How do you use Spotify?

[newuser]

I just downloaded Spotify and it's really strange to me, just a few things that I find interesting and was wondering if others felt the same and their thoughts. I've been asking my friends and they haven't really been of much help, so may as well ask on here too.

First thing I found interesting was the fact you could have private and public sessions when listening to music, why would you use private sessions? and why would you use public? It seems strange that you get to choose. Another thing I found interesting was the fact that you can make public and private playlists, why would you make a playlist public and why would you keep it private?

[Anti]

[Muslim-Bigfoot]

Yes! Why is there public and why is there private? Why public/private at all?
_________________
"I feel like for the last two years there’s been sort of a sonic evolution happening and I’ve been experimenting more and more."

[Applerill]

An ex-GF once wanted me to listen to an orgasm sound compilation while on chat. Needless to say, that was a good time to use private listening.

[Anti]

[Applerill]

Anyway, there is no doubt that Spotify is the most disruptive musical technology since Napster in 1999. It didn't just keep people from having to buy albums; it helped the concept of an album (or any piece of music) to cease being a commercial object at all. Because of this lack of commercial materiality, we no longer need to debate which albums we need to "buy" and listen to, and thus we as music nerds have become free to roam the pastures of every genre. This obviously was already somewhat possible to those with good P2P connections and know-how, but in a post-Spotify world, pirating has almost become obsolete when it comes to major-label releases.

Anyway, I really use it the same way I use my iTunes library; I see something on RYM or a chart here that looks cool, and I'm normally able to find it on Spotify's vast library. Sometimes that particular release is unavailable, yet a more obscure release from a partnering label is, so I end up getting a piece of their discography that is much more obscure. That's the other funny thing about Spotify and pirating: For contemporary albums in genres like modern classical and free improvisation, often it's the anti-streaming pirates that miss out on the listening.

I know a lot of people like the radio stations on Spotify, but I've never had a problem of not having enough music to listen to. I still listen to lots of singles on Spotify, but either from one of my own playlists or as a personal beck-and-call.

[Kool Keith Sweat]

I find that the biggest hole in spotify, besides Drag City and Cuneiform, is free improvisational music, from the '60s all the way through to this year

[CA Dreamin]

[TexasDestroyer]

98% of the time, or so, that I am on my computer, I have music going. That music I have going is either from Youtube, Dubtrack or Spotify Web Player. More often than not it is Spotify Web Player, which I have scrobbling to my Last.fm account. Now if Spotify would get their tags in order so my Last.fm library would look neater. I just so dislike using the universal scrobbler to fix Spotify tags.

[RoundTheBend]

When I first started using Spotify, it was mostly to discover stuff I didn't want to buy.

Now (I must admit against my own beliefs) that the Beatles/Pink Floyd/Led Zeppelin... basically any artist that I really want to own their music... I no longer need to upload to Google or

This really happened because iPods stopped being listening devices (not because I bought the iPod's with "apps" but they stopped releasing iPods really just for music and having my entire library on it)... and so I started using my phone and thought Google's service of uploading 20,000 songs and having it stream from my phone was cool. Sure it had limitations (no FLAC, etc.), but I at least could have my whole library with me.

With Spotify... I'm starting to feel like I have almost my whole library at my finger tips, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, I don't have to manage it... I don't have to fix upload failures, or the fact the album art didn't show right, etc.

Biggest beef with Spotify right now is the album art can't be full screen or is only small, nothing like iTunes where you can make it full screen.

Also like the social aspect of Spotify.

As to answer the question... I totally geek on it. I discover new things, and went to great lengths of creating playlists - on top of my personal playlists I have a playlist for each decade... TWICE. Once for how BEA ranks things and once for how I rank things. I created the BEA ones in 2012 so not everything is on them (no Beatles, etc.) I also can't find some obscure 1950s albums. Currently using Spotify to redo all my BEA lists.

As a musician though I do wish I could use the technology of Spotify, but not feel terrible that the artist is getting the short end of the stick. They really should be getting at least a 50/50 cut or something and not .00000000067 for every listen.

Then again... artists don't get paid for each time their song plays on the radio (not that that matters, but interesting to think about since the radio was way before massive record companies or rich musicians).