Streaming Services - Good, or Glut?

[Anderton]

Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, Idagio, BBC Sounds...and that's not all of them.

 

Do you listen to any of these?

If you don't, why not?

Do you prefer a particular streaming service?

Will Spotify or Apple Music gobble up the smaller ones (Apple Music bought Primephonic in late August)?

 

Apple Music has 75 million tracks, Spotify has 70 million. Does this represent a glut that devalues music?

[KuruPrionz]

In my opinion, the devaluation of music really took off back when stereo cassette decks became widely available.

At that point, music consumers lost all respect for the value of the art itself and began freely passing albums around.

Plus, it sounded like shit.

 

The rest is evolutionary, CD burners, mp3 files, a new standard of "fidelity" and all that fun stuff.

 

There is a service that advertises in the back of Tape Op magazine called DistroKid. They charge a flat fee of $19.95 annually to get your unlimited uploads out to Apple Music, TikTok, Spotify, Instagram, Pandora and others.

The ad states "Keep 100% of your royalties", as far as I know 100% of $7.67 is still $7.67 so that's nice and all that you might be able to pay for your triple latte at Starbucks once a year or so.

[GovernorSilver]

I'll probably get the Apple One bundle which includes Apple Music, Apple Plus (TV) and Apple Arcade.

 

I want to watch Foundation and Ted Lasso which is on Apple Plus.

 

I think it might be worth the convenience to access the entire content of Apple Music instead of dropping 99 cents here and there for each song that I find that I like.

 

Oh yeah, Bandcamp. They seem to be very artist supportive and they do Bandcamp Fridays where Bandcamp foregoes their own fees so that 100% of sales go to the artist - no cut for Bandcamp the company at all.

[RABid]

I do Apple One family plan with my sister. She likes the magazines. I'm happier with the music every year. They have expanded to the point that I can usually find anything I want to listen to. The problem is remembering what I like and who sings what. I was building a Halloween play list and could not remember the title or artist of a song I wanted to add. A song that I have somewhere in my boxes of stored CD's. Got on my old computer and spent an hour going through stored folders and lists of ripped CD's until I finally found it. Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman - Dirty Epic. Once I found it I downloaded a couple Underworld albums to my phone. That is the BIGGEST issue with a service that has 7 million plus songs. It is too easy to forget old favorites. My old computer with all the ripped music had 20 years of ripped music AND 20 years of created play lists. Plus all my favorites were rated. Starting over with a new service took all that away.

[Anderton]

In my opinion, the devaluation of music really took off back when stereo cassette decks became widely available. At that point, music consumers lost all respect for the value of the art itself and began freely passing albums around.

 

It's ironic that cassettes were never intended for music, but for dictation. It's also ironic that consumers felt justified in ripping off music because "all those musicians" were millionaires, which of course they weren't.

 

I have to admit I hardly ever listen to any streaming service. My time is so limited due to working so much, and I can't have music in the background while I work because it pulls my attention away. So if I have leisure time for listening to music, I'd rather spend that time making my own music than listening to someone else's.

 

My best shot at listening to streaming services is while I'm in the car, but mine is from 2000, so there's no Bluetooth, aux in, USB, etc. I'd have to stream from my phone and use something like an iLoud...hmmm, maybe that's the ticket. If it's in a car, it's probably not worth subscribing to a higher-fidelity tier, so a free version would do the job. Sounds like Spotify is the main option these days.

[Anderton]

There is a service that advertises in the back of Tape Op magazine called DistroKid. They charge a flat fee of $19.95 annually to get your unlimited uploads out to Apple Music, TikTok, Spotify, Instagram, Pandora and others.

The ad states "Keep 100% of your royalties", as far as I know 100% of $7.67 is still $7.67 so that's nice and all that you might be able to pay for your triple latte at Starbucks once a year or so.

 

I'll have to check it out. I did have my "Simplicity" album distributed by CD Baby as an experiment, and it did appear on the major streaming services. However, I never got any money from it, so I never pursued it further with other albums. (Although it was kind of cool to be at a friend's house, say "play Craig Anderton music," and both Simplicity and Forward Motion popped up.)

 

Streaming is no different from the old record label model - a few extremely popular artists make most of the money, because they're extremely popular. I'm content with my couple thousand streams per album on YouTube, the music is available for the people who want to hear it.

