Spotify has updated the desktop app with plenty of visual improvements and new features, like a “now playing” view that gives you immediate access to merchandise and tour dates.
Spotify has updated the desktop app with plenty of visual improvements and new features, like a “now playing” view that gives you immediate access to merchandise and tour dates.
Dont forget that Spotify abuses its market position by basically milking smaller artists dry.
Does anybody know of a good alternative that doesnt involve either storing hundreds of albums on CD or piracy?
Bandcamp is a nice alternative, but much more limited to smaller artists and labels.
i have made a point of paying for music that i DJ with for over a decade. bandcamp as a website has been a huge part of that. it’s bloody amazing.
Qobuz and Tidal are less evil than Spotify and support higher quality audio, but also have smaller selections. Where practical I’ll buy albums I like on FLAC from Bandcamp or HDtracks but it is also nice to have a streaming service for discovering new stuff.
7digital is a pretty good DRM-free digital music store, and they even have lossless music. They don’t have everything, but their catalog is pretty huge.
Admittedly you would have to be pretty rich to buy all the music you want to listen to, but if you have an Android phone, I’m pretty sure there are apps you can use to stream from YouTube Music or Spotify without a subscription.
Personally, I’m poor and lazy, so I just stick with Apple Music. Anything they don’t have, I just upload to my library.
ViMusic
If you’re up to the challenge, you can run a “Subsonic” server at home for streaming your own music, including all of your hi-fi downloads from Bandcamp.
I’ve been very pleased with Navidrome, which is a server that implements the Subsonic API (so you can use any Subsonic desktop or mobile client). I basically have my own private Spotify that I can stream to my phone, and it’s got all the weird music I’ve accumulated over the years.