I use Spotify a lot but have zero clue what smart shuffle is
It’s supposed to add music similar to the playlist you’re listening to randomly to your queue. I think it’s just the enhance playlist feature with a different name.
It’s real purpose is to stuff your listening experience with cheap songs so that prick can make more billions.
I think most people would rather find new music than something that’s already popular with a million listens already myself.
I don’t mind adding to the end of a shuffled playlist you’ve a set, but not inserting between songs you’ve chosen. Don’t think YTM does that yet.
Song quality is terrible. The features are lacking and rarely useful. Now they have increased the rates and take away car play. I left when I realized my top artists and songs were the same every year. Much better to buy the songs when the quality is way better and I actually own the media
Do you and I live on a different planet? I grew up when you downloaded actual poor quality music. I stream Spotify at the highest bitrate it has, and it sounds fine. I have a nice system at home.
You talk about features and whatnot, and admittedly I am a simple user. I have albums I like, I turn on album and listen through cover to cover. I throw on Smartless, because for some reason I find Jason Bateman and Will Arnett’s abuse of Sean Hughes to be endearing.
As per usual, people on Lemmy seem to make up problems, and it ruins any sort of argument against anything. Spotify’s audio quality is not the issue. The issue is obviously the artist remuneration. To create this fake argument is to dilute any worthwhile argument, but Lemmy and Reddit before it seems to take this tack wherever possible.
I have discovered numerous artists because of Spotify. Spotify has linked me to their tickets (albeit Live Nation and fuck them) and merch stores, and I’ve bought their shitty tshirts and vinyls. I would say that’s a benefit. And I like some obscure nonsense.
Is it perfect? I don’t like how Spotify has handled its personnel. I think they can make their business model related to plays a little more friendly, but holy shit, the idealism here is ridiculous. You have people demanding perfection, without recognizing the alternative is nothing.
I’m gonna sound like a fanboy, but the alternative is Tidal.
Better audio quality, better (imo) suggestions, and not wasting money of podcasts and weird AI bs.I don’t understand the whole audio quality thing. I have produced (shitty) music, been playing music my whole life, and my ears just don’t had beyond 320, 41k, I guess. I will say, when messing with samples, higher quality led to much less artifacting (practically none with flac), but when I’m just cranking tunes, the returns beyond 320 are nonexistent.
Suggestions, I’m always open to more. Spotify has been good to me, I discovered some bands and albums that have gone on to be number one in my rotation, and I like all sorts of music and am nostalgic to a fault. But more suggestions is good so I’ll accept that point.
Podcasts I can take or leave, although as I mentioned I discovered the stupid Smartless podcast because of Spotify so I need to give them a nod there.
So yeah that’s it, that’s all I got! Thanks for taking!
Well, I’m glad compressed audio is good for you. I know many people that couldn’t care less.
The person you commented on and myself have both found Spotify quality to be lacking.
I’ve found tidal, and it’s Spotify without the chuff and pays artists better. And it’s cheaper.
Maybe I can’t actually hear the difference, and a true A-B blind would show the truth, but I don’t care enough to do that. I’m enjoying music more, and I’m saving money
I don’t understand why everyone suddenly hates Al .
Because it’s everywhere and it’s being shoved into our throats.
Well his Song “Eat it” kinda has this theme. But he made many other songs with other themes.
I’ve actually been enjoying it. I’ve also had the same Spotify account since I was like 12 so they got enough data on me to give me decent recommendations
Lidarr + Jellyfin + Finamp… Need I say more?
Yes, because I have no idea what any of those things are.
Piracy and self hosting your music streams
Yes now tell us how to get that working on any device I have regardless of what network I’m connected to. Assume I’m behind a cgnat, don’t have my own domain, and know fuck all about networking.
Finally compare all that hassle to just paying a few bucks per month.
Honestly this. I’d love to maintain my own database of music, but streaming services did something right to make it so accessible.
Prices will need to hit a breaking point to scare people away, and even then they will keep using the next easiest thing (e.g. YT Music + ad block in my case).
It really just needs to get annoying enough to use. In my case, I enjoyed it for music discovery, but then its recommendation algorithm got like YouTube where one stray listen just wrecked my discover weekly playlist for a month. I have one friend who’s really into jazz, and maybe once every few months, I would click on one of his recommendations to see if he had found something that clicked for me. It got to the point where I stopped clicking on pretty much any recommendations, because Spotify would see that one song a quarter and go “Hold up,I think this guy wants nothing but atonal Yugoslavian free jazz in his playlist for the next month straight!”
