Spotify

Oh...my...god...Spotify is the best thing EVER.

It's a new music service that's been available in Europe, just launched in the US like, today.

You can save all of your own files on a cloud server...and listen to them with your phone.

OR...you can select from over 15 million tracks. At any time, full albums, no ads. Blows Pandora away and there's not fucking Living Social ads every other song.

The selection is DEEP. I've stumped it a couple of times but with really obscure stuff...but I'm talking like ultra-obscure black metal, experimental, and no wave stuff. A lot of things I tried I thought "no way" but it had. And some stuff it gets crazy...Prince has ALL of the records, singles collections, singles including B-sides and other tracs, comp appearance, etc. etc.

I mean, I can go on this thing and listen to everything Can ever recorded. Anywhere. I'm in heaven.

It does require a $9.99 a month subscription to access it with your phone, but for me it's TOTALLY worth it. I want to burn all my CDs in a fire.

You haven't had Spotify there? I am suprised.

I'm not a subscriber myself, but I've tried it and I have got to admit the selection is good. You really have got to go out of your way to not find a song. I mean don't go looking for obscure HC 45s, but if it's on CD it's in there. Everyone should try the free version for themselves to check it out.

I'm not subscribing because I don't have an iPod or a smartphone and when online I can use Grooveshark for free. The selection may not be that deep, but in some cases it's deeper. You can find some live shows on Grooveshark that are only available on bootleg albums if those.

And one thing about Spotify. If you give a shit about where the money goes the artists cut is marginal and independet labels have the worst of it.

mikko_r wrote: And one thing about Spotify. If you give a shit about where the money goes the artists cut is marginal and independet labels have the worst of it.

I used to rave about Spotify and I did in fact use the free service for many months. But I've stopped now, and I wouldn't recommend anyone else use it either. The reason given above is a primary one: one indie record label claimed to have earned $3 from Spotify after racking up 55,000 plays.

Other key reasons:

* It's not as deep as it first looks. Over a period of months I was able to find artist after artist whose catalogues were either absent or woefully incomplete. It doesn't help that I'm a fan of a nich genre of folk, but even allowing for that there's no Pink Floyd, no Led Zepplin, very little Bob Dylan, no Spacemen 3, very little Kate Bush etc etc. If you're going to have to cart around mp3's ofr a lot of your favourite artists to fill gaps then it renders the service fairly pointless.

* It basically amounts to renting music. And it's basic economics that for stuff you get a lot of use out of, renting doesn't make much sense. I can pay the money I would have used for spotify subscriptions to buy mp3's instead at the rate of about one album per month. Mp3 downloads are better quality, more money goes to the artist and I can do as I please with them - like burn them on to CD or put them on my phone. And I know Spotify works on the phone too, but then you're looking at data rates on top of the monthly subscription and waiting for music to stream over a dodgy connection.

The free tier of service is invite only in the US right now .

Plans will like go as the UK:

Here's what's currently available in the UK though: Spotify's three tiers of free, unlimited, and premium music. The free tier lets you stream 10 hours of music per month with ads (and unlimited local music), while the unlimited tier offers unlimited ad-free streams, and the premium tier offers all of that plus offline mode and access from your mobile phone.

That does stink, if true, about indie labels getting shafted like that...but really, does Pandora or Last FM pay out any better than that? I don't know, but I doubt it.

Of course it's not going to have EVERYTHING...but I've been really impressed by what it does have so far. I sat down for like an hour and a half last night seeing what was on there, and I could probably get rid of 3/4 of my CDs.

It is like renting music, you're right. But you can also listen to it whenever without limitation (I have an unlimited data plan), you don't have to worry about storage (either physical or digital), and if you're like me $10 is _nothing_ to get to say "hey, I really want to listen to all of the Suicide records"...and they're right there. I used to spend $150-$200 a month on CDs...this whole "one new album a month" thing is still crazy talk to me.

I just signed up for an invitation. If I like it, I can totally see shelling out 5 clams a month for the unlimited plan. I suspect that's how this will end for me. Sounds like it could be the equivalent of Netflix Instant Watch for music.

Michael Barnes wrote: That does stink, if true, about indie labels getting shafted like that...but really, does Pandora or Last FM pay out any better than that? I don't know, but I doubt it.

What difference does it make how much others pay?

Michael Barnes wrote: Oh...my...god...Spotify is the best thing EVER.

It's a new music service that's been available in Europe, just launched in the US like, today.

You can save all of your own files on a cloud server...and listen to them with your phone.

OR...you can select from over 15 million tracks. At any time, full albums, no ads. Blows Pandora away and there's not fucking Living Social ads every other song.

The selection is DEEP. I've stumped it a couple of times but with really obscure stuff...but I'm talking like ultra-obscure black metal, experimental, and no wave stuff. A lot of things I tried I thought "no way" but it had. And some stuff it gets crazy...Prince has ALL of the records, singles collections, singles including B-sides and other tracs, comp appearance, etc. etc.

