Spotify.

https://pitchfork.com/news/new-spotify-patent-involves-monitoring-users-speech-to-recommend-music/

I hate it all.

Nick wrote:https://pitchfork.com/news/new-spotify-patent-involves-monitoring-users-speech-to-recommend-music/

well, this certainly makes me feel good about my decision to keep my microphone switched off as the default setting

Your phone is already listening to everything you're saying

oh, I only turn my phone on when I need to make or intercept a call outside (so not once in the last ten months)

but yeah, I already live in a surveillance state, point taken

I have an incredible amount of luddite rage lately. I think this is a common social experience that has been intensified by our new reality of endless lockdowns and remote working. The Brits are almost constantly disappointing me but I thought it was great that some of them were going out and breaking 5G antennas last year. Our digital revolution is forcing people into working longer hours, for worse pay, in positions that are increasingly demeaning and purposeless. Meanwhile the value-added productivity of the working class continues to rise, which is being captured by the capitalist class. As much as everything sucks now, at least things are bad enough that people cannot help but connect the dots. The working class is not sufficiently organized and politically mature enough to seize and democratize the means of production but I think breaking them is always a good first step of disorganized resistance.

I have constant thoughts about submerging my phone and laptop into a bathtub, buying a typewriter, and finally developing the necessary attention span to actually accomplish something that is of social and cultural value. But instead I end up scrolling on my Instagram explore page at like 2am because they've hijacked my brain's neurotransmitters to keep looking at girls' photoshopped asses.

WP64 wrote:I have an incredible amount of luddite rage lately. I think this is a common social experience that has been intensified by our new reality of endless lockdowns and remote working.

I hear ya.
Me tonight as I waste time getting angry at my computer I can't figure out rather than catching up with virtual work and/or virtual school:

Do the asses manifest in your dreams? If no, turn to page 42. If yes, turn to page 127.

WP64 wrote:But instead I end up scrolling on my Instagram explore page at like 2am because they've hijacked my brain's neurotransmitters to keep looking at girls' photoshopped asses.

good pussy is good pussy . i created a whole "thots account" to just follow models so i could keep my main account clean.

i hear you on wanting to be a luddite, but it also feels like everything that i enjoy/feels good in my life is digital. i wish there was a simpler way to enforce boundaries on technology, but it requires so much work.

i think it's valuable to try and tame ourselves and our own excesses before going out and suggesting that other people do. it would be awesome to actually reduce my own phone use to almost nothing and be able to help other people figure out how to do the same.

I just subscribed to the Amazon version of Spotify.

I have always had digital access the to pretty much ever CD I've ever bought from them, plus the diet-Spotify experience of listening to the "Prime" music library that's probably 50-60% of what Spotify has (based on my experience of not having used it for almost five years now). Using that exposes you to the idea of "would I pay to make this NOT suck quite so much?" And sometimes you're like hmmm maybe

Anyway they dangled a free offer in front of my face today and I finally bit, so we will test my resolve now

I will cancel the service before my 4 free months are used up!

Yeah, we'll see won't we

I have listened to lots of Moodymann today. And now some Larry Heard album from 2001 right now.

I was listening to Sleaford Mods on the drive home from work.

Anyway, this is helping to break the cycle of listening I was stuck in for a while there. But at what cost?

chrondog wrote:Your phone is already listening to everything you're saying

Can I control its ability to do this? (serious)

Undo I prefer Amazon Prime Music to Spotify. I could be in the minority here but don’t feel that I’m unable to access that much music that Spotify offers.

I mean, last I checked neither offer John Cale’s Sabotage/Live album so I go to YouTube for that and other instances of albums not being there. And I don’t listen to Spotify exclusive podcasts.

undo wrote:

chrondog wrote:Your phone is already listening to everything you're saying

Can I control its ability to do this? (serious)

No

Nick wrote:Undo I prefer Amazon Prime Music to Spotify. I could be in the minority here but don’t feel that I’m unable to access that much music that Spotify offers.

I mean, last I checked neither offer John Cale’s Sabotage/Live album so I go to YouTube for that and other instances of albums not being there. And I don’t listen to Spotify exclusive podcasts.

Do you listen to it in the car? And if so, does it automatically go into the "Car mode" without asking you and just start playing random bullshit that it thinks you'll like when it does?

