Music Streaming Services

[Samsara]

I have Sirius/XM in the car, but I rarely use it.

I've wanted to try Spotify, but I just keep defaulting to my own rips of my CDs.

[lordxizor]

I've been using Google Play for years. I went with that one back then because it allowed the most downloading of their tracks onto your phone. The other services had pretty severe limits at that time. Not sure if that's still the case or not, but I've stuck with it. I also get YouTube ad-free which is almost worth the $10 a month all on its own.

[The Walrus]

There's also something to be said for the Bandcamp app on phones. I rarely ever use it, but, still, there are some albums I buy and download through bandcamp and it's awesome to know that I still paid for that music and those copies are mine and I can download the MP3s directly to one of my computers if I feel the need to.

[dparrott]

I had GPM for years, I would upload purchased music and rip CD's to it all for free.  Now it's going away.  I just downloaded my whole library (6000+ songs) because I don't trust YouTube Music, and I don't want to listen to ads when playing an album.  For now I'll just transfer songs to my phone until I can find another way to stream the mp3's.

[The Walrus]

I think this is just for premium users but Spotify lets you sync your personal library with your digital. So I have my entire collection at my disposal

[Cool Chris]

But at least I don't have to worry about my music disappearing if a service goes away, or worse yet, if my portable 2TB HDD craps out on me (most of which is filled with music anyway).

Do you (asking everyone, really) have all that music backed up somewhere? I am so paranoid I have all my music (not nearly as much as most of you) on my hard drive, a SD card in my phone, and on two flash drives.

I think this is just for premium users but Spotify lets you sync your personal library with your digital. So I have my entire collection at my disposal

Unless your music is on your hard drive, I would consider it at their disposal, not yours.

[Phoenix87x]

I use spotify all day long at work. Sure, it doesn't have absolutely everything on there, but the selection is damn good otherwise.

I would have fucking killed to have spotify back in the late 80's/early 90's when I was growing up. Sitting there with a handful of cassette tapes 

Then sitting there with a couple cd's      The thought of listening to pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want for free... I would have passed out as a kid.

[The Walrus]

But at least I don't have to worry about my music disappearing if a service goes away, or worse yet, if my portable 2TB HDD craps out on me (most of which is filled with music anyway).

Do you (asking everyone, really) have all that music backed up somewhere? I am so paranoid I have all my music (not nearly as much as most of you) on my hard drive, a SD card in my phone, and on two flash drives.

I think this is just for premium users but Spotify lets you sync your personal library with your digital. So I have my entire collection at my disposal

Unless your music is on your hard drive, I would consider it at their disposal, not yours.

Huh? That's how it's synced. I sync it via my computer... then I can listen on my phone. That's why I said personal library. Yes the digital files are obviously theirs but my own mp3s will never go anywhere

[Cool Chris]

A-ha, I read your post wrong. "sync your personal library with your digital" confused me. Carry on.

[Volante99]

I use Spotify- all day at work, in the car, at the gym (when that used to be a thing).

It's by far the best, most useful $9.99/month I can spend.

[ProfessorPeart]

But at least I don't have to worry about my music disappearing if a service goes away, or worse yet, if my portable 2TB HDD craps out on me (most of which is filled with music anyway).

Do you (asking everyone, really) have all that music backed up somewhere? I am so paranoid I have all my music (not nearly as much as most of you) on my hard drive, a SD card in my phone, and on two flash drives.

I have my library synced across 3 separate hard drives. An internal secondary drive in my main PC, a full size external USB drive and a smaller portable USB drive. Not to mention my iPod got upgraded with a 256 GB flash card instead of a disk drive. I put so much work into this, I make darn sure I am covered as best as I can be.

[dparrott]

Do you (asking everyone, really) have all that music backed up somewhere? I am so paranoid I have all my music (not nearly as much as most of you) on my hard drive, a SD card in my phone, and on two flash drives.

Yea I'm paranoid too because I have some rare music.  I was looking at getting a 128GB USB stick but having multiples might be better. 

[Ben_Jamin]

There's also something to be said for the Bandcamp app on phones. I rarely ever use it, but, still, there are some albums I buy and download through bandcamp and it's awesome to know that I still paid for that music and those copies are mine and I can download the MP3s directly to one of my computers if I feel the need to.

I love Bandcamp for that reason, and they'll sometimes offer to sell the physical CD straight from them, with an option to pay more if you feel like they deserve more.

[dparrott]

I found this recently:
https://emby.media/

Store the music on a desktop/laptop and stream it to the device.  It has a lot of the same features as Google Play Music had.  It's great.

