Spotify

ThisRegard · 14-11-2013 02:00PM

There's no hope

The Lumineers’ chart-topping hit Ho Hey was the most frequently played song on Spotify Ireland over the last year.

trudub83 · 14-11-2013 03:41PM

ThisRegard wrote: »

There's no hope

Matter of opinion I think isnt it?

ThisRegard · 15-11-2013 11:41AM

Yes, the right one, and the wrong one.

eviltimeban · 15-11-2013 11:48AM

I use it for background music - wallpaper music - but I don't use it for listening to music. I prefer to buy CDs and actually own the music. I feel I'm part of it a lot more then.

The reason artists are still on it is because it is exposure... for example, I just released an album (plug!) and though you could buy a CD, download it, go on Amazon etc, its also on Spotify. Why? So when people ask you, is it on Spotify, you can say yes! :-) Its that simple. If it wasn't, they mightn't hear it. If it is, they hear it, and then maybe share it with someone, or actually buy the CD. It doesn't limit your exposure. So you can use it for promotion.

Or, like my brother who only listens to music on Spotify, he gets to hear it. Otherwise, he wouldn't bother.

smokedeels · 17-11-2013 05:02PM

I started using premium this month. I'm definitely keeping it. It’s not going to replace buying records. It’s something like a customisable radio or audio-only youtube. I don’t believe that it’s the bogeyman some have portrayed it as.

Grayditch · 17-11-2013 05:18PM

If artists aren't happy with the money they get, they should opt out. I can't imagine I'd be impressed with what they give them, compared to what they get, but it's not forced labour, thankfully.

noby · 17-11-2013 09:55PM

I was on the premium package for six months, but cancelled recently. I don't think I was getting the value of a tenner a month. More often then not when listening on my phone I ended up listening to albums I already own. I've started using Google Music Plus (or whatever it's called) so now all my music is 'uploaded' from my pc, and I can listen to them on my phone, or any other pc, for free (up to 20,000 tracks on their free account).

I can still sit at my desk and discover new bands on the free spotify.

I justified the tenner a month saying it's only the equivelant of a cd a month, but now I've changed my opinion and would rather actually spend that tenner on a cd.

So is it worth it? IMO possibly not, but if it came down to about €7 (Netflix level) I might be tempted to sign up again.

As for the artists royalties, surely that's a converstaion they should be having with their labels.

ThisRegard · 18-11-2013 12:04PM

I don't understand why you could think a tenner a month is possibly not worth it. You wouldn't get anything but a bargain basement CD for a tenner a month. I have premium for about a year now and I rarely listen to music I already have on CD. That's the beauty of it, you can be a lot more adventurous in what you listen to as you no longer have to worry about buying a CD from which you may only like one song from and never put it on again.

theballz · 19-11-2013 11:42AM

great app

Hoop66 · 21-11-2013 10:34AM

Love spotify, I have the premium version. Worth it for the better quality stream and no ads.

seanryan10 · 14-12-2013 09:39PM

An article I found on this...
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/09/03/less-than-a-stinkin-cent/#!pUvP0

Out of interest... what is the streamed sound quality of spotify?

seanryan10 · 14-12-2013 09:43PM

Nevermind... just found this.

Spotify.com

Spotify uses 3 quality ratings for streaming, all in the Ogg Vorbis format.

~96 kbps
Normal quality on mobile.
~160 kbps
Desktop and web player standard quality.
High quality on mobile.
~320 kbps (only available to Premium subscribers)
Desktop high quality.
Extreme quality on mobile.

All compressed!
If you want to just check out an album before buying there are plenty of free sources.
Why give this crowd a tenner?

wandatowell · 14-12-2013 09:43PM

Spotify's Android app works greta, really easy to navigate, setup playlists.

I cancelled my sub though. google offer a similar product but the app doesnt run as well as Spotify's

garde2k10 · 14-12-2013 09:46PM

eviltimeban wrote: »

Get out and buy some CDs. Use the non-premium Spotify for background music and / or to see what you like before buying it.