I mean, I can go on this thing and listen to everything Can ever recorded. Anywhere. I'm in heaven.

It does require a $9.99 a month subscription to access it with your phone, but for me it's TOTALLY worth it. I want to burn all my CDs in a fire.

I don't know...I think at this point, if we haven't already, we're going to start losing the magic that is an album. At least slowly digesting one and having it define an era of your life or something.

I'm thinking of that Barnstorming post regarding Walk Among Us and how that year that album was your anthem. Listened to all the time driving to and from high school. Sounds to me like great times.

How would I guess this would play out now with a new kid in HS? Find Walk Among Us, like the first few tracks decide they want all the Misfits, download _everything_ then burn through it all in a day or two not really having any sense of progression or an album's place in a musician's catalog. Then, likely the next day downloading a bunch of 'similar' crap that was suggested to them by the online service. So, on day two they're now listening to the first 30 secs of songs from some other band like the Cramps or something and buying up their catalog.

Likely I'm moving into 'get of my lawn' territory, but this sounds to me like a shitty way to experience music, especially new bands that need time to settle in on ya. The Smiths and The Ramones were the soundtrack to my teenage years, if anything because it wasn't so easy and cheap to get ahold of everything by everyone. I really let the albums of those bands wash over me and I soaked them in, for a good long time.

Jeff White wrote: I don't know...I think at this point, if we haven't already, we're going to start losing the magic that is an album. At least slowly digesting one and having it define an era of your life or something.

Yes, good call on this. I wondered about posting something similar but also had a "get off my lawn" moment. I found that using Spotify was turning me into a singles whore: I'd listen to an album once, pick my few favourite tracks to add to a playlist and never listen to the others again. Now I've stopped using it I've gone back to whole album playlists and I'm wondering how I dismissed a vast slew of great tracks as not worth it after just one listen.

It's partly the limited room Spotify has for playlists (it really needs a folder structure) and partly because there's so much music. But it was certainly changing my listening habits for the worse.

Wow, really? Because I'm finding with Spotify it's a lot easier to listen to full albums. Over the past couple of days I've been listening to every Swans album- front to back- with Spotify. If you think it's a big deal to listen to a full album, what about listening to an entire catalouge? It's how you choose to use it...if you just listen to tracks here and there, that's what you're doing, not what the service does. Pandora is more like that, where you just get random tracks. It's why I like Spotify, I can listen to full records.

But I also think that you shouldn't waste your time listening to shitty tracks just because they're on the record and you have to listen to the whole thing because of some fealty to the Album as a Concept.

The access to the music is so much greater, it far outweighs having physical media to listen to it on. If I decided out of the blue one day in 1995 to listen to everything Swans ever recorded, it'd be a $200 trip to Wax n' Facts if I didn't already own them...if they even had all of the albums. If I want to listen to Walk Among Us while I'm sitting here in the coffee shop working, all I've got to do is hop on and pull it down. Didn't have to bring the CD.

Tools like Spotify can help increase your appreciation of music...you can experience so much more of it, you can listen to stuff without buying it or waiting to hear it somehow. I never heard Revenge, Peter Hook's side late 80s side project. So I pulled down "One True Passion" last night and was really glad I never bought that $25 import of it that would now be sitting down in my basement collecting dust.

Michael Barnes wrote: Wow, really? Because I'm finding with Spotify it's a lot easier to listen to full albums. Over the past couple of days I've been listening to every Swans album- front to back- with Spotify. If you think it's a big deal to listen to a full album, what about listening to an entire catalouge? It's how you choose to use it...if you just listen to tracks here and there, that's what you're doing, not what the service does. Pandora is more like that, where you just get random tracks. It's why I like Spotify, I can listen to full records.

Hmmm...it seems I didn't lay out my point correctly. Granted you can listen to full albums, in fact many at a time like you're mentioning here with the Swans.

I was trying to get across how Walk Among Us _itself_ left a big impact on you because 'back in the day' it wasn't as easy to get/play every track off every album at the flick of a finger. You played that _one_ tape/cd over and over.

If this story were transported to 2011, you may not have been heaping an article's praise on Walk Among Us, but the Misfits as a whole because teen Michael would very quickly digest all of their albums after liking a few tracks on Walk Among Us. Granted, you may go back and listen to Walk a few more times, but nowhere near the amount of times you like did back in your tale.

Would The Queen is Dead have the weight if I simply downloaded all of the Smiths albums at once, or did it help to have many months to spend with that album? I think the latter. Not to mention my peers were also chewing on it so there's the joint thing.

I guess it's kinda like how boardgaming has changed (like BGG or not). Like you said, you can get a hold of any game any time now. I guess that's good in some ways, but with it we get the constant 'one and done' type sampling. I'd wager not many of us are really digging into a game the way we did in the 80s and 90s. I know there hasn't been a boardgame I've played for three years straight like I did with bloodbowl or a full year like I did with AHQ. Hell, my group is trying to do good by selecting one game a month and play that sucker multiple times to get back some of that intimacy.

