Members blue2blue Posted July 21, 2011 Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 Anyone either subscribing to Spotify or taking advantage of their free tier? The tech journalists -- attracted to shiny new press releases that do their work for them -- have been all abuzz about new online streaming service Spotify. I just signed up for the free tier, but I'm interested in others' observations, particularly if they're signed up for the $10/mo premium tier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 21, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 As a longtime Rhapsody user, I've been bemused -- bummed more like it -- by the barely-ever-mentioned status of that solid subscription service among tech journos, who have often written things like, Why would I want to rent my music? I don't get it.While I've been enjoying access to a wider selection of pop, rock, jazz, classical and niche music than I've ever had before, listening to almost everything I've wanted to hear for the last few years for only $10 US a month. But I'm game to try anything new. (Although not currently ready to drop $10 a month on Spotify's premium tier without strong motivation.) Spotify's premium tier promises enhanced sound quality. (The free tier is decidedly lo fi. Someone at Gearslutz claimed it was 160 kbps Vorbis -- but the player doesn't even play Vorbis tracks, limiting itself to the MPEG family, .mp3, .mp4, .m4v, .m4r, .m4a, .m4v, and .move, as well as the two main phone codecs, .3gp and .3g2. Firs serious selection ding against Spotify Free: only 6 tracks of Gillian Welch, 3 of them off the O Brother soundtrack -- while Rhapsody has 5 Welch albums, including the brand new Harrow and the Harvest album (in addition to a Ryan Adams album, Heartbreaker, that features Gillian and partner David Rawlings). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted July 21, 2011 Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 I can tell you that Spotify has probably the worst deal for us musicians. It's based on ad revenue served rather than the stream itself. You could conceivably have 1,000 plays and make roughly a dime. To be fair, most streaming services are equally as bad for the songwriters, but Spotify is probably the least likely to ever generate income for the people who make the music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 21, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 Well, it only makes sense that streams would pay a lot less than purchases. At least one Tunecore users says he's seen Spotify payments from the European phase -- but only about one-sixth (~17%) of what the established subscription service Rhapsody pays out to artists and labels. This article has 'informed estimates' about the pay-outs and breakdowns http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ They suggest that Spotify pays about one sixth what Rhapsody pays per stream. (According to it the label and artist [or self-releasing artists] get $.0113 per stream on Rhapsody; $.00475 from Last.fm; and $.00189 from Spotify.) Keep in mind those break the payment between the label and the artist, with, natch, labels taking around 75% (Rhapsody) to 80% (Last.fm, Spotify) to 85% (iTunes, Amazon sales), while the artist gets the remaining 25% (Rhapsody) to 15% (iTunes/Amazon). Self-releasing artists presumably get the full take. And, of course, we don't know how accurate those are. [but those figures seems to fit with what that Tunecore user reported for his self-released efforts -- ie, he got both cuts.] Also, the Spotify payments listed in that article are from the Europe-only phase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted July 21, 2011 Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 Yeah, someone must have been paid to create a big buzz for Spotify - all of a sudden it's getting mentions all over media-land. I poked around the various intro and ad videos that Spotify puts out, and found them extremely short on details as to how the service actually works, or how it might work for someone with my listening habits. Lots of cute animations and enthusiasm, but not a mouthful of chewable info....that sort of marketing always puts me off. I'm really happy with MOG at present for $5 per month. Simple, customizable, intuitive, cheap, and quick to get around. Sounds good enough for the "radio" experience. I don't look to streaming for close listening - more for background, for finding new stuff, etc. I might try Spotify again, but they'll have to really have something different to get me off of MOG. