TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/27/theres-endless-choice-but-youre-not-listening-fans-quitting-spotify-to-save-their-love-of-music

I have to confess (boast?) that I never bought into Spotify in the first place. To me the notion of a streaming service is like a radio that sits on in the background, burbling away to itself, playing things that I'm not connected to and that I forget about as soon as the next song starts. The ability to reach everything for 'free' leaves me feeling like I've not reached anything at all. Whereas an involved search and a financial outlay invariably makes me feel I've gained something to cherish, and cherish it I do.

Thoughts?

Cheers

Nick

Pay a tenner a month for Premium and you can choose anything you want including other people's public playlists (although their taste and yours might not coincide?). I agree that the continuous stuff is a drag but, after you have played an album of your choice, the Intelligence recognises your taste and plays a track from a similar artiste which might lead you in a new direction. Spotify has every conceivable genre, including classical and movie sound-tracks.

My own close group of friends are scattered in the UK and, during lockdown, in order to keep in touch and give us a focus, each of us submitted an album a week for the others to listen to on Spotify and comment on. This became such fun that it continues to this day and I have the job of submitting album number 700 next Friday!

I choose to sit and listen on my laptop but others have earphones, earbuds or whatever.

Cheers

Malcolm

It's worth a tenner or so not to hear the adverts.  I just can't abide the randomness and disruptiveness of some hideous diversion from whatever it is I want to listen to.

The general consensus seems to be that Spotify are as bad as it gets for artists in terms of pay rates etc.  Other options (like Tidal) are at least a partial improvement.

For me streaming is both a try before you buy and a convenient way of accessing some of the music I own.  I still spend a vast amount of my disposable on physical product, admittedly about 75% of that on old stuff, and 25% (maybe 70/30) on new....  Having said all of that, I can foresee a time when I dispose of 80% of my collection, get rid of the streaming and actually listen (properly listen) to the 20% that I really need in my life.

I occasionally listen to Spotify, but mainly as a 'try before you buy' thing. I just can't get past the pittance they pay to the artists.  For me, my listening is 95% to stuff I have bought physically and ripped, or bought and downloaded into iTunes and onto my iPod.

Streaming is handy for albums that are either unavailable in physical form or eye-wateringly expensive. Something like The Flying Burrito Brothers' self-titled record or the majority of Mason Proffit's catalogue spring to mind.

I'd prefer to have physical copies though.

Sad that this is the kind of great post that will cease to exist on Saturday.

The loss of the legacy that is this site as it exists today!

Streaming services pull you in by offering access to millions of songs. Friends tell me that you can find everything there. Well, clearly my friends don't have my tastes because there is alwys, always, always something I want to listen to that is not available on streamng services and it is not necessarily even something very obscure. Then there is the possibility that tracks or albums may be withdrawn, as has happened in the past, or that the service may disappear altogether. All of those reasons are why I need to have physical product in my sweaty hands, even if I make my own digital copies for listening. That way I always know where to find something when I want it. And yes, there is also the thrill of the chase.

The only purpose streaming serves for me is to audition the occasional album before buying (or not) or to hear things that are no longer easily available in physical form (Spilt Milk by Jellyfish being my most recent example) but if I did not get the facility through my Amazon Prime membership, I doubt I would pay for it separately.

In my view, the problem (if there is one) is not with the streaming services, it's with the user. There is absolutely nothing to stop someone researching an artist, finding an album on a streaming service and sitting down to listen to it. I do this on a regular basis and the experience is no different to listening to a CD. Of course, you can also put it on as a radio in the background, but that is a choice by the listener.

Having said that, the issue of payment to artists is a real one, and I agree with the concerns there. It's one of the reasons I have switched to Tidal (the other being the superior sound quality), although I accept that they're not exactly paying large amounts either.

I'm definitely up for that.  Did you notice anything missing from Tidal that you were used to hearing on Spotify?

Except that a lot of it just isn't there. I have just searched for albums by After The Fire (a major label act), Sneaky Feelings, The Lover Speaks (another major label act), Press Gang and Clarion, none of which are available on streaming services and that was just the first five I thought of off the top of my head.

Not really - just one album so far. And I have found one or two things that weren't on Spotify.  I'm certainly happy with the switch (I'm on the £10 a month subscription.)

Fair comment, although my point was more about the listening experience than the size of the catalogue. But you are right, there will always be gaps, just as there are huge gaps in my CD collection!

Incidentally, I've just had a look on Tidal and After the Fire, Sneaky Feelings and Press Gang are all on there (not all albums, admittedly). Having a little listen to After the Fire as I type. There's also a single track from the Lover Speaks and several bands called Clarion, although I suspect none of them are the one you mean!

That sounds identical to Spotify tbh.  

Yeah, their content is very similar.

Spotify for most of my listening and Amazon for a couple of Canadian acts, but I'll still listen to CDs in the car. For things that aren't on Spotify, or bands/acts that I want to have my cash directly it's CDs or bandcamp.

I spend a lot of money on Bandcamp - often a physical (plus a digital - and lossless) release.  It's probably the best way of getting reasonable money into the artist's hands.  Although the streaming app is absolutely awful....

Yes that's right. The only CBS era After The Fire is the Der Komissar compilation. None of the studio albums are there (though to be fair they have never had individual CD releases either, though they were anthologised by Edsel (I think) some years back). Most of the rest of what is there are archive releases from Angel Air, though the BBC set covers the CBS era and is excellent.

No early Sneaky Feelings that I have been able to find.

As you say, only a single track by The Lover Speaks and not even the most famous one.

Different Press Gang and Clarion.

I just picked these artists as examples but they are the tip of the iceberg. I just took a look at Joan Baez. Admittedly most of her stuff  is there but the first album of hers that I ever bought (Live Europe 83), after seeing her at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1984, isn't. It would jus frustrate me not to be in control of my music library by relying on streaming and not be able to find what I want.