[KuruPrionz]

 

I have to admit I hardly ever listen to any streaming service. My time is so limited due to working so much, and I can't have music in the background while I work because it pulls my attention away. So if I have leisure time for listening to music, I'd rather spend that time making my own music than listening to someone else's.

 

If you change "hardly ever" to "never", that's me. I have a CD in the player that I started to listen to about 2 weeks ago. I think I am part way through the second song, it could be a month before I get any farther.

I'd rather pick up a guitar!

[dmitch57]

I almost never listen to any of them. Once in a while I use Spotify to do a quick sampling of something someone recommends. But if I like it, I buy it. The model of "renting music" - even if the catalog is as vast as Spotify's - doesn't sit well with me for two reasons. One, you never know when some license deal is going to expire and that album you really like is suddenly gone from the streaming service(s) you use. I prefer it this way: I buy a copy and I own it forever, or at least as long as I can play that media format. Which in the case of FLAC or AAC, I figure is going to be for the rest of my life.

 

The second reason I avoid the streaming services is their business model, specifically the royalty distribution. This probably isn't the place to go into this in detail; let's just say I object to the deal that artists get these days with regards to streaming royalties.

 

BTW by "buy it" I mean, I mean one of these three: high res FLAC download, CD, or iTunes download. Buy it, own it forever. And the artist actually gets a meaningful cut of what I just spent.

[dmitch57]

 

Streaming is no different from the old record label model - a few extremely popular artists make most of the money, because they're extremely popular.

 

I think streaming is a bit worse than the old-school model for most artists.

 

With records, suppose I buy 10 Wilco records, and no other records, this month. Wilco gets a fixed cut of those ten records I bought, and no other artists get any royalties from the money I spent on music this month. That seems fair-ish to me.

 

But with streaming, if I spend $15 on Spotify this month, and only listen to Wilco on Spotify, the vast majority of the royalty portion of my $15 monthly fee goes to other artists that I never streamed. If Joe Rockstar had 10% of all the Spotify streams this month, then 10% of the royalties from my monthly fee go to Joe Rockstar. Even if I never streamed his stuff. I don't think that is fair at all.

 

If Spotify divvied up the royalty portion of my $15 monthly fee according to who I actually streamed, that would be fair. They certainly could do so. They don't.

[Notes_Norton]

I refrained from buying cassettes, but instead, recorded my LPs on cassette, so I could play them in my vehicle.

 

I'm not a fan of streaming services. I don't want to rent the music, I'd rather own it.

 

I admit that I don't listen to music as much as I used to. Between learning new songs for our duo, the fact that gigging is coming back, working on 2 new style e-disks and 5 new fake e-disks for Band-in-a-Box, and spending quality time with my wife, there isn't a lot of time for listening.

 

I can find new music on sites like UTube, and if I like it enough, buy the CD or buy the download. That way I can listen whenever I want and I don't have to pay a monthly fee.

 

1.5 years of unexpected unemployment due to COVID, confirmed that the fewer monthly payments I have, the better off I am. I can spend money when I have it, and don't have to spend it when I don't have much money.

 

Notes â«

[BMD]

I don't want to rent the music, I'd rather own it.

 

This

[RABid]

I would also rather own, along with movies. But, the quality of CD's and DVD's have bottomed out. I can hardly buy a season of a show or a multi disk set of CD's without at least one being bad. The main culprit is the coating is now so thin that you can see through the disks. If I buy a complete series of a favorite TV show I don't want to watch it all within the 30 day guarantee period, but if you don't chances are you will find a bad disk and will not be able to return it.

[spokenward]

I would also rather own, along with movies. But, the quality of CD's and DVD's have bottomed out. I can hardly buy a season of a show or a multi disk set of CD's without at least one being bad. The main culprit is the coating is now so thin that you can see through the disks. If I buy a complete series of a favorite TV show I don't want to watch it all within the 30 day guarantee period, but if you don't chances are you will find a bad disk and will not be able to return it.

 

I am not questioning this, but I haven't experienced this or heard this complaint before. I will say that there has been an extraordinary consolidation in disc manufacturing that has tracked the rise of streaming services. If you don't need to put a lot of discs into retail at the same time you don't need as many plants. Even companies that acquired the castoff plants of labels have been acquired. It is a shrinking business.