Artists get sweet feck all from Spotify.

read somewhere they get 70% from spotify?

seanryan10 · 14-12-2013 09:50PM

wandatowell wrote: »

Spotify's Android app works greta, really easy to navigate, setup playlists.

I cancelled my sub though. google offer a similar product but the app doesnt run as well as Spotify's

Think that's part of the problem though ( and I'm not having a dig at you when I say this).
People are more concerned about what's handy and how good the app or MP3 playing device is.
The last thing them seem concerned about is the sound quality of the music they are listening to.

As far as I'm concerned people should buy the best equipment they can afford and use the best media they can afford (vinyl, CD... whatever).
Buy one album a month and take time to sit and enjoy it.

By the way, I have no issue with a digital source for your music, but the popular sources pretty much all degrade the sound quality in some way and at the end of the day that's what it's all about...sound. Isn't it?

seanryan10 · 14-12-2013 09:53PM

garde2k10 wrote: »

read somewhere they get 70% from spotify?

An extract from the article link I just posted...

So here are some interesting numbers shared today by Josh Davison of Centro about streaming revenue garnered from his band Parks and Gardens on both Spotify and iTunes Match. They shed what I feel is an interesting and harsh spotlight on just how little each song play nets him just under 1/3 of a cent when streamed from Apple’s cloud music service and slightly more than that from Spotify:

So Parks and Gardens would need to see over 3 plays for any song to get them a cent of revenue from a song on iTunes Match. And they already pay distribution service TuneCore $50 a year just to get their music out there on these services. So they need over 15,127 plays of their songs to break even on distributing them alone. The number is better on Spotify, where they’d need to see 5,171 plays. TuneCore takes no slice of their sales.

garde2k10 · 14-12-2013 09:53PM

spotify is free atm, but its terrible... you can only shuffle a playlist to listen to full tracks and only have 6 skips in an hour??....

if you ask me, id just get itube. once you listen to a song and its fully loaded its cached and you can listen to it offline and not only is it just music but its everything on youtube

wandatowell · 15-12-2013 12:02AM

seanryan10 wrote: »

Think that's part of the problem though ( and I'm not having a dig at you when I say this).
People are more concerned about what's handy and how good the app or MP3 playing device is.
The last thing them seem concerned about is the sound quality of the music they are listening to.

As far as I'm concerned people should buy the best equipment they can afford and use the best media they can afford (vinyl, CD... whatever).
Buy one album a month and take time to sit and enjoy it.

By the way, I have no issue with a digital source for your music, but the popular sources pretty much all degrade the sound quality in some way and at the end of the day that's what it's all about...sound. Isn't it?

You made perfectly valid points that I agree with completely.

It boils down to what fits my/peoples life. I use my phone to store and play my music but it has roughly 13-15gb of storage space but my library is vastly larger than that. Having Spotify/Google Music suits me.

When Im walking the madra or in the gym Im not looking for top quality audio.

If I listened to music at home then that would be a different game. Zero streaming for me!

Having said that I've got over 200 vinyls

SilverScreen · 15-12-2013 02:54PM

garde2k10 wrote: »

read somewhere they get 70% from spotify?

Keep in mind that they get 0% from second-hand CD and vinyl sales.

seanryan10 wrote: »

Think that's part of the problem though ( and I'm not having a dig at you when I say this).
People are more concerned about what's handy and how good the app or MP3 playing device is.
The last thing them seem concerned about is the sound quality of the music they are listening to.

As far as I'm concerned people should buy the best equipment they can afford and use the best media they can afford (vinyl, CD... whatever).
Buy one album a month and take time to sit and enjoy it.

By the way, I have no issue with a digital source for your music, but the popular sources pretty much all degrade the sound quality in some way and at the end of the day that's what it's all about...sound. Isn't it?

