Spotify.

So I guess for like a couple bucks more than a Hulu supscription you can get Spotify Premium (or whatever)? I don't currently stream music but is this something I should get? Am I old?

I've got the itunes streaming service.  For $10 a month I have access to pretty much everything I ever want to listen to.

And if I listen to a specific album 100 times, the artist gets a penny!

I only use the free desktop version & just for when I’m at work. Otherwise I still illegally download everything onto my iPod.

Having a Coltrane album interrupted with ads from insurance companies isn’t ideal but I’m not ready to discard my iPod.

I don't have a subscription to Spotify and I agree with nick that having your music interrupted is annoying, especially if the music has your full attention when out of nowhere... Greg doesn't like work coffee...

YouTube is better. Although more well known albums are usually packed with commercials and those interrupt the song in some cases! But something underground like the Mixtape Magic channel which posts old rave tapes don't have any commercials. Listened to Spiderland commercial free this morning.

I have a Spotify subscription because it allows you to keep a library on your device this is offline/downloaded and Spotify makes this very easy to configure. Specific libraries or playlists can be set to "auto-download" when you're on wi-fi, then you can play them offline. Super useful when subway rides and road trips. Save that data!

I also like Spotify's social features. Sharing playlists, following your friends profiles, and being able to subscribe to other peoples' playlists is really fun.

Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I actually like Spotify's algorithmic playlists as well. Their playlist curation is obviously record label/profit drive, but I still find good music on there. Discover Weekly gets better and better the more you use the service. Song/playlist radios keep the music going when you're not sure what you want to listen to.

There are some occasionally frustrating gaps in the library, but we all just have to deal with that no matter which platform we use. Spotify has features where you can integrate your iTunes library into the Spotify browser and stream/listen to local files in the same window. I've also seen third-party programs that integrate the APIs between Spotify and Soundcloud, for example, so you can get all your music from both those services in one place.

Nothing is a real perfect solution, but I've found it is a much more time efficient way for me to consume music I like than attempting to download things and manage an iTunes library. There will always be songs that are only on Soundcloud/Bandcap/YouTube that will be difficult to integrate into your regular listening habits. It's been very worth my money. It's especially worth the money if you do the Spotify + Hulu package (I don't, personally).

Someone was telling me the other day that Spotify has invested in an AI technology that predicts what dead artists would sound like today.

So, the tech makes a “Jimi Hendrix” song for 2018 based on how his voice, tastes & influences would have changed. I don’t want to give money to a company doing shit like that.

Fair enough. Keep giving it toward all the incredibly ethical things Apple is doing with their money LOL.

Who the fuck buys shit from Apple...?

Dude not even the Trump administration has reached "Silicon Valley-crafted 2018 Jimi Hendrix" levels of evil.

I have paid Spotify over £1,000 over the past ten years. Money well spent IMO. I would only have spunked it on shit second albums that I would instantly regret purchasing.

I guess I should say the only steaming I do is on my computer from youtube and I'm not sure if that will change.

Spotify informed me today that my most played artist of the year was Ween. I hadn’t realized I listened to them that much but I did get super into them over the summer.

Did you go see them on Halloween? That was a fun show. They played ‘Roses are Free’ which, from what my friend tells me, they don’t play live often.

Saw a lot of Voodoo Ladies, Ponies, a few Dr Rocks, and a ton of Banana costumes.

Also, what ended up being your favorite album? For me it goes:

Quebec
Mollusk 
White Pepper
Pure Guava
Chocolate and Cheese
Shinola vol.1
The Pod
Godweensatan
12 Golden Country Hits 
La Cucaracha

I’ve never seen them live but will change that should the opportunity ever present itself in the future.

I’m nowhere close to getting through the entire catalog. Those first 4 albums offer so much that I’m planning on using 2019 to move ahead with the rest.

It’s exciting to have that much new music to look forward to absorbing!

I was there.  It was an all-right time.  I wanted to murder at least 95% of the people in attendance.  I usually only want to murder like 45-55% of people in attendance at any given show, so this was the wrong kind of notable.

If you asked me to rank the films of the Coen brothers, my list would look something like this:

GodWeenSatan
Chocolate vs. Cheese
The Pod
Pure Guava
The Mollusk
12 Golden Country Greats
White Pooper
Quebec
La Cucaracha