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 21, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 I think Spotify actually has a lot going for it. But I'm not sure it's as good as the long established but seldom-mentioned Rhapsody. And Rhap is largely ignored by the tech-chatteratti, who, let's face it, are driven by press releases (means less writing), junkets, swag, and, sometimes, we are told, outright bribes. (Not to mention even more despicable misbehaviors as we've seen recently in the headlines.) I listen to Rhapsody many hours a day -- I'm listening to one of my typically odd mixes of thousands of tracks from folks like Laura Veirs, Raising sand, Andrew Bird, Gene Autrie, Doc Watson, and a jillion others -- and the fi -- while detectably inferior to CD versions of same (at least in the case of modern recording era stuff) is really quite decent, overall. I'm certainly not fatigued by it. By comparison, I find (the free tier) of Pandora to be almost unlistenably low fi. (And then there's the problem of their affinity engines. I plug in some good seeds and, in pretty much any genre but old school jazz, I run out of skips in the first half hour.) Spotify free's sound quality is better than Pandora free, and that could be trouble for the still eminently likable Pandora. But it's noticeably inferior to Rhapsody's. I had heard that Spotify Premium supposedly had 320 kbps streams (but the same source had the free streams as 160kpbs -- which is certainly far from true). I'm going to try to set up a good side-by-side comparison of Rhap and Spotify Premium as soon as possible. I'm just not ready to dump $10 into finding out right at this instant, especially since I already know I like Rhapsody. And then there's the pay-out thing. 6 times as much for artists under Rhap is hard to ignore. (Assuming those figures are correct, of course.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted July 21, 2011 Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 I think Spotify actually has a lot going for it. I had heard that Spotify Premium supposedly had 320 kbps streams (but the same source had the free streams as 160kpbs -- which is certainly far from true). MOG support page says 320 kbps, and apparently that holds for-free or for-pay. Of courrse, they do the usual test-your-speed thing and will downgrade to 128 for slow/busy connections. The most frequent comment I've seen around the boards is that MOG's bitrate/sound quality is great, but their catalog is limited. My experience so far lines up with that. I assume that over time, if they survive, the price will go up and the catalog will expand. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 21, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 MOG support page says 320 kbps, and apparently that holds for-free or for-pay. Of courrse, they do the usual test-your-speed thing and will downgrade to 128 for slow/busy connections. The most frequent comment I've seen around the boards is that MOG's bitrate/sound quality is great, but their catalog is limited. My experience so far lines up with that. I assume that over time, if they survive, the price will go up and the catalog will expand. nat whilk ii Hmm. I'd give it a whirl but I'm not giving my CC out to anyone these days for 'free trials.' (I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if Rhap's 'free trial' didn't involve the same, mind you. But I'm already there, I already know I like it. It's already budgeted.) That said, if I thought they had the right "12 million songs," and they were all 320 kbps, that might cause me to jump ship. I may consider it. I mean, after all, $5 a month is a great deal -- if they have what you want to hear.* But all those $5/mo, $8/mo, and $10/mo's have a nasty way of adding up. *I already know what's not on Rhap, for instance. Basically, the Beatles, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin and maybe a few other bands that I've never bothered looking up.* *OK. There are rare things that go missing or are purchase only on Rhap. But they actually appear to be responsive to complaints when some stuff goes missing. For instance a few months back, all but a couple Rory Gallagher albums disappeared. Now, I've got 'em all on disk, pretty much, but it's so convenient to have it right there. And people should have access to that stuff, as it's some of the greatest blues rock playing ever. And they had had pretty much everything. So I sent out a message on their Twitter stream asking what was up and the Twitter guy said he'd look into it. It didn't happen overnight, but all those albums are back up on Rhap again. All was right with the world again. (OK, all is never right with the world for me, but there are moments of grace. ) Also the post-Peter Green pre-Buckingham/Nix Fleetwood Mac stuff is not on Rhap -- or any other subscription service I've been on. I've got a sentimental