[Ben_Jamin]

I found this recently:
https://emby.media/

Store the music on a desktop/laptop and stream it to the device.  It has a lot of the same features as Google Play Music had.  It's great.

I found out the hard way these won't work if you're on a hotspot. Which I am stuck with at the moment.

[Peter Mc]

Used to rip cds to iTunes and then into an iPod which subsequently became my iPhone. I only signed up to Apple Music when Tool's Fear Innoculum album came out.  I'd had to order the album from Canadian amazon (I'm in the U.K.), it said it would take over a month to arrive and I didn't want to wait that long.  I also didn't really want to shell out for the album on iTunes after spending a fortune on the cd.  I then remembered they had a 3 month free trial for Apple Music so I signed up so I could hear the album. 

Once I started using it, it was just so much easier to download stuff from Apple Music than spend hours ripping cds over.  It's just convenient and easy to use and you can listen to anything to try it out before buying.  I still buy cds though for anything that I like, Apple Music is just for convenience and portability.  Also means that when I do order a cd, I don't have to worry about how long it will take to arrive as I can hear the album straight away on Apple Music.

[kirksnosehair]

About 5 years ago I made the switch to streaming for the bulk of my casual listening.  It just makes financial sense for me as a consumer.  We pay $14.99/month for the household and me, my mother and my wife can stream anything Amazon Music Unlimited has streaming and it's very rare that I go looking for an album and can't find it.  On those rare occasions I will seek out that artist and see if I can buy their music directly from them.  There are still about ~25 (give/take a few) bands whose albums I will always purchase a physical copy -preferably directly from the artists because that's usually the best for them financially-but as more and more of those bands make their albums available on the streaming services I just see it as a convenience.


I still have over 3000 CDs I've purchased in the last 20 or so years, all of which I've ripped to my phone, so I will often go weeks at a time without streaming at all, depending on what I'm listening to.  But I admit that I like it when a new album drops (like Neal Morse's new album, which is -shockingly!- streaming on Amazon.com.  It's the first time I didn't pre-order a Neal album because I knew he was releasing it on Amazon.  I already listened to it once this morning at the gym.  And I just ordered the CD from Radiant - maybe I'll have it in time for Christmas 

[Silent Man]

I wasn't really ready to stream music - I like to have the CDs with inlays and all, sitting on the shelf - but my mobile services provider here in Denmark offered a streaming service as part of the deal, and for a fair price. It's not on the list above, but I guess they made a deal with one of the bigger streaming services, they really have a huge amount of music. They got the new album with JP on the release date f.ex. Also all of Haken's albums, but Henshall's The Cocoon is not there - I guess it's just to special (or Henshall doesn't like it to be on streaming services). With the amount of progressive albums coming out these days, I find it very convinient to 'test' the music before I make the decision to buy - because I still want the very best ones on my shelf, and still want to play them in CD quality on my stereo. I know there are services who offer better quality recordings, actually better than CD, but then we're talking about a higher price which I'm not ready to pay...

[The Walrus]

I'll be honest, I can't even decide what albums to spend my money on. So far I've heard 180-something albums released in 2020 and I would love to buy at least 40 or 50 of them but it's just not in the cards right now.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: you can discover more music than you'll ever have time to listen to in a lifetime, but you'll have to spread that money awfully thin across all the music you love.

[SwedishGoose]

I selected Spotify as that is the only one I use.

Using it mainly to try out new music though. Also since buying a Samsung Galaxy Watch that has Spotify and eSim I use it when running so I don't have to carry my phone with me.

Mostly though I buy CDs and some downloads. I listen mostly to my music ripped to my phone.

[Dublagent66]

I've used Pandora before and the sound quality isn't that great.  Been using YouTube Music the last few months and I love it.  I haven't tried anything else so, can't comment on those.

[Lowdz]

Google Play is ending soon so I will lose the ability to stream my music. I haven't found anything that works as well.
I'm currently trying Apple Music with a three month free trial but it's not great. I matched my music but half the tracks don't work, saying they haven't been authorised but they have. The streaming side is only ok and the the browser player buffers all the time on my work computer.

YouTube music won't upload my songs because apparently my account is not the main one.

Google play just (mostly) worked for what I want.
I'm not happy.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Google Play is ending soon so I will lose the ability to stream my music. I haven't found anything that works as well.
I'm currently trying Apple Music with a three month free trial but it's not great. I matched my music but half the tracks don't work, saying they haven't been authorised but they have. The streaming side is only ok and the the browser player buffers all the time on my work computer.

