an appeal to abandon Spotify
We are in a golden era for buying and selling digital LPs. While I’ll use Bandcamp, sleek alternatives like Ampwall, Subvert, and Mirlo are equally great options. These online markets inherently incentivize artists to avoid filler or risk losing a sale, while the subscription streaming model requires artists to pad their catalog for pay per play. Streaming has revived the worst trope of the old music industry: the album that is just "two hits and a bunch of crap."
Spotify’s business model demands album filler because the platform pays out royalties based on "stream share" which trigger a payout the second a track hits the 30 second mark, incentivizing artists to maximize volume over value. This has fundamentally warped modern songwriting: albums are aggressively padded with short, two minute tracks and repetitive hooks designed specifically to feed the algorithm and inflate stream counts. On Spotify, a deep, cohesive artistic statement takes a back seat to sheer data output, turning what should be a focused LP into a bloated playlist of algorithmic bait.
Accidental hits happen way more often than you’d think. As it turns out, artists are notoriously bad at predicting their own success. When you buy a digital LP on a platform like Bandcamp, you are investing in a complete and curated piece of art where even the tracks the artist never expected to blow up exist naturally as part of a cohesive story. On subscription services like Spotify, those same happy accidents are treated like lottery tickets while surrounded by cynical, algorithm optimized filler designed just to farm streams. Buying the album ensures you are experiencing those unexpected gems as genuine creative discoveries, rather than digging through algorithmic bloat to find them.
Bandcamp serves the genre; streaming serves the algorithm. When producers target platforms like Spotify, artistic nuances like tempo variations and volume dynamics are sacrificed to strict LUFS loudness standards and predictable, club friendly danceability. This algorithmic pressure strips electronic and club music of its experimental edge, forcing tracks into a uniform, compressed sonic mold just to survive on a playlist. On Bandcamp, however, the music is freed from these rigid streaming constraints, allowing producers to prioritize raw genre authenticity and dynamic storytelling over sanitized, playlist ready optimization. Soundtrack and orchestral music have become major casualties of this shift, as their essential cinematic highs and quiet, emotional lows are flattened into a lifeless wall of sound just to meet streaming's volume requirements.
Just so we're clear, I'm not here to sell you my album. Go ahead and enjoy the whole thing ad free on my website.
thejoyo.com/#more
Mihies
in reply to JoYo • • •At least in my case you're wrong about algorithms on streaming platforms. I listen to the bands I like, not ones from some algorithm. Also streaming ~~money~~ music fits better my needs, though I'd really like artists being paid more, specially smaller ones.
PS I left Spotify long ago.
JoYo
in reply to Mihies • • •NightFantom
in reply to JoYo • • •JoYo
in reply to NightFantom • • •apotheotic (she/her)
in reply to Mihies • • •JoYo
in reply to JoYo • • •dadbod89
in reply to JoYo • • •Crackhappy
in reply to dadbod89 • • •nightofmichelinstars
in reply to Crackhappy • • •i_am_not_a_robot
in reply to nightofmichelinstars • • •Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ
in reply to Crackhappy • • •It's easy to set up one of þe several OpenSubsonic servers and use any of þe dozens of clients for whatever OS you want to stream to. Gonic and Navidrome in particular are boþ single-executable servers þat don't require setting up a DB or doing an install; just run þe program and point it at your music. It's all FLOSS.
On þe server
Several oþer server implementations are available.
Desktop clients
(Þese are just þe ones in AUR)
Android clients
Phosh (Linux Phone) clients
Wiþ an OpenSubsonic server and Tempo in particular, syncing music to mobile for offline use is trivial. Streaming over all þese clients is, of course, even easier.
Tempo | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
f-droid.orgJoYo
in reply to Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ • • •Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ
in reply to JoYo • • •Þe comment I was responding to was
Many of us own our music - we're not borrowing it, we bought and have full control of it, and no service can take it away from us. Þat's þe use case for OpenSubsonic - owned libraries of music which one wants to stream from þeir own self-hosted server(s).
JoYo
in reply to Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ • • •We don't need to over complicate this unless that's the fun part.
Faircamp
faircamp.orgMihies
in reply to dadbod89 • • •JoYo
in reply to dadbod89 • • •Ⓜ3️⃣3️⃣ 🌌
in reply to JoYo • • •Scipitie
in reply to JoYo • • •You miss the consumption pattern behind streaming though: I don't want (and literally can't afford to) ....
This is not intended to take away from your core point: (direct) purchase is a better way of giving money to artists, second only to direct donations (i can't talk about concerts because of the whole venue discussions I've heard on the side).
Now comes the tough part:
On paper it's strai
... Show more...You miss the consumption pattern behind streaming though: I don't want (and literally can't afford to) ....
This is not intended to take away from your core point: (direct) purchase is a better way of giving money to artists, second only to direct donations (i can't talk about concerts because of the whole venue discussions I've heard on the side).
Now comes the tough part:
On paper it's straight forward for me: just donate like 10 or 20 bucks a month to your personal flavor of the month - but ... To whom? I just checked, today alone were 20 artists played.
The shitty thing is, and I'm sharing this to perhaps shame me into acting: this is quite easily solvable, but I just don't invest the energy needed to figure it out for me.
Sorry for the long rant style, tldr is:
I have no use for owning albums, streaming provide a true value for me and I'm (realizing after writing this) obviously too cheap, stupid and lazy to give bak.