attachment to Bare Trees and Future Games, although no one else seems to have even heard those albums. Rhap's got Bob Welch versions of some of his songs from that period but, well, ahem, they're not as good as when he did them with FM. Sorry, Bob, but I gotta say. EDIT: Whoa! Stop the Spotify train I wanna get off! Apparently Fleetwood Mac began with Buckingham Nicks. Peter who? Jeremy who? Yeah. Rhapsody. That's the ticket for me. For now. But, Nat, if you get a chance, see if MOG has any of the Fleetwood Mac albums from the 60s or early 70s. TIA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted July 21, 2011 Members Share Posted July 21, 2011 Also the post-Peter Green pre-Buckingham/Nix Fleetwood Mac stuff is not on Rhap -- or any other subscription service I've been on. I've got a sentimental attachment to Bare Trees and Future Games, although no one else seems to have even heard those albums. Rhap's got Bob Welch versions of some of his songs from that period but, well, ahem, they're not as good as when he did them with FM. Sorry, Bob, but I gotta say. EDIT: Whoa! Stop the Spotify train I wanna get off! Apparently Fleetwood Mac began with Buckingham Nicks. Peter who? Jeremy who? Yeah. Rhapsody. That's the ticket for me. For now. But, Nat, if you get a chance, see if MOG has any of the Fleetwood Mac albums from the 60s or early 70s. TIA Hmm good idea. I haven't heard that Bermuda Triangle song in ages.... What's on MOG for FM is pretty spotty: Fleetwood Mac MainAlbumsSongsPhotosNewsPostsBio.Filter: Full-Length Singles & EPs Album Title Release Date Avg Rating Behind The Mask 1990 Blues Jam In Chicago, Vol.1 1969 Blues Jam In Chicago, Vol.2 2004 Crazy About The Blues 2010 Fleetwood Mac 1975 Fleetwood Mac 1968 Fleetwood Mac In Chicago 1969 1975 Fleetwood Mac Live 2006 Greatest Hits 2009 Live 1980 Live In Boston 2004 Live In Boston, Vol.2 1999 Live In London '68 1986 London Live '68 1986 Madison Blues 2007 Men Of The World: The Early Years 2008 Mirage 1982 Mr. Wonderful 1968 Rumours 1977 Say You Will 2009 Show-Biz Blues: 1968-1970, Vol.2 2002 Shrine '69 1999 Tango In The Night 2009 The Dance 1997 The Original Fleetwood Mac 1977 The Pious Bird Of Good Omen 1969 Then Play On 1969 Time 1995 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 22, 2011 Hmm good idea. I haven't heard that Bermuda Triangle song in ages.... What's on MOG for FM is pretty spotty: Fleetwood Mac MainAlbumsSongsPhotosNewsPostsBio.Filter: Full-Length Singles & EPs Album Title Release Date Avg Rating Behind The Mask 1990 Blues Jam In Chicago, Vol.1 1969 Blues Jam In Chicago, Vol.2 2004 Crazy About The Blues 2010 Fleetwood Mac 1975 Fleetwood Mac 1968 Fleetwood Mac In Chicago 1969 1975 Fleetwood Mac Live 2006 Greatest Hits 2009 Live 1980 Live In Boston 2004 Live In Boston, Vol.2 1999 Live In London '68 1986 London Live '68 1986 Madison Blues 2007 Men Of The World: The Early Years 2008 Mirage 1982 Mr. Wonderful 1968 Rumours 1977 Say You Will 2009 Show-Biz Blues: 1968-1970, Vol.2 2002 Shrine '69 1999 Tango In The Night 2009 The Dance 1997 The Original Fleetwood Mac 1977 The Pious Bird Of Good Omen 1969 Then Play On 1969 Time 1995 [i took the liberty of reformatting your list to make it easier to see all at once] Hmm. That's a lot better than Spotify -- which, of course, had none of the 60s stuff, really. In fact, in terms of raw count, it's 2 more albums than Rhap's 25... I haven't compared the whole list but it looks fairly similar, overall. Here's the album list for FM (not counting multi-band comps, of course)... Live In London '68 - Nov 2008 Men Of The World - The Early Years - Nov 2005 Blues Jam In Chicago - Volume 1 - Oct 2004 Blues Jam In Chicago - Volume 2 - Oct 2004 Say You Will - Apr 2003 Mirage - Mar 2003 Live In Boston Volume 2 (Remastered) - Mar 2003 Live In Boston Volume 1 - Mar 2003 The Dance - Jan 2003 Show-Biz Blues 1968-1970 Vol. 2 - Jun 2001 Fool's Parade - Sep 1998 Time - Oct 1995 Behind The Mask - Apr 1990 Greatest Hits - Nov 1988 Live - Aug 1988 Tango In The Night - Apr 1987 Live In Boston - Jan 1985 Tusk - Jan 1979 Rumours - Feb 1977 The Original Fleetwood Mac - Jan 1977 Fleetwood Mac - Jul 1975 The Pious Bird Of Good Omen - Oct 1969 Fleetwood Mac In Chicago 1969 - Jan 1969 Mr. Wonderful - Aug 1968 Fleetwood Mac - Feb 1968 320 kbps, hunh? $5 ($10 w/ mobile) Hmmm... How's the classical? Never mind, maybe I'll just throw down my 5 clams and find out. (And I guess I can duck out before the 2 week free trial is over with no hit on the wallet. And maybe I could even end up saving $5 a month over Rhap. Loyal as I am... 320 kbps... Heck, looks like I can use their search to just answer these questions myself. My bad, man. I made you do all that work. But this really seems to hit