Re/code:
It took me a while to get into Internet-based “streaming” music services. But I’ve finally warmed up to the idea that music files don’t have to be something that I physically possess.
And streaming music services have finally gotten to the point where they offer enough value to offset the occasional interruptions in play or the intrusive ads.
I’ve been exploring some of the lesser-known features of streaming music services like Pandora, Spotify, iTunes Radio and Beats Music. (Beats, of course, may soon be acquired by Apple for $3.2 billion.) There’s a handful of others out there, including Rdio, Songza, Google Play Music and iHeartRadio, but the first four I mentioned are the ones I focused on for this column.
Do you use streaming music services? Which ones? What do you like/dislike about them?
This might sound odd, but the iTunes in the Cloud 25,000 song limit sent me to Spotify. I had 34,000 mp3’s, so I couldn’t use iTunes in the Cloud, even though I wanted to.
Spotify is great. WAY more songs than I ever had, all of the new CD’s are instantly available and all for the cost of 1 CD a month. Can’t beat that. Just wish they had more rare/older stuff or an easy way to request older stuff so I didn’t have to keep my mp3’s around anymore.
I use playlists to organize stuff I want to hear and the radio stations you can make are pretty good, but I kind of prefer the iTunes Music radio stations.
This might be an age thing, but I will stick with “owning” stuff. I like to listen to albums back to back and I do favor other means to discover music: Songs I like in films, music I like in bars, artists referred to by other artists… The idea of some marketing machinery slowly manipulating me by feeding me stuff I don’t want until I know nothing better scares me. I want my money to go to the artists who deserve it, not some prorated intransparent voodoo-fudge that compensates mainly those with mass appeal.
And, without trying to create a conspiracy theory, silencing some voices and burying some ideas works a lot easier if you can just shut them off centrally. While only a few governments censor stuff right now, we do not know what the future brings. Will tea party fascists turn off people like Julian Cope or Frank Zappa once they can? I won’t wait for it, my music stays with me.
I intensely dislike the fact that studios and artists make little to no money from streaming services compared to purchases.
Purchases may be declining but why try and increase use of a service which brings in even less revenue unless you plan to dramatically increase the cost to use the service once everyone is using your service like Amazon …
Wait. What?
Makes no sense.
plural of CD is CDs
plural of mp3 is mp3s
apostrophes are for possession and contractions
I’ve used Rdio full time for a year or so. I tried Spotify for a month recently, but really missed Rdio’s personalized radio stations and social integration.
For me the social integration is much more about seeing what my friends are listening to, not about broadcasting what I’ve played. (My friends have always been a good source of new music.) I found that much simpler in Rdio than Spotify.
The reason I gave Spotify a shot was that I always assumed their catalog was better than Rdio’s. That turned out not to be true in my case. I found that both services have holes in their catalog, they’re just in different places.