[Notes_Norton]

Yes CDs are a shrinking business, which is why I've had to purchase some downloads. I'd rather own a CD, but I can still burn one.

 

I can keep backup copies of the CDs and the Downloads and still own the music as much as I ever did.

 

I haven't lost a CD yet, I've always been able to back up when they started going flaky. And if I do lose one, it'll happen. I've lost LPs due to accident, so it isn't anything unprecedented, and more than likely I can replace it with another CD or a download.

 

There is nothing wrong with streaming, it's just not for me.

 

Notes â«

[Anderton]

I would also rather own, along with movies. But, the quality of CD's and DVD's have bottomed out. I can hardly buy a season of a show or a multi disk set of CD's without at least one being bad. The main culprit is the coating is now so thin that you can see through the disks. If I buy a complete series of a favorite TV show I don't want to watch it all within the 30 day guarantee period, but if you don't chances are you will find a bad disk and will not be able to return it.

 

I'm still a big fan of Blu-Ray. It's light years ahead of DVDs, even though it looks similar.

[Greg Mein]

 

I have to admit I hardly ever listen to any streaming service. My time is so limited due to working so much, and I can't have music in the background while I work because it pulls my attention away. So if I have leisure time for listening to music, I'd rather spend that time making my own music than listening to someone else's.

 

This is the same feeling I've always had, I don't even miss Sirius as much as I thought I might.

[KuruPrionz]

 

I have to admit I hardly ever listen to any streaming service. My time is so limited due to working so much, and I can't have music in the background while I work because it pulls my attention away. So if I have leisure time for listening to music, I'd rather spend that time making my own music than listening to someone else's.

 

This is the same feeling I've always had, I don't even miss Sirius as much as I thought I might.

 

Well, that is Craig's quote, not mine. I do feel much the same though, it's all good...

[Notes_Norton]

<...snip...>

I'm still a big fan of Blu-Ray. It's light years ahead of DVDs, even though it looks similar.

I agree.

 

I liked SACD too, but the public didn't want to pay for better tone.

 

Notes â«

[Anderton]

SACD does sound better, and I'm not a cork-sniffing kind of audio guy. If they'd been priced the same as CDs, they probably would have met a kinder fate.

[Notes_Norton]

SACD does sound better, and I'm not a cork-sniffing kind of audio guy. If they'd been priced the same as CDs, they probably would have met a kinder fate.

It would at least have given them a chance. I don't know of many in the general public would have upgraded their older CD collection, but at least if it were priced the same, it would have been there for new sales.

 

But as we all know, the Public was happy with 45RPM records, 8 tracks, cassettes, and low-res mp3s. To us tone is important, to the majority, they just want to hear the songs, and expression is the most important thing.

 

Notes â«

[Joe Muscara]

I will often buy a CD from a local-ish or small artist, get them to sign it, and then put it on the shelf and stream it. They get paid "twice" theoretically.

 

But generally, I don't need more stuff, and that includes CDs, cassettes, and vinyl. We moved this summer, and the guy who packed our CDs was grabbing them by the handful and putting them in the boxes. I don't know how he did it, but I was constantly finding one or two CDs that were completely out of order. I had to put them all on the floor and re-sort them. But I did, and they're out there for everyone to see and play if they want.

 

I love Apple Music, which I was paying for before we got Apple One Premier. Nearly everything I've owned or wanted to listen to is in my pocket, which means it's in my car or on my run with me. If I feel like digging into an artist I've wanted to learn about but never got around to or didn't know which album to buy first, I can say, "play Tommy Flanagan essentials playlist" and hear a bunch of his stuff. I can dig deeper with the Next Steps playlist, or Deep Cuts playlist. (Admittedly, not all artists have these playlists set up for them.)

 

I'd love to collect some of these rerelease box sets artists like the Stones are shipping, but it would spend more time on the shelf than in my gaze. Mick's getting my money in other ways.

 

Do I wish artists and songwriters were making more money from their recordings? You bet I do. Even though it's not much, I believe Apple Music pays more than Spotify and YT, and unlike Ek, Apple doesn't act like they're doing artists a favor by "exposing" them. I don't know what the right number to pay per stream is. But I hope it gets figured out so people can make a living like they used to. It sucks that the medium changed and that caused the bottom to drop out. It's not like people aren't listening to music anymore.

