I know there’s already a few posts about how people listen to, or discover new music, but I wanted to see how other people get their music. Do you buy CDs or vinyl? Digital downloads? Use streaming services? Something else? And why?
Until a few years ago, I would jump between streaming services depending on the best deals I could get, but got very concerned the more I read about how little money most musicians get from streaming listens (especially via Spotify) - and given I tend to listen to less popular bands/artists, it seems particularly bad for them.
I have a small selection of CDs and vinyl, but mostly buy my music digitally - directly via Bandcamp if the artist is on there, or through an online store like 7digital (or even sometimes if no other option, Amazon) if not. I have a home server where I keep my music and like to be able to stream it directly to my phone, so this tends to be the best of both worlds for me.
Interested to know what others do!
I buy mostly digital mp3 and FLACs from BandCamp, the band’s website, or Amazon, expect for Band-Maid, which I buy the CDs for. I don’t stream.
I also borrow from the library and rip CDs from there to add to my digital collection. Thankfully, my library system has a great selection of CDs and gets music from bands from like The Pretty Reckless and Sabaton. The library also has stuff that hasn’t made it to digital or is hard to find like some live Jimi Hendrix.
Use the library to expand your music collection. You can find a lot there. You just have to look.
Libraries are brilliant. I used to do a lot of ripping too, when I was learning how to listen to traditional musics from around the world, which then led to buying even more :) I’m not able to drink alcohol for health reasons so my entire entertainment budget was gigs and CDs for years. And it all started with libraries <3 Youtube and MySpace used to be great for exploring too but alas.
As someone who is Powerfully Middle Aged and the owner of several iPods, I have a tendency to buy used CDs from charity shops for next to nothing. If it’s not something I’m keen on buying, but want to check out, I have Apple Music.
I’m also known to take the high seas on the odd occasion…
Soulseek (with the nicotine+ client) is pretty good
Apple Music has become my main ‘first stop’ after Spotify’s latest UX overhaul. I’ve also started buying physical CDs again because I’ve realized the importance of physical copies. Never got into vinyl but I think the CD boom is still to come, ha.
I prefer to buy and download my music. I buy a ton from bandcamp. For music that I cannot buy I might sail the high seas. I do own a few vinyls but those are of my favorite albums.
Same for me, first Bandcamp then 7digital. When neither have what I’m looking for, I’ll check on Discogs for a used CD.
Bandcamp and very rarely SLSK.
if i want to own something, vinyl. only exception it an NF CD i got because it was cheap and signed
aside from that, spotify
I started going mostly digital about a decade ago. I had moved overseas and so my space was limited. After the initial move, I was constantly moving, so buying physical copies just didn’t make sense, especially when I had different regions to contend with.
Admittedly I go straight to one of the streaming services, but for smaller bands I like who are on bandcamp, I’ll use that to buy their stuff and throw it on my plex/jellyfin. I am also trying to cultivate a local music library again after finding my iTunes library from 2006 lol.
I use spotify for most of my listening, but I also buy a lot from bandcamp (digitally). I keep my purchases downloaded on my home server and on my phone for offline use.
BandCamp is great. Forgot about that
Spotify, buy god that app is getting worse every day. Thinking of switching to something else
I’m not jazzed that they’re trying to turn it into an Instagram/TikTok of sorts. I don’t want little video clips with my music - I just want the music!
You can turn the clips off in the settings if you want. That’s what I did because I also think those little clips are annoying
really like soulseek, and theres a great android app for it called seeker. you can sort by variables like quality, size, encoding, bitrate, etc.
Soulseek is what I use to get more obscure titles that cannot be bought anymore and aren’t on spotify. It let anyone visit other people library of music, and some users share a lot.
If you want to find more stuff on it you should try it on a pc and setting up port forwarding (I don’t know if it’s possible with the seeker app) as without it, you can only see the content from users who port forwarded themselves.
I was a r/soulseek user, so I hope a soulseek sub will pop up somewhere here.
I hadn’t heard of Soulseek before. I see it depends on some central servers though the file transfer is peer to peer. Do you need to take precautions with Soulseek as with Bittorrent to hide your IP address?
Your ip is indeed public with soulseek. I’ve never heard of anyone having issues with that as soulseek is really unknown from the public but you can use a vpn to hide it.
Ohhhh, I knew port forwarding affected torrenting, but I didn’t think about how it would affect Soulseek. I’ll have to get that set up as it’s my primary music source since
W.CDdied.
Streaming services for casual listening, but I have an archive on a home theater PC of music I use for my college radio show with each song in mp3 format.
I use Apple music. It may not have all the indie artists of Bandcamp or whatever, but it’s super convenient, it has all the music I need, and it works so smoothly within the Apple ecosystem. Every device I have can share my account and pickup where another device left off. Plus the family account works great where everyone in my family can have their own account while there’s only one payment per month.