I don’t pay for it but mine does this if I pick the music while my phone is connected and the car is running. I try to get what I wanna play ready before I start the car. You can close car mode or whatever it’s called but I agree that it’s annoying. I’ve never looked in my iPhone settings or the app settings but there may be a way to turn it off. Doing a quick google search, it looks like you can turn it off in the app settings but it may also be related to your phone being in do not disturb mode. I’d look at those things and see if that changes anything.

The Amazon app has its own settings IN THE APP and you can uncheck the box that sets it to go into car mode any time it detects a connection with the running car or something. Just found this today.

So only tomorrow or Sunday will tell if it remembers that I changed it or if it's gonna forget that somehow

Car mode sucks but my biggest issue with this app recently is all the random shutdowns. As some of you may know, I drive most of the day with my current job. If I’m listening to Spotify for more then a few hours the app just starts closing itself. I open it back up, play the song, 4 songs later… shutdown. It’s not the worst thing but if I’m in the middle of nowhere, there is only NPR, country/hard rock, and political/bible talk. I’d prefer to continue listening to Haroumi Hosono, please.

Anyone else have this issue?

It's ridiculous that any band was ever sued or forced to change their name because some previously existing act already had it.

I swear that half the time I search for a specific artist, like half of the results in the albums list are from completely different artist. Most of the album results for Chapterhouse are from some totally unrelated dude who appears to be a SoundCloud rapper. I went looking for Lush this morning and if you want to hear a song called "Fat Girl Summer," she's got you covered.

I think the Algo is fucking with you. When I search Lush all I get is Lush (artist) then below that all of their albums, a Bowery electric album and a dean blunt album. Everything in its right place over here. I have had that happen to me but I can’t remember any artist that it effected at the moment. But similar story to yours, listening to someone who has some kind of fame, their album ends and the next thing on the list is some unknown SoundCloud Rapper with the same name. You’d think some human that works there has the job of protecting copyright. I imagine that this typically effects artists that have an international counterpart, in name at least.

undo wrote:I just subscribed to the Amazon version of Spotify.

I have always had digital access the to pretty much ever CD I've ever bought from them, plus the diet-Spotify experience of listening to the "Prime" music library that's probably 50-60% of what Spotify has (based on my experience of not having used it for almost five years now). Using that exposes you to the idea of "would I pay to make this NOT suck quite so much?" And sometimes you're like hmmm maybe

Anyway they dangled a free offer in front of my face today and I finally bit, so we will test my resolve now

I will cancel the service before my 4 free months are used up!

Come to think about it, this ought to be two days from now.

undo wrote:It's ridiculous that any band was ever sued or forced to change their name because some previously existing act already had it.

I swear that half the time I search for a specific artist, like half of the results in the albums list are from completely different artist. Most of the album results for Chapterhouse are from some totally unrelated dude who appears to be a SoundCloud rapper. I went looking for Lush this morning and if you want to hear a song called "Fat Girl Summer," she's got you covered.

BGwaves wrote:I think the Algo is fucking with you. When I search Lush all I get is Lush (artist) then below that all of their albums, a Bowery electric album and a dean blunt album. Everything in its right place over here. I have had that happen to me but I can’t remember any artist that it effected at the moment. But similar story to yours, listening to someone who has some kind of fame, their album ends and the next thing on the list is some unknown SoundCloud Rapper with the same name. You’d think some human that works there has the job of protecting copyright. I imagine that this typically effects artists that have an international counterpart, in name at least.

Actually if you want to be a rapper and call yourself KMD, and literally nobody can stop you!

I support Neil Young. Just pulled out my copy of Tonight’s the Night. You don’t need streaming if you got the vinyl!

He’s consistently in my top 3 most listened to artists every year. Fully support him with this decision. And feel dumb not realizing that for $20 a year you can get his entire catalog streaming on his website.

Neil Young is one of the best artists of all time.

No shortage of very very stupid people in my social media feed making comments like "LOL neil young" as though anything as destructive and shitty as Joe Rogan or Spotify could in any way lessen his greatness.

I never switched back over to Spotify, guess I dodged a bullet?

Is there even a "good" streaming service for music?

I like Tidal. It streams in higher quality than Spotify because their system is built on FLAC instead of MP3. I'm into that. I still like some of the features of Spotify better - they have all the Numero Group playlists, for instance - but Tidal's layout is fine and the streaming, which was sorta buggy when it started, is much improved.