[RABid]

Owning physical copies of music or movies is not always a bonus, says the guy that once owned over 300 movies and concerts on VLD. Remember those? Better audio and video quality than dvd on a album size platter. After not being able to find anyone that could repair my player it all went into the dumpster. My biggest loss was the Beatles First Edition album set that I bought. Loaned it to a friend and his apartment building burned down. I would still have digital copies.

[Greg Mein]

I recently retrieved a box full of my CD's from the storage unit we're trying to get emptied out and have them in a cabinet in the garage where they'll likely stay......not in the box but in the garage. The only actual CD player we have now is a Bose Wave Radio that's in the garage and I turn on when I'm working out there. Now instead of just the radio, I'll be able to pop in a CD when I'm out there if I want. All our record albums are out there too but no turntable yet. It's really amazing to me to think about how I bought most of those records while I was still in school.

[GovernorSilver]

I also feel like I have too much physical media taking space in the house.

 

When I buy a Bandcamp album, it's "mine" in that I don't have to pay subscription feels to keep listening to it. If I want to listen to it offline I can download it in one of several formats (AAC, FLAC, OGG, etc.) - at least on the website. Haven't yet figured out how to choose the file format in the IOS Bandcamp app.

[Notes_Norton]

I still have a turntable, a CD deck, an integrated preamp/amp, and decommissioned PA speakers with 15" woofers. I can win neighborhood "stereo wars" if one should occur.

 

A CD-RAM contains a few digital downloads that I couldn't get hard copies of, and of course, I have a backup on my computer which gets backed up to an external drive.

 

I've ripped a lot of my favorites to 192kbps mp3 files and put >10,000 tunes on my digital Walkman. These are also backed up on a hard drive - just in case.

 

Not everything is backed up off-site, but it's pretty good redundancy.

 

One thing that confirmed my aversion to monthly streaming rentals, and any other monthly fee that can be avoided, was a year and a half of COVID unemployment. Thanks to the fact that I avoid monthly fees, and to the fact that I live below my means, I didn't have to dip into my savings.

 

The music was paid for once, and some of the music I bought when I was a teenager, is still playable today, like Stan Getz's Focus and Jazz Samba albums.

 

Insights and incites by Notes â«

[GovernorSilver]

I've got my purchased (not subscription) music files backed up as well. Some of it is on my MacOS Timeline external drive. Some is on the PPS hard drive that I bought decades ago.

 

If I do go for the Apple One bundle (which, I know, is subscription based), I would most certainly make use of iCloud+.

 

I'd be getting Apple One for Apple TV+ so I can watch Foundation and that popular comedy show that all my coworkers are talking about, and to freely audition albums that I don't own that I would otherwise have to spend hundreds of dollars to acquire. And yes, to use iCloud+ for even more backup redundancy, because 50GB of storage is a huge upgrade over the 5GB iCloud storage that Apple owners get for free.

[Notes_Norton]

Since I have my own domain and web host, I have my own personal cloud.

 

I back important things up there in encrypted, password-protected folders. Even so, I don't keep anything in there that might be beneficial for someone who wants to get into my accounts or steal my identity.

 

Notes â«

[RABid]

The one place I do not use streaming services is in the car. Not going to use up my monthly data allotment on streaming songs. One positive with Apple One is I can download a bunch of music onto my phone before a trip than listen to it over Bluetooth.

[Notes_Norton]

I use my digital walkman in the car. There are over 10,000 tunes on it, selected from my CD/LP/Download recordings.

 

I usually put it in the random play mode.

 

What I don't put on there are long classical music pieces like a symphony. I tend to not exit the car until a song is done (driveway moments) and a symphony can last almost an hour. Plus the dynamic range of a symphony isn't good for listening over road noise. Either the soft parts are inaudible or the loud parts ear damaging depending on where you put the volume.

 

I started with an Archos Juke Box, then a couple of iPods, and when they quit those I replaced it with the Walkman, which actually sounds better (better EQ).

 

Notes â«

[GovernorSilver]

My mobile plan has unlimited data. Getting this plan definitely changed some habits.

 

Although I will still preload my iPhone with music files if I was anticipating a 30 min. or more ride on our Metro system, because I can't count on being able to stream while riding underground trains, despite efforts by Metro to introduce WiFi service, then improve upon it.