In the same boat. Shit country, behind CGNAT, no money for domain. I found a cheap seedbox I use. Yeah it depends on whether it’s worth the hassle… For me, I like tinkering with software and I love the concept of owning my media and that no company has their eyes on my data, so it’s worth it. But if you just wanna lay down and watch, Netflix it is. Something always breaks when you self-host 🥲
Why is Spotify’s shuffle so abysmally awful? It’s nigh on useless
Weird. I got noone telling me to listen vinyl on a hand driven Grammophone right now
Why would you leave tempo control in tge hands of a soulless machine? #beyourownconductor
Maybe lemmy is too popular for the hipsters.
I gave up Spotify partly because they support Joe Rogan, but also because I mostly listen to classical music, and they kept shuffling in Britney Spears.
Every time I start the app up it has some Taylor Swift or other pop music in the thing where whatever I was listening to previously should be. I’ve never searched for pop music so I’m not sure why they think that’s helping.
Spotify tends to think my tastes are more indie than they are, meanwhile YouTube Music (ReVanced) tends to to think my tastes are more mainstream than they are.
I haven’t tried any other services yet, but if anyone knows of one that provides good balance of well-known and not so well-known music, and is free (and commercial free; modded/hacked apps are preferred), please let me know.
I actually think YouTube is better than most but that’s still not saying a lot. Maybe Tidal.
Don’t use Spotify. Use Tidal, Apple Music, or just pirate and support authors other ways.
No wonder deezer lacks most of my beloved artists.
What happens at the y-axis is pure magic.
Or, continue to use Spotify but use xManager on android and spicetify on pc. This will give you the premium experience (and more!) without paying a single penny.
I gave xManager a go, and while it doesn’t have ads interrupting your listening, it does still have all the Spotify pop up ads trying to get you to upgrade to premium. It’s fine when listening, but selecting what you’re listening to is still irritating.
that’s strange, I’ve never had that
My premium Spotify account has resulted in me buying tickets and merch from artists I had never heard of. What’s wrong with that?
how do you need premium for that
Because if I had to listen to ads I wouldn’t use it.
with xManager or spicetify you don’t have to listen to any ads either
Yeah, those days are generally behind me. I want something that always works and I don’t mind paying for a functioning product. I don’t think comparing an actual service with ways of essentially stealing that service is a fair comparison, but I appreciate what you’re saying.
are you implying these apps don’t always work? because I’ve had little issues with them in the past few years (except that some extensions might stop working but those are just extras so 🤷)
Deezer exists.
Wait, so we all hate, or should hate Spotify for the low support for artists, but now that I think about it, there is nothing stopping artists from putting their work in the other platforms as well, are they becoming more rich because of it and we just should go with whichever offers the best service for us?
Don’t be harsh on me, I am not defending Spotify at all, just a dumb realization while seeing this graph 😆
Can also recommend Qobuz which allegedly pays even more than tidal. And it also has real losless audio, instead of whatever Tidal is doing.
And you can even buy FLAC files from them, without DRM. Or use tools which you can find on the internet, where you can download the flac files ‘for free’ (you still need a subscription).
I switched to Tidal a few weeks ago, primarily because of lossless streaming, but also fuck Spotify for your price hikes. Not going back.
I did the same. Paying $11 a month and getting lossless has been a big plus. There were a few songs that were unavailable from my liked songs when moving to Tidal but I also had noticed several songs on my Spotify were unavailable as well too.
My only gripe so far is the Android app drains my battery more than Spotify did, even in the lowest streaming quality.
How’s the artist selection? I find a lot of stuff on Spotify that is a bit niche and I wondering if they have it. I tried searching the catalog which they say you can do but not before you sign up for their free trial which I’m not willing to
So far I’ve found everything I looked for, and a few new ones too. Their app features for lyrics and other songs you might like work great. Admittedly, I’m an old metal head who loves singing to a song at the top of the voice, out of tune of course, so I might not be skirting the kinds of niches you like.
I find there are a few niche artists/songs that arnt on tidal, but it still had a majority as well as some new options of the same genre
Imo spotify had way better playlists (a lot of specific user created ones are great) but u can just transfer the playlist to tidal with a site
I was using tidal and spotify for a bit, as tidal works with my dj software, but they just added a new pay teir for using it for those softwares :/
Overall i still used spotify more than tidal but i didn’t have a bad time on tidal
Yep after first releases and concerts, the only people benefitting from the music are the distributors who deserve nothing for the effort the artist put in.
The distributors are the only people doing any work and providing a service after the artist walks out of the recording studio.
They are not the talent providing the work. They are skimming off talent. They are riding on someone else’s talent. They are the very definition of parasites. They would have no job if there were no talent. Meanwhile the talent can find other ways to sell their work.
The “talent” doesn’t have a platform without them. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. The "talent would be waiting tables and playing for peanuts in bars without the industry professionals.