YouTube music won't upload my songs because apparently my account is not the main one.

Google play just (mostly) worked for what I want.
I'm not happy.

I was in the same boat. I couldn't find a good replacement and Youtube Music has to be a joke. The interface is absolute trash. So is integration between my uploaded library and streaming library. What the hell were they thinking?

I ended up going with Plex with their Tidal integration. So far I love it way more than I did Google Play Music. The only downside is you have to leave whatever you are using as a music server up and running whenever you want to stream from it. Which isn't a problem for me because I bought a NAS drive with 8tb of storage.

Worth checking into if you want something you can upload your own music to and has a great interface with lots of features. Plus it's unlikely Plex will be going anywhere any time soon.

[jjrock88]

Cd's, Sirius XM radio in the car and on the phone, iTunes, IPod Touch (They should update and bring back the classic). And then just random playing on YouTube. I've never signed up for a streaming service

[hefdaddy42]

Too much good music out there for me NOT to stream, because I am never going to buy all of those CDs, nor do I want to store them.

I use Spotify.  I am able to find almost anything I want to listen to there.

I still buy some physical CDs, but the number is WAY down.

[ErHaO]

I think Spotify is amazing from a consumer perspective. Their app is well developed and the library is huge. I like how artists can have their own recommendations and playlists (featuring songs from other artists) on their page. As a recent example, I found a great French folk metal abum because Alestorm promoted it on the top of their page. And then there is stuff like podcasts as well, recently listened to Steven Wilson and Bowess. Furthermore, some songs also have stories linked to it, as told by the artists (song meanings, for example). These type of additional elements are becoming more frequent on artist pages and enhance the experience for me.

[MinistroRaven]

Taken from TIDAL Facebook page:

At TIDAL, we're working to create a place that is better for artists and their fans. Because we love music. And the artists who create it. And the fans who crave it.

Today we're sharing progress on some new stuff: TIDAL Free, $10 HiFi, Direct Artist Payouts, and Fan-Centered Royalties.

New tiers: Free, HiFi, and HiFi Plus
TIDAL now has three listening options for U.S. fans to choose from, each with access to the same catalog of 80+ million songs & videos. These new tiers are an important step allowing us to continue building products that empower both artists and fans.

New: TIDAL Free
We believe in the value of music. To remain competitive — and continue connecting artists and fans — we're introducing a free tier. Fans can now try TIDAL at no cost, with access to our entire music catalog and playlists. All with limited interruptions.

New: $10 TIDAL HiFi
Starting today, everyone can access HiFi sound quality at our $10 tier — which we're calling HiFi to make it easy. Today's loyal TIDAL listeners at this tier will have their audio quality upgraded and will see a new activity feed so they can track their streaming.

New: TIDAL HiFi Plus
Fans at TIDAL's HiFi Plus tier will have access to Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) audio and two completely new benefits for artists: Fan-Centered Royalties and Direct Artist Payouts. HiFi Plus listeners will also get access to exclusive content and even features before the rest of TIDAL's listeners.

New: Direct Artist Payouts
This innovative program will give artists access to another payment stream by allocating 10% of monthly subscriptions at the HiFi Plus tier to each listener's most streamed artist. Direct Artist Payouts will allow artists to benefit directly from their biggest fans on TIDAL, and a new activity feed will show fans exactly where their money goes.

New: Fan-Centered Royalties
With TIDAL HiFi Plus, artists will see a significantly higher per-play-rate than the standard rate of other streaming services (you know the ones). Fan-Centered Royalties will not be aggregated. Instead, royalties will go to the artists that TIDAL users actually stream, so fans can directly support the artists they love. (What a concept, right?) Fans will start to see their streams add up in their activity feed in January 2022. 

We're just getting started, and we'll continue to share updates as we build new products and Read more on TIDAL Magazine: https://tidal.com/magazine/article/not-just-better-different/

I think this is good for artists. What you think.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Music streaming is going the way of TV/film streaming.  Your favorites will be (and already are to an extent) spread across a dozen+ different platforms, some still won't be on any of them, some will be, but will randomly disappear for awhile, possibly not to return.  Even band's discographies will be broken up across different ones depending upon which label has the rights and who pays for the licensing.  I mostly use Spotify and Youtube, but I'm also glad I have a truckload of physical CDs, vinyl, and digital files so the internet could go down permanently and I still have more old stuff already than I'll ever fully be able to absorb. 

[soupytwist]

I use Amazon, simply because as I have Prime I get a small discount that makes it cheaper than Spotify.