Do you pay to stream music, and other blabbing

[radonrose]

I think us Linux users use offline players more than others. I might be wrong, but I see more discussions about Clementine and Deadbeef than Deezer and Spotify in all Linux fora, even the more "mainstream" distros like Ubuntu.

This time of the year is always a listening time for me, because I can purchase a Black Friday / Cyber Monday offer of a music streaming service, and listen to all the albums I've probably missed during summer when I'm really busy, and keep listening to new music until next spring. But I seldom listen to music from ad-supported services; I'd rather search through my (not so) old CDs and digital downloads. For a guy born in the '90s who mostly listens to '80s music, my digital download collection is huge compared to my cassettes and one vinyl; I wouldn't start to compare my physical collection to you guys after the age thread :D

Do you pay to stream music? Do you still buy albums in a physical form? At the moment, I listen to all my music in Tidal (even that which I already own), and probably won't buy any CDs because I haven't found something that good in new releases so far apart from that Igorrr album I shared in another thread (normally, I buy at least three new releases in CD every year since I was a kid).

Pausing my thoughts. As I was writing this, the algorithm did its magic and I think I found my favorite 2020 release (still have about 20 albums to listen to though). For anyone who is familiar with these bands, I don't know why would it suggest Vicious Rumors after Bonfire, AC/DC, and finally Stryper, but it was right.

Anyway, this isn't a thread to bash on "non-payers" or "romantics with vinyls", I just like to open my thoughts anytime I ask a question.

For the record, I listen to CDs and downloads on my computer, audio fed to a pair of Monkey Banana Gibbon 5 and/or Yamaha HS5, or a Philips MC-M570 with it's standard speakers, or a Laney LX12 guitar amp. I listen to cassettes on a Sony TC-WE475 fed through the same Monkey Bananas and Yamahas, or Sanyo boombox (no, it's not the M S400L)

Anyway, expand on music as you like. I think I'm just excited I'm listening to music they way I want to again, and the album I just discovered made me even more vulnerable to blabbing about music.

[chrispop99]

I don't stream, but have a huge CD collection which is stored in MP3 form in a drive that is shared across my home network.

Your comment about age interested me. I have never understood why it is automatically assumed that one must only like music from their youth. I'm 74, so grew up with The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Bob Dylan et al. I still listen to those, but continue to listen to newer stuff as well.

For example, the last album I bought, two days ago, was Plastic Hearts (Miley Cyrus). Before that, it was positions (Ariana Grande), and Infinite Things (Paloma Faith). I enjoy all of them.

Chris

[radonrose]

I have never understood why it is automatically assumed that one must only like music from their youth.

This is something that happens, but it wasn't exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that somebody who listens to '60s music, will probably have more LPs than somebody who listens to '00s music, who in turn will own CDs. Especially if they lived at that age. Also, that somebody in their 60s will have a larger collection that someone in their 20s, if they buy almost the same, just cause the one has bought X albums a year for a longer time.
What I find interesting when I look at my collection, is that I listen to '80s music (associated more with vinyl and cassettes), bought most of it in the '00s, but about 70% to 80% of my collection is digital downloads. I consider the '00s to be CD age, because digital downloads were never a thing here in Greece (at least not legal ones).

There's also, to an extent, that thing where certain generations are associated with music from a certain point in their youth. For example, people born in the '80s are "expected" to listen to music from their pre-teen and teen years, whereas people born in the '90s are expected to listen to music from our young adult years. This creates a gap in the early '00s, where no people are associated with it. But I have never put on an NSYNC tune while DJing and not everyone knew the lyrics!

[thomasl]

I think us Linux users use offline players more than others. I might be wrong, but I see more discussions about Clementine and Deadbeef than Deezer and Spotify in all Linux fora, even the more "mainstream" distros like Ubuntu.

Well, I was a Windows user for more than 30 years (starting with the first beta version of the Windows SDK in the mid-80s) and I can tell you I'd never give up my offline players. I do have all my CDs and 100s of my vinyls digitised and streaming is just not an option, not least because I'm sometimes in regions where there's no internet, in fact no data connection at all. How I would survive that w/o my music on a player I don't know

Offline vs online music is perhaps (perhaps!) more an age thing with so-called "digital natives" being more comfortable with streaming than the oldsters.

And last album bought... Whoosh! by Deep Purple. Amazing that these chaps still produce music that's worth listening to (even w/o Blackmore who remains my preferred guitar slinger).

[bob ruzzo]

Honestly I almost never listen to any streaming except when in car with wife where she is always streaming Pandora. At home if I want to listen to music I will often just go to Youtube. I do use an offline player in my Windows system called VLC.

[alexjack]

I'm between camps. I've grown up where having some kind of physical media is the norm and I still hang onto that to a degree. I tend to end up buying CDs of anything I consider to be very good. But, perhaps oddly, I then immediately rip them to flac files and play them locally from my computers/phone. I guess I just like having the CD as the "master" copy.

I've got approx 115 GB of music and use Deadbeef and Quodlibet on computers. Quodlibet is the one I keep coming back to. VLC on my phone.

Recently I've started using a popular streaming service with the free option mainly as a way to check out gaps in discographies and some new bands. BTW, the browser webpage filtering plug-in "ublock origin" can improve your web experience in many ways. Ultimately though, as I've said, I will most likely be buying anything awesome that I find. I am finding new bands, but generally from similar spin off and crossover genres to those I grew up with (approximately centred on metal).

This seems to be one area where I am happy for some kind of corporate owned algorithm to go at it on my brain.

Is there such a thing as addictive, but unsatisfying music?

[asqwerth]

I don't pay for a streaming service.

I like to listen to my large CD collection (ripped to flac) but I do have a few favourite internet radio stations (ie streaming but free!) that I also listen to. I have made small donations to a few of those stations.

And I do purchase some music as flac downloads from certain independent artistes, e.g. Charlie Hunter, Lari Basilio.

Last CD purchased: Drumatica by Kiyo*Sen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyo_Sen

But most recent CD I got was a birthday gift: Dave Bainbridge's prog-rock band, Celestial Fire, live in UK.

[Jerry3904]

I use Spotify, mostly for jazz. But I also use internet radio for international and classical.

[thomasl]

Is there such a thing as addictive, but unsatisfying music?

Well... I am a great fan of a 70s/80s electronic music wizard called Klaus Schulze. My wife finds his music addictive, but still she doesn't like it when I put him on. Go figure...

[PaulR]

Is there such a thing as addictive, but unsatisfying music?

Well... I am a great fan of a 70s/80s electronic music wizard called Klaus Schulze. My wife finds his music addictive, but still she doesn't like it when I put him on. Go figure...

You'd get on well with my brother, he has every Schulze and TD album ever released (vinyl and CD) including many 'duplicates' where there is different cover art or boxed sets etc. He also has hundreds of other other krautrock albums. I saw TD and Schulze back in the 70s - a lifetime ago now - although my tastes have always beene much broader.