I doubt that too many people were concerned about sound-quality when walkmans were all the rage. For me personally, sound quality is only important to a certain point. For example, I'd rather listen to a 320kbps mp3 than a 128kpbs one but the difference in sound quality between a 320kbps mp3 and a CD doesn't concern me that much. Vinyl, CD, mp3 and streaming all have their advantages and disadvantages over each other so it just boils down to preference. Although I do collect the odd vinyl I still see it as a bit of a vanity format, and I'd also rather listen to a CD than a worn and skipping record.

I don't find the sound quality of Spotify all that bad and really what should be more important to people is the music itself rather than how it sounds. I find it brilliant for checking out albums before I buy them and I'm actually buying more CDs than I did before I started using Spotify. One album a month is nowhere near enough for me. I'm always itching for something new to listen to and I don't see the point in spending time enjoying an album that you only think is decent at best.

Stavro Mueller · 15-12-2013 04:16PM

What do you think about their new pricing model? As things stand I pay a fiver a month for Spotify Unlimited on my PC. But if I want to have it on my phone it's a choice of either paying a tenner or going with the freebie "crippled" version. Would they sell more subscriptions if they charged a fiver?

Blisterman · 15-12-2013 04:32PM

It's actually not as easy to tell 128 and 320kbps apart, as people make it out to be.

Try this
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/

Interestingly, since it's a 50-50 shot of getting it right, the majority of people got it wrong.

Sulla Felix · 15-12-2013 04:41PM

From the Forbes article, just for giggles. :pac:

We now need to correct The Guardian’s figures. They’re all arts graduates over there so they tend not to get on well with numbers. 5,000 Spotify plays brought in £20. That’s not the 0.004 pence per stream they say it is, that’s 0.4 pence per stream. They’ve got it right if it’s 0.004 pounds per stream, which is indeed 0.4 pence.

Anyway, I was a premium user pretty much since launch here, I've let it lapse but will probably subscribe again in the new year. I can definitely say I'm listening to more music and that the artists are getting more money from me than they used to.

ThisRegard · 16-12-2013 09:58AM

garde2k10 wrote: »

spotify is free atm, but its terrible... you can only shuffle a playlist to listen to full tracks and only have 6 skips in an hour??....

You're talking about the free service. How can you say a service is terrible when you won't even stump up a little cash to see what it's actually like ?

Grayditch · 16-12-2013 11:39AM

The free service should be way better, then more people would pay th...

No wait... that doesn't sound right :pac:

lertsnim · 16-12-2013 02:55PM

The free version on mobile will do just nicely. Had premium for a few months and the few times i used it didn't justify the tenner a month.

Grayditch · 16-12-2013 04:11PM

There's no way they'll release a free mobile app, though. That's where they make their monkey. Spotify and the artists.

ThisRegard · 16-12-2013 04:20PM

They already have.

loyatemu · 16-12-2013 04:20PM

Grayditch wrote: »

There's no way they'll release a free mobile app, though. That's where they make their monkey. Spotify and the artists.

they already have released a free mobile app - thinks its limited to radio playlists though.

I'm a premium subscriber, its well worth the money. I probably didn't spend €120 per year on cds or downloads before, so the industry is getting more money out of me. Spotify claim the majority of their users are paying more for music now than previously, and that in Sweden (where they've been operating for the longest) piracy has reduced dramatically due to streaming.

As for how the money gets divided up, Spotify say 70% of revenues go back to rights-holder, I seriously doubt they saw that proportion from CD sales.

Grayditch · 16-12-2013 04:44PM

Oh right, that's not bad, but not one with your own playlists. I find the radio option so-so. They should use more songs from their related artists section, which is always spot on.

Stavro Mueller · 16-12-2013 11:56PM

The free one's reasonably OK in that you can play your own playlists. But I do think they missed the boat on not giving us a €5 option. Perhaps one that only allows you a certain amount of skips per hour (like the free one) or limits you to a lower bitrate or maximum number of plays per month. €10 is great if you're someone who devours music but it's a big commitment to people who aren't as ardent a fan.

Spotify

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