too lazy, and consequently at mercy of business creeps
14:55 LOL
Just like CNN is training you to have a specific believe and opinion.
Agreed 100%
Mircro scale colonialism
I have my music collection on vinyl, its slow and expensive but its WONDERFUL. 😍🥰
Fck spotify 🙊😤
Spotify was the best thing I recently discovered. I used to do it the old way like you suggest (blogs, google, forums, etc...) and randomly download albums with cool covers... boy were most of them garbage. Because of the high rate of bad music filling up my hard drive I ended up only downloading albums from artists I already knew, making no new discoveries. Thanks to Spotify in the last 6 months I discovered more new music than 6 years of doing it the old method. The algo has been very good and once a great song is discovered I make an effort to check out the artists other music... then search them on RUclips, then it goes from there. What I like about Spotify is how some of the songs it sends my way via the algo only have a few thousands of views on RUclips... so it takes good care of the small guy. Also most of these discoveries have been whilst at work... so you can multi task while finding new music. The bad pay argument is the only legit argument you had, but myself, even as a musician, see music as a hobby and not a career unless you're a mixer/sound engineer etc.
I use Spotify premium apk so paying is not a problem for me😂