What value do “industry professionals” add in 2024?
Not OP, but I work in the industry, mostly in the live production side. Here’s a taste of behind-the-scenes stuff that artists often rely on others to handle after they leave the recording studio:
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Booking shows, radio and television appearances, and other events
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Advancing those events with venue staff
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Organizing transportation, lodging, and food for tour
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Acquiring and managing all of the gear for tour
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Getting the artists from show to show while protecting them from themselves and others
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Marketing for shows and new releases
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Mixing the material the artist just recorded in the studio
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Mastering the music the mix engineer put together from that recorded material into a dozen different formats, so you can listen on vinyl, Deezer, YouTube, Spotify, etc.
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Mixing the front-of-house (what the audience hears) and mixing the monitors (what the artist hears) for the live show
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Making sure all the folks involved with the above are booked
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Paying all the folks they booked to make the above happen
I’m not saying the entertainment biz isn’t fucked up and that artists don’t deserve a bigger slice of the pie, but a lot of artists rely on other folks to handle this stuff for them so they have the space to live their lives, create new music, and give audiences a show worth attending.
Certainly, I depend on people more creative and musically talented than me, but they also depend on me and my technically-proficient and business-savvy peers to translate their creativity into something you can access and enjoy.
Thanks for a great reply. I totally see the need for recording engineers (live and mechanical) and related jobs.
Can you compare the industry now to 10 years ago. What jobs have disappeared? The music press seems much less relevant. Does the A&R executive still exist? Etc.
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I’m loving tidal. Been a few months now.
I’m finding so much more awesome music now. Spotify seemed to get stuck in suggestions where I went “yeh, I guess that’s kinda similar, but that’s not actually what I like about those artists”.
Fuck Spotify. You’re better off - in every way - pirating and buying one album a year
Buying an album every month and ripping it for mobile is literally cheaper than Spoofy. No pirating required and there’s a real chance the artist might get a share!
Edit: I do mean a CD, or vinyl if that tickles your fancy.Thank you. I was trying to make it seem super low effort. I still have all my CDs but pretty much just buy vinyl and FLAC these days.
That implies it’s even goddamn possible to get music files. It’s a lot harder than I expected if they don’t have bandcamp. I suspect region also fucks with it.
The last album I bought was slim shady in like 2001. I don’t even have anything that plays CDs anymore.
So? Buy a digital album. There’s plenty of ways, including, but not limited to, bandcamp.
Edit: Also, I never said ‘CDs’
Oh, it’s Spoofy.
Alternative:
Your whole queue is gone and I’ll just stop playing after this song
My queue disappearing is my number one issue with Spotify. It happens at the most inconvenient time, after I have spent ages getting it all together. I usually give up after that.
I swear they haven’t added a single fucking feature that is worth anything. Every single thing they do makes their product worse.
I use tidal, and the only thing I miss from Spotify is the ability to transfer the music I’m listening to the PC or smartphone
I’m still bewildered by them changing the “Artists” tab in “Your Library” to show artists you follow (for event notifications) rather than just showing alphabetically, the artists in your library.
Its made the saved library useless for me. Once you have so much music it just becomes ridiculous to group them by album rather than artist. It feels like such an obvious thing that that is how the function should work but no, they insist on trying to make their music streaming service into some kind of social media-music streaming hybrid. Idiots.
I have many friends that complain about these things, that noticed the exact same pattern as you.
And yet, every last single time I’ve ask them “Have you looked into using a different service? Maybe try one?” they mumble out a noncommittal response and never do.
The question is whether it bothers someone enough to switch, and I cant really say thats the case for me. Because copying the playlists over and the additional price increase (losing the family plan) are too annoying tbh.
This is it for me. I’m on a family plan so I don’t pay for premium and I’ve over 300 songs in a favourite playlist plus probably 100 odd albums saved. That’s a lot for me to try and transfer over.
I’ve tried amazon music google music and Spotify over the years. Spotify had by far the best library for me. The others were missing tonnes of incredibly big bands albums.
It’s because the things they don’t like aren’t big enough to switch and get new playlists etc.
I once got a message from spotify saying congratulations, your musical taste is unique, you haven’t liked a single song we have recommended. They haven’t stopped trying though.
Also, they’ll probably kill the Car Thing permanently soon. Another bad move.
I stopped paying for and using spotify when they a. renewed their contract with Joe Rogan b. changed their music payment policy so that if you aren’t trending, you make no money.
Fuck Spotify.
if you aren’t trending, you make no money
What now?
No payment for sub-1000 streams/year
Seems low tbh
To be fair, that equates to just above 3 USD per year if the numbers from the other post are correct.
Yeah, and although greedy, maybe not enough to ruffle feathers over.
In total per artist or per album or song or what?
