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.
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.
mostly listen via youtube, sometimes buy music via bandcamp, but usually not downloading nor listening via it, it is just an act of reward and encouragement.
i have a several vinyls and a cd, that i cannot get rid of, because the artist does not sell his music anymore. (but i have no way to play it).
I actually use archive.org for a lot of live concert recordings. bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish have been allowing/sort of encouraging fans to record and freely share their concerts for a long time and it’s all just out there to listen to and download as much as you want. there’s also the official streaming services like nugs.net and LivePhish for higher quality professionally recorded concerts, the subscription is kind of pricey but I think the artists get a better cut than on regular streaming services.
other than that I do use Spotify a bit and try to buy stuff on Bandcamp to support the artists when I can.
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.
I use Plex to host my music. It's not super difficult to set up. And Plexamp is a pretty good player.
Plex also has the option for you to subscribe to Tidal, which I do. And the ability to stream my own music that's not available anywhere on any stream plus almost everything out there that Spotify has is the best combo.
Jellyfin is another server like Plex, but I haven't ever set it up so I don't know how involved it is.
I use Jellyfin, and this was my first home server. Think if I managed it it has to be relatively easy for most people comfortable enough with computers. Probably slightly more involved than Plex though I imagine!
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.
I refuse to stream because of the possibility of services shutting down and losing all the music you "purchased" (never mind needing an internet connection), and the sorts of copy protection and other things I've encountered when purchasing digital music turned me off of the whole thing years ago. Now I have all of my music on my phone, on my computer, and a physical backup too.
Plus, you can sometimes find CDs cheap at garage sales and thrift stores so there's a fun treasure hunt aspect there too.
When I find a song, I like to keep it. Streaming cant do that. You can create playlists of course, but they may at any time silently remove or replace that song. You dont know suffering until you've heard a bad cover of Hotel California.
Now I only buy mp3s. Mostly from 7digital.com or Bandcamp. Amazon dont sell music to Norwegians somewhy. The last album I bought I finally had to download iTunes because thats the only place except for Amazon they released. The app wasnt as intrusive and DRM enforcing anymore as it used to be a long time ago. So I might use iTunes a bit more now. (Yeah, I tend to hold a grudge against software companies for a LONG time. You hear that, reddit!)
Got all my mp3s (23 GB) stored on Onedrive, and use CloudPlayer on android to stream it wherever.
I buy my music on BandCamp when I can and physical when I can. I prefer to buy albums on CD, other than Dungeon Synth music (which I prefer to buy on cassette for the sake of consistency). I do also own a number of