I don't know if it's the case here, but the weird thing with spotify and other online music services is that for me, despite the huge catalogs, finding new music is difficult. When I listen online I usually listen to something I already know and propably own. There's 15 million tunes available, but when that empty search box comes up I can't write something I don't know. Spotify is great for accessing music, not great for finding new.

I think the biggest thing is less the growth of technology and increased availability (which is still also a factor) but the fact that I'm a fucking adult now and if I really want something I'll go buy it. All those albums were available (if they had been released yet) if you were 1. willing to pay and 2. knew how to find someone to sell them to you. When you're a kid you don't really have great ability to do either of those things. An adult Smiths fan was pretty likely to have at least two other Smiths records already and they only put out one more record after (and only a year later), so having all The Smiths recorded material was pretty reasonable for someone who was just checking out that record. You being a youth was more of a factor in how much you played that record and the impact it had.

Also, I was 4 years old when The Queen is Dead came out. I didn't get into The Smiths until long after they were broken up, so there already was this similar wealth of material out there that kids have access to today. Yet I managed to still fall in love with The Smiths and feel like their records were hugely important in my life. Your point is basically saying that you can't really appreciate a band unless "you were there man". Which I totally get and can agree with, but has zero to do with technology.

TANGENT: Video games are the biggest thing I consume vastly differently than when I was a kid. When I was a kid, if I got a shitty NES game for Christmas (I usually got a couple, thank god), I still played the fuck out of it cause I wasn't getting another game for a while (likely my birthday). Now if I get a shitty game, well, I'm pissed that I blew it, but I'm not going to put a lot of hours into it. I have so many options to choose from, and can make those options happen, yet if a game is actually awesome, it can still grab me and consume my days for a great long time, just as when I was a kid. If something is really awesome, it doesn't matter what else is available, you can still become obsessed with it. Be it music, movies, games or whatever else. That said, you are far more likely to get obsessed with something when you are a kid than when you are an adult.

Michael Barnes wrote: Wow, really? Because I'm finding with Spotify it's a lot easier to listen to full albums. Over the past couple of days I've been listening to every Swans album- front to back- with Spotify. If you think it's a big deal to listen to a full album, what about listening to an entire catalouge?

OK fair point. It was probably just the way it affected me. I still think it'd be better if the playlist functionality offered more usability though.

Michael Barnes wrote: But I also think that you shouldn't waste your time listening to shitty tracks just because they're on the record and you have to listen to the whole thing because of some fealty to the Album as a Concept.

Oh no, a shitty track is a shitty track. It was just that with all the music out there I felt it was OK to listen to a whole album once - often skipping over a track after a minute or so - and assume I'd picked out the best. You can miss a lot of great tracks that "grow" on you that way, and so it's proved.

Michael Barnes wrote: The access to the music is so much greater, it far outweighs having physical media to listen to it on. If I decided out of the blue one day in 1995 to listen to everything Swans ever recorded, it'd be a $200 trip to Wax n' Facts if I didn't already own them...if they even had all of the albums. If I want to listen to Walk Among Us while I'm sitting here in the coffee shop working, all I've got to do is hop on and pull it down. Didn't have to bring the CD.

It's clear that you & I consume music in different ways. Given your self-confessed music snobbery this is hardly surprising I can see how access to that vast catalogue might work for you though. For me an album a month or thereabouts is plenty.

I'm more than a music snob, I'm also a glutton. Jeff was talking about Walk Among Us and having just that "one" record to hold on to, but it wasn't like that for me. It never has been. I think I bought my first cassette of Walk Among Us at a pawn shop along with five other cassettes (I believe they were the Germs' GI, Black Flag's Who's got the 10 1/2, Replacements' Pleased to Meet Me, and Evol by Sonic Youth). A trip to the record store for me was about a fifty dollar minimum. I love music, I love a lot of music,and I listen to a lot of music. It's never been a case for me where I just had one or two records and no choice to listen to something else.

I also don't have Mikko's problem...there's ALWAYS something I've wanted to hear that I can put in that search box, whether it's something new, something old, a record by an artist that I like but haven't heard yet...the other day I listened to some Lady Gaga just because I'd not actually heard anything beyond the singles on the radio, and I listened to Cee-Lo Green's last record. I _never_ would have bought those, but I got to hear them and I glad I did. A lot of smaller stuff too- bands I've read about or heard of, now it's easier than ever to check things out and see what's good and what's not.

Hell, looking at New Order's listing the other day I saw that there was a record there from _another_ New Order that I've always wanted to hear- it's Dennis Thompson from the MC5, Ron Ashton from the Stooges, and Scott Thurston from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I read about them, I don't know, 20 years ago and forgot about checking them out. There they were, through the magic of Spotify. Heard the whole record. I wasn't missing too much.