Corngood
in reply to Scipitie • • •You don't have to be perfect with this. Just pick someone who made a new album you loved; ideally someone who actually needs the money. And you can always buy vinyl, merch, or a digital album instead of just donating.
JoYo
in reply to Scipitie • • •give bandcamp.com/radio a try for discovery. human curated and the DJs give songs some context so it's not just someone's playlist.
you can also listen to a whole album on bandcamp for free. VLC and IINA both open bandcamp URLs as playlists and can be listened to as many times as you'd like.
Bandcamp Radio
BandcampKabe
in reply to dadbod89 • • •MrScottyTay
in reply to Kabe • • •moistmotherboard
in reply to dadbod89 • • •I’ve been enjoying Qobuz recently. They have streaming and an option to buy. I’ve been told they’re a fairly ethical option in terms of payment to artists, but haven’t researched myself.
There’s also Subvert.fm with a lot of smaller artists and some real gems if you dig for them.
Arkhive
in reply to dadbod89 • • •Tidal is owned by Jay-Z so it’s not a ton better, though the hi-fi and paying artists better was enough reason for me for now. With easy migration too, it made the most sense to also quickly get my family off of the Spotify family plan. I’m also trying to grow my offline music library again, and Tidal being hi-fi “allows” for some interesting usability to that end. Ripping CDs and buying on Bandcamp has also been a good shift!
The most artist centric option would probably be that final one. Buying CD or digital albums directly from artists and growing your offline library. Toss Jellyfin on something and you have your own personal streaming platform!
Alas Poor Erinaceus
in reply to JoYo • • •DGen
in reply to JoYo • • •I turned to purchasing albums digitally, so that I actually own it.
At first I have been skeptical. But meanwhile I do appreciate it, as I really listen to a full record than Just the Most loved songs.
Streaming Made me just listen to "banger", when other tracks in that record are nice as well. That doesn't count for every musician or band ofc. But I get a bigger value from actually listening
entheo_a1
in reply to JoYo • • •bartvbl
in reply to JoYo • • •Bloomcole
in reply to JoYo • • •It's totally useless.
realitista
in reply to JoYo • • •MrScottyTay
in reply to JoYo • • •stravanasu
in reply to MrScottyTay • • •Lanske
in reply to JoYo • • •Kultronx
in reply to JoYo • • •lol good post, you got me listening to your album. reminds me of aphex/autechre. and thanks for those other sites, i'm always looking to discover new music as a DJ. currently i just use youtube recs (heavy tracker blocking in a container), soundcloud, and shazam in public. i never had spotify but i had apple music for a couple years after it came out and I just found that it put blinders on music taste. these days I have all my MP3s in a cloud in a MEGA server which I can play on my phone or computer. qobuz does look pretty good though.
It's a shame though the price of vinyl has gone through the roof, I miss my employee discount from back in the day
JoYo
in reply to Kultronx • • •thank you for listening; that's high praise as I absolutely love both aphex twin and autechre. i try to avoid the vinyl toxicity but i have a few CDs and cassettes without a player. most of my collection is on steam with bandcamp growing.
bandcamp.com/radio has been my goto for finding new music lately.
Bandcamp Radio
Bandcampcenariodantesco
in reply to JoYo • • •mursejoy
in reply to cenariodantesco • • •Pissed
in reply to mursejoy • • •normonator
in reply to cenariodantesco • • •TiredTiger
in reply to JoYo • • •Spotify (and Pandora before that) served my purposes once upon a time to discover genres and artists I enjoy. But when I did the math, I realized I'd spent quite the pretty penny with nothing to show for it, and none of the artists I listened to were benefitting. And of course, Spotify has been happily selling my data during the interim.
Since deleting my account, I've switched to buying albums on Bandcamp, particularly on Bandcamp Fridays. I prefer listening to albums straight through anyway. I like to buy CDs when they're available, but unfortunately a lot of artists stick to vinyl if they do physical media at all. CDs don't degrade with listening, I can play them in my car, and they are compact - I simply don't have the space for vinyl.
lemonwood
in reply to JoYo • • •Kynsey
in reply to JoYo • • •arcine
in reply to JoYo • • •Derin
in reply to arcine • • •They do.
Edit: To be clear, they offer downloads in multiple formats - including a lossless FLAC option, and the ability to stream from your phone/browser. So, it's a pretty good replacement for Spotify if you want to actually pay the people whose music you listen to.
Bonus points if you make purchases on Bandcamp Fridays: a unique event wherein 100% of proceeds go directly to the artist (bypassing Bandcamp's usual cut).
stravanasu
in reply to arcine • • •JoYo
in reply to arcine • • •Faircamp
faircamp.orgjumponboard
in reply to JoYo • • •I guess you talk about rock and pop music?
Geniune question: What about techno music? Many techno songs are eight minutes long (my personal experience, I'm no expert, I could be wrong) and djs usually select a couple of good songs and mix them together. They prepare a list of songs for a gig and decide based upon the crowd and their own perception what sogn they are going to play.
What's a good and ethical way of consuming techno music? Sets and individual songs
And there are many very good songs that are ai created. And i could not tell the difference between ai and "human" made music. To me, it doesn't seem like (techno) music creation has any value in the future.
Mixing and selecting good songs or creating playlists (on the fly) sounds like having value in the future.