Spotify - anyone heard of it?

Spotify loves to recommend me Chris Spedding for some reason. I really don't know why. (But I don't mind.)

― Animal Bitrate (Raw Patrick), Thursday, 11 August 2016 21:10 (nine months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And I think "Video Life" by Chris Spedding has appeared six or seven times overall now. He must have made nearly a penny from me.

― Animal Bitrate (Raw Patrick), Monday, June 5, 2017 10:12 PM (six months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good old "Video Life" by Spedding appears yet again in my Discover Weekly as it veers increasingly away from anything I would like to discover.

Technical Question, maybe Glenn knows - if I sync 30 albums offline and then Un-sync them, does the app then (or eventually) release that used space on the device? I don’t think it used to but maybe the app has evolved ?

Today I heard that if you download a playlist to your phone, Spotify will continue to stream it (bypassing the download and using your data allowance) unless you make a point of taking the app offline.

This sounds wrong to me but appears to be confirmed here:

Thanks! If the app isn't set to Offline from the settings, it'll continue to stream songs, instead of reading them from the cache /BH

— SpotifyCares (@SpotifyCares) September 22, 2017

If so this is a very recent change, right? It's insane.

hmm i've been listening to lots of downloaded playlists in the past few weeks and not used any data

i wonder if that's a kludge to make stats easier to calculate for royalty payments?? i.e. what is the definition of a "stream" vs a "download" and do artists get paid differently?

"artists"

i mean i doubt it, but.. struggling to think of another reason

that really doesn't make any sense though

i just mean from an accounting standpoint maybe it's easier to track streams than plays from cache.. probably not though

oh yes and also i was wondering if there's legal language in royalty contracts that differentiates between "streams" and "downloads" and if there's an incentive for spotify to favour the former over the latter

There's no royalty difference between online and offline streams, and the information we track is the same for both. Offline streams just don't get counted until the client reconnects and sends the info from the last offline session.

I don't have any insight into the specific question about data-usage for cached tracks while online, sorry...

another conspiracy theory bites the dust

On the face of it that statement is nuts.

just the phrase "offline stream" is making my head hurt tbh

Sorry, internally we use "stream" to refer to the act of a listener causing a song to be played. But whatever you call this, it's treated the same for record-keeping and royalty-paying whether it happens online or offline.

tempted to start a new thread for this

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spotifys-fatal-flaw-exposed-how-my-closed-door-meeting_us_5a512262e4b0cd114bdb33cd

^^ original dead link for article

https://thetrichordist.com/2018/01/08/the-slippery-slope-of-censorship-huffpost-pulls-story-critical-of-spotify-ahead-of-ipo/

I was a vocal participant in the meeting, and when it was over I found myself surrounded by several Spotify executives. One said, “Blake, I just don’t think you understand, our users love our product because it’s such an amazing one.” Another added, “You have to look past just numbers, our product is so great it’s actually turning the industry around.” This went on for a while, until I finally said to one of the executives, “You keep using that word, ‘product.’ I’m not trying to be difficult, I’m really asking you: what do you think your product is?”

The executive was surprised. He stared at me blankly and said, “What do you mean? Our product is Spotify.”

There it was. It was a shocking admission to me, in earshot of everyone, and one he obviously didn’t think was an admission at all.

“No no…sorry,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Your product isn’t ‘Spotify.’” He continued to stare at me. I said, “Sir, your product is music.” The emboldened musicians standing around us started laughing. The exec smiled and backed away, “Well okay, if you’re going to be like that.”

that's not a very good article

there is a reason spotify is as successful as it is, and it's not because they sell "music" the way starbucks sells "coffee"

obv Spotify is a product, just like the iPod was, or the record player - that it stands in a different relation to the content it provides is also obv

it might be more like a department store. the products are produced by others, but how do you feel when you're in there? how do you discover what's available? how useful is it as a place to get stuff you knew - and stuff you didn't know you wanted? the great department stores are the best at this. there are even subsidies from the brands, who will set up their own little corners etc.

i just kicked a spotify exec out of my meeting for calling his product an app

It's an awful article, written in an awful tone of voice.

Spotify = Walmart

“No no…sorry,” I said, shaking my giant head full of ethics knowledge in disbelief. “Your product isn’t ‘Spotify.’” He continued to stare at me in amazement. I said, “Sir, your product is music.” The emboldened musicians standing around us started laughing, high fiving, and cheering my name. The exec smiled and backed away, “Well okay, if you’re going to be like that.” He retreated, stepping on the meeting room's carpet rake so that the handle then struck his face.

lmao

anyway, the last spotify complaint was about how spotify made stuff and shouldn't. in this new spotify complaint, guy is sanctimonious about spotify apparently not making stuff.

as if it would all be ok if they made kirkland brand trap

author is definitely more than a little full of himself, and the execs are rendered as cartoons. in my experience, though, these people often are walking cartoons, and allowing a rebuttal would have been a better idea than killing the original editorial.

many of you non-art zoyd & thinking plague & heldon & wadada leo smith fans will shrug, but not unrelated: http://downbeat.com/news/detail/cuneiform-records-on-hiatus-in-20181

what if... you are the product

(the entire internet dies of having its mind blown)

I enjoyed the bit about the selfless starbucks executives, wondering how they can increase the market share of coffee, market penetration of coffee, push coffee into new territories...

i sure would like some product right about now (the funk soul brother)

christ the tone of that is like those Tumblr posts that end with "and when the executive started to cry the musicians were so amazed that they all shook me by the hand and one of them gave me $100 and a new Xbox and said I could come on tour with them any time"

imo Spotify should follow the Netflix model and get a bunch of broken-up bands back together to record exclusive albums. The Beatles, maybe?

Or lock up some a-list podcasters / radio dudes who want to make a few bucks on a platform to augment their patreon and Merch revenue

Is there any way for Spotify to notify me whenever certain artists release a new track or album? I figured that following certain artists might do this somehow, but if it does, I am not seeing it.

They used to ping you with notifications, but now it seems like the Release Radar is the best way. I follow a ton of artists and as far as I can tell, they show up in my Release Radar each Friday. I have to do the extra step of clicking on the release to find out it's a track or a full album.

for Windows users the Toastify app may be of interest

I use it for three shortcuts:
alt+shift+enter = play/pause
alt+shift+left = previous
alt+shift+right = next

but it can do a lot more if you like

https://toastify.codeplex.com/

Why are these Spotify buttons so unresponsive? If I don't click on them from just the right position, they don't respond. If I click on the controls from a spot that would work with just about any other application or website, no luck.

Some day people will be laughing their heads off at the corny Spotify playlist names and graphics (more universally than they are apparently doing now).

more universally eh

My account has been hacked! Received an email 1 hour ago informing me of an email address change and now I cannot access the account.

I am very afraid that whoever has hacked it will be deleting the playlists. If they are still available could a kind ilxor do a backup while I await Spotify support? My username is betamaxdk

Dammit!!!!

Spotify support have responded quickly, thankfully the account is now secured

Googling the email used to hack my account led me to a very unsympathetic site that basically posts account info for hacked accounts

All I can say is fuck you willsmit372 you fucking idiot

and thank you Spotify support!

and to think the idiot used my account to stream fucking ed sheeran

now your spotify smells like him

>:(

I hear Sheeran junkies will do anything to get their fix

Spotify is good for listening to ILX top 77 lists!

Will someone please buy some Doug Hream Blunt records so my Discover Weekly will stop trying to force them on me?

It's all that and limp-wristed neo-psychedelia. Which is neither new, nor remotely psychedelic.

https://app.jqbx.fm

this can be kinda fun