Episode 6: Music

‘Oh, you don’t have Spotify Premium?’

Streaming music totally sucks. Seriously. I’m not just being contrarian. Just give me five minutes to explain it. I think you may be dissatisfied with it too.

I used to love Spotify. I was a paid customer from age 17 through to 27. Now that’s brand loyalty. 10 years, approx ~£1200 spent on the subscription.

The promise: stream any song you want. Whenever. Download them for offline. Make playlists. Share them with friends. Awesome. What’s to hate?

Part 1: Instant gratification kills EVERYTHING

The problem with Spotify is it cheapens the experience of listening to music.

Music for me, after all these years, just became back-ground noise. Music was what I listened to on the tube. Whatever catchy beat to distract me from just how shit the public transport was or how long a workout was. Music was what I listened to when running. Distracting me from not enjoying the situation. Distraction. Not pleasure. But I could listen to whatever I wanted, whenever.

Result? Boredom.

Bored of almost any genre. Boredom. So much boredom. In the end I just listened to nothing. I spent a lot of time on the tube with earphones in my ears but nothing playing. Bit mental. Have you ever done this?

The thing is, we kinda need to parent ourselves a little. If you get everything you want immediately then it cheapens the experience of it to nothing. You no longer want it. It’s empty. Devoid. A metric to be consumed. Spotify Wrapped is actually really, really shallow when you think about it. Little pats on the back for streaming something the most.

The confrontation I had with myself on this note was, ‘if you really like that artist, why don’t you buy their work?’

(This isn’t a blog on how little Spotify pays artists – more here (fuck all). Nor how evil it’s owner/founder is, investing in AI weapons – more here)

On a similar note, streaming music totally killed buying people as a music as a gift. Buying someone a newly released album from their favourite artist, or an all-time classic, used to be a staple for Christmas and birthdays. Now it’s dead. Let’s bring that back.

Likewise, the social aspect of music has been heavily hurt. No longer do we share albums with friends, go to record stores together or wait in line together for new albums. All these social interactions lost.

Part 2: The economics also don’t add up

Spotify was costing me about £7-11 per month. Over the ~10 years I had it, that’s £1200.

My housemate says that’s great value. But if I ask myself, is it really?

The answer is probably not. If I want to listen to a specific song, I can stream it for free on YouTube. For musicians I like, I can buy their albums. New ones cost about £10. Second hand is cheaper (3 for £5 kinda vibe at charity shops). But don’t forget I can also borrow any CD’s people have and just rip the album and have it forever (hello dusty collections in attics).

I think I will average a spend of far less than £10 a month over the long term (approx 1-2 albums a month). So I think through time, this is a more economical solution vs renting forever (and even only buying some new albums, I’d wager more money goes to the artists).

Part 3: The Solution

I have not moved completely away from streaming. It has a role for fun back-ground music. I put on entertaining DJ sets from small YouTubers when I’m working. This is great for exploring and finding new tracks/ genres. Because we can’t buy every album that piques our interest.

So what to do?

– You can buy a USB DVD-RW drive which you can use for DVDs and CDs. If you have an Apple computer, you have the option to rip the CD on Apple Music as soon as you put the disc in. The audio files are then yours and you can transfer them anywhere.
– You can transfer them to your phone and use an app like Plex or Retro Player to play them (this app will also download the album art). You can even use Spotify to play local files ironically.
– If you want to get fancy, Plex’s suite of software allows you to set up a media server with your home computer and ‘stream’ your own files to any device. I prefer the low-tech solution of just transferring them though.

Why CDs over Vinyls?

Imma be honest. I think the recent popularity of vinyls is cool n’all. But let’s be honest, it’s just conspicuous consumption for people to show off that they are cool + they are super fun to put in, watch them spin, and then listen.

But they aren’t sustainable economically considering their price. They also have a hefty environmental footprint. And they take up loads of space. And you can’t rip them to MP3s. CD’s are better because you can put them in a player (admittedly doesn’t feel the same) but also have the music on all your devices via the digital copies. They cost way cheaper, you still get the cool albums and the posters/lyric sheets. You still can buy them in-store and share them.

CD’s are just better in every aspect bar aesthetics. Sorry soft-boys.

Now admittedly, the change away from Spotify is recent. And I’ll admit, breaking up with Spotify was HARD and took multiple attempts. So we will see if it sticks.

Tools and Tips
1) Take the plunge. Cancel Spotify Premium.
2) Buy a USB DVD-RW drive. Available on eBay for cheap.
3) Use any available player to play your music (I use VLC on my Macbook and ‘Retro Music Player’ on my phone)
4) Ask around for CD’s, your family might have some
5) Use a cloud drive (Google Drive, Proton Drive) as your default ‘folder’ for Music on your computer. When you rip CD’s it will go straight there and:
6) This will allow you to sync across devices or be able to download the folder straight to your device (you can always transfer manually)