home what a sham the whole media fascination with Spotify is. Sheesh. Spotify is the worst of the lot, from what I can see. ________ Addendum: I guess I'll be going through this for a while but I just checked Andrew Bird, one of my faves... looks like Mog has most of this decade but is missing four albums from the late 90s and early 00's. (That said, I much prefer Mog's album listings which are easy to read, and can be sorted quickly. Rhap's new online site uses all big album graphics and is harder to get a grip on at a glance (at least it's sorted new-to-old. I hate jumbled listings like Spotify has.) [EDIT: Actually, the 3 'missing' albums were just under a name variation -- they are there! ] Damn. This might be a hard decision. It's so hard to give up albums you've already bonded with... What $5 monthly expense could I give up. Toilet paper? __________________ UPDATE: I'm doing the MOG free trial. I think I'm starting to believe the 320kbps thing. (Er, not that I doubted you, Nat. But hearing is believing and all that... ) I'm comparing Paul Weller's Wild Wood -- which sounds crap on Spotify and not super great on Rhapsody's online version -- but better in the desktop player (I spent five plus minutes comparing them last week when I thought some online streams sounded kinda funky -- but it sounds good on MOG. I'm still trying to get the hang of the site and the player -- and looks like they have a new beta player. Uh oh. Big album pictures... which are kinda nice but I'd like to be able to switch to a simple list and be able to sort. (Maybe I can. I'm jumping around between 2 desktop players and 3 online players so I'm getting dingy.) OK... critical artist, Rory Gallagher (for me, I mean )... MOG beats on raw count (with some dupes) with a whompin' 38 albums; Rhap 24. Rhap beat Mog on the Pablo Casals test (38-32, IIRC). But, dude, the FIDELITY on MOG! We may have a winner. (Still, don't want to give up those old Andrew Bird albums, though. Let's see, saving $5 a month I could buy the 3 or 4 albums in less than a year... ) Decisions, decisions. Well, I guess I can afford to take my time here. I've got two weeks before that extra 19 cents a day kicks in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted July 22, 2011 Members Share Posted July 22, 2011 [What $5 monthly expense could I give up. Toilet paper? Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities. Frank Lloyd Wright nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 22, 2011 Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities. Frank Lloyd Wright nat whilk iiI owe you BIG time. MOG really, really rocks. The fi is, indeed, high at 320 kbps. The selection is overall about the same as Rhapsody -- and a bit better on Rory Gallagher, who, God love him', is one of my cultural linchpins. (I put on the classic Tattoo album and I was thinking, man, the high end is so clear -- but this is one of those damn remasters that they jacked up -- indeed, the treble was hurting my ears [OK, I got a little carried away. it was loud]... so I thought, well, I did notice some duplicates among those 38 Rory Gallagher albums, let's see if there's a different mastering. The trebly release in question was 2010. There was one more Tattoo and it was 2011. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Sure enough, someone had remastered it yet again, only this time they'd undone the mayhem that Mr Remaster 2010 had done. There was an early 2000's hits package that was really squashed. What is it with these bozos? Anyhow, much better. Props to Mog for stocking up on 'duplicates.' It paid off this time. [i gotta say, though, it's still a bit too bright. But the vinyl mastering was always a bit on the 'mellow' side.]) Yeah, Nat, you're the man. MOG is the winner! [Like Rhapsody, MOG is US-only. Sorry everybody else. And, what the hell, maybe that pay tier at Spotify does have a much better selection and fi than the free tier, even if they don't play it up.] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 22, 2011 Hey, Nat -- have you tried the beta player yet? It seems to be a pretty big improvement (although I definitely liked the plain text listing and sorting options) in the old one. There are some (crucial) things missing in the beta player (like shuffle) but you can drag songs around (although not in blocks... that's a gotta have in 2011). Man, I'm so excited. Now I can stop telling myself I was relatively happy with the somewhat compromised fidelity of Rhapsody. EDIT: Mind you, I had a lot of good times with Rhapsody. I think we enjoyed each other, but, well, you grow apart. I need a deeper bitrate now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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