Ins and Outs - 2018 Edition

[vansmack]

CDs are still outselling vinyl about 5 to 1.

Yes, but one is on the steady decline, one is on the rise.  I explained it all in the Vinyl thread - both trail streaming by a country mile:

I hate you all. 

Because of the "rebirth" of vinyl, tangible media (16%) is going to (re)surpass download purchases (19%) in the next year or so.

But don't get too excited - the impact of buying vinyl (29% of all physical media sales, up 3%) pales in comparison to the impact of streaming (68% of all music revenues) on the death of digital downloads (down 24%).

Let the high quality streaming wars begin, and prove Jay-Z right.....

Source 

[vansmack]

My question is how do you stream music on a plane? Or anywhere wifi doesn't exist?

Strangely, you're the second person to ask me this question this week.  I thought it was well known but apparently it's not.

With a paid music steaming service, you have the option to stream or download to your device.  You can download individual songs, albums or, depending on the service, your homemade playlists or music service created playlists.  They stay on your phone until you delete them or until you don't pay your monthly service fee.  This allows me to listen to them on a plane, underground on the train or anywhere else I don't have wifi or cell service.

I'm headed to Colorado in a couple days and have my entire Holiday Playlist and all of my best of 2017 Albums cued up for the trip.

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

OUT: John Skipper
IN: George Bodenheimer

. . . just a few years after the reverse.

[vansmack]

Haha vinyl is going to bury the cd

Bury?  That's like congratulating that light dusting of snow on top of the frozen pond.  They're both going to melt away eventually and return just when you're feeling nostalgic, but have no long term impact.   

[bearman🐻]

My question is how do you stream music on a plane? Or anywhere wifi doesn't exist?

Strangely, you're the second person to ask me this question this week.  I thought it was well known but apparently it's not.

With a paid music steaming service, you have the option to stream or download to your device.  You can download individual songs, albums or, depending on the service, your homemade playlists or music service created playlists.  They stay on your phone until you delete them or until you don't pay your monthly service fee.  This allows me to listen to them on a plane, underground on the train or anywhere else I don't have wifi or cell service.

I'm headed to Colorado in a couple days and have my entire Holiday Playlist and all of my best of 2017 Albums cued up for the trip.

Very interesting. So are you a Spotify person? Apple music? What is the best service? And what artists are still holding out on streaming their music? Didn't Radiohead just allow their music to be streamed to Spotify? I guess I'm still not ready or interested enough to make that kind of commitment because I'm still very much an iPod guy and at home my primary ways of listening to music are through Bluetooth to a speaker but also vinyl.

[vansmack]

You should read up here:

https://www.consumerreports.org/audio-video/best-music-streaming-service-for-you/

Most will give you a three month free or reduced price trial until you find the right solution for you.  I'm a Google Play Music guy, but I suspect you'll be Apple Music or Spotify. 

As for the holdouts to streaming, those are overcome by the services that allow you to upload your own collection.   That's why I chose Google originally - 50,000 of my own songs to compliment their library, but most have adopted this strategy since.

The bigger problem for streaming has become "exclusives" - only being able to stream certain new albums from one provider.  Those are usually only for a couple weeks and usually only the most popular pop music, so it shouldn't impact you as much as it does me.

As usual, happy to answer any questions, and I'm sure there's a paid Spotify user on here to help with that service.  I do sometimes regret not going with Spotify to share with my other music nerds, but I sunk my second subscription cost into Tidal to test the future of high quality streaming and SONOS.  I may change that...

[kosmo vinyl]

I've used pretty much all of them at this point and am currently back with Spotify.  I tried Deezer recently and considered going back to Tidal again, but alas neither have much of a K-Pop catalog. Google Play was fine, but in the end Spotify has the best coverage of K-pop with playlists and easier to find new releases.  Apple Music is a distant memory at this point.

[kosmo vinyl]

the only plus Apple Music had was it's integration into iTunes, but since I lost my iPod I rarely use it.  and I sideload all my eMusic, etc mp3s to my phone.  although the eMusic app is vastly improved these days

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

I also went with Spotify and highly recommend it, although I still collect physical media much to Vansmack's chagrin.

[walkonbyeeeeeeeee]

Any,thing Julian says . . . I be,lieve..

[lily1]

I am also a dedicated Spotify user.

I started with Pandora maybe in 2009 and still have a premium account but I use it infrequently. Spotify I've had for maybe 4 years; I use regularly and have probably downloaded dozens of albums and playlists. I was super excited to find one of my favorite clubbing songs from the early 90's on Spotify.

[ye-ole-hatch ıll|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|llıl]

I've been very happy with spottily and we have the family plan
I couldn't take the ads and was happy to pay, I'd like to think that gets the artists a little more money (probably not, but let me lie to myself)

I rarely not been able to find what I'm looking for.
I love the ability to share mixes and the catalog is so much deeper than my personal collection
Half the time I could never find the CD I was looking for, so that's been nice to not have to deal with that

I can use it in my car and via our smartTV
I love it for 'craming' for shows I'm going to as well.  I go to setlist.fm and can get most of what that artist is playing on that tour a
yes that takes some of the spontaneity out of it, but I'll take that over being at a show where the artist does some 'deep cuts' that were b-sides of the Australian release that I would have never heard before.  Or covers of obscure bands

[Yada]

How are people still just discovering or just realizing that Spotify is the best and really only streaming service that makes any sense? Welcome to 2011 fam.

[ggw]

In: Anthem
Out: 9:30 Club

[grateful]

In: Anthem
Out: 9:30 Club

Blasphemer!