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Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

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Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#12
post #5

The argument against the Desktop app seems unfounded, the author states: "I don’t usually like playlists and I’m the kind of guy who enjoys listening to whole albums, front to back". I'm of the same opinion, but when finding a new album to listen to I simply dray this into a new playlist and they become one and the same. This would also negate the argument against the mobile app as well.

I'm using Spotify right now. I just pick the album, click the first song and it plays the album. Am I doing something wrong? Why do I need a playlist?

This is the way I use it as well.

What I would like is some way to tag or bookmark an album. I find I stumble upon a new artist or album I like, but then forget what it was later in the week.

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#13
post #6

I've been using Rhapsody for a while and the selection is pretty solid.

+50 to Rhapsody, it's frustrating that people keep acting like Rdio and Spotify are this fancy new concept when Rhapsody has been doing all of this for years. The catalog also can't be beat compared to the other two it's so much larger. The interface was really lacking for years, but all this competition has made them finally start adding features like social.

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#14
So he's going to use iTunes, Grooveshark and Pandora. Now that seems, well, cumbersome to me.

Too bad Spotify bothers him -- even though it may lack some songs and features, I don't see why you can't enjoy Spotify for most use cases.

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using Spotify right now. I just pick the album, click the first song and it plays the album. Am I doing something wrong? Why do I need a playlist?

This is the way I use it as well. What I would like is some way to tag or bookmark an album. I find I stumble upon a new artist or album I like, but then forget what it was later in the week.

Why not create a playlist called "bookmarked"?

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#16
For me, it seems ridiculous to pay for a subscription music service that has a paltry catalog with less than half of the albums I want to listen to. That, and I can't be guaranteed of the quality of the file, if it's transcoded, etc. I have decent headphones and prefer to use them to their full potential.

For people who just want to listen to albums, buying albums still seems like the way to go (whether you use iTunes or Amazon, buy CDs or records).

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#17
I just wish Spotify could serve up a stream of recommended tracks, based on your listening history, like Last.fm can.

Spotify's "Radio" feature compounds my dislike of "genres" as a means of navigating and discovering music.

Radio, play me a stream of "Rock / Alternative / Pop / 70s"

What the ---- does that even mean? Guaranteed you'll be skipping 9 out of 10 tracks it serves up.

I hate genres. Every file in my local music collection has that tag blanked.

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using Spotify right now. I just pick the album, click the first song and it plays the album. Am I doing something wrong? Why do I need a playlist?

This is the way I use it as well. What I would like is some way to tag or bookmark an album. I find I stumble upon a new artist or album I like, but then forget what it was later in the week.

Just star a song from the album. When you view your starred songs you can just click the album name in the Album column and you'll be taken to the full album that the song is from.

I really like the fact that it's easy to go from a single song to an album. I have a lot of songs I bought in my library, and with Spotify its easy to now play these songs in the context of their full album.

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#19
Spotify, Rdio and all these other sites need to open up their catalog to local and independent artists. That's one of the reasons iTunes was so popular -- they allowed Youtube singers and other aspiring artists to post their songs and allow people to purchase them. They tapped into this long tail and both Apple and these indie artists made money from it.

These companies can't compete with the big players by offering less. No one cares about the piracy thing, they just want their music, and they want the music they are looking for. 'Social discovery' can be great and all but if I'm looking for a very specific, hard-to-find song, chances are I'm going to find it on Youtube instead and forget about Spotify/Rdio, etc. I think Grooveshark let users upload their own content, but failed in that aspect because their catalog ended up being way too messy.

Difficult problem to solve, wonder who will prevail.

/edit typo

Re: Why I’m Kissing Spotify Goodbye

#20
Like all products, spotify is a constantly improving product. The desktop app is not that great, but the fact that i can access a lot of music within a few clicks without doing anything illegal makes me happy . If you have an exotic special taste you'll have difficulties with every service i guess. I used to listen a lot to last.fm ... but i prefer "on demand" music like spotify offers. The service still needs to improve a lot, but they will get there in the end ... its the new way of listening to music. It doesn't make sence to me to "buy" a song on itunes, since everything is moving to the cloud, "owning" a song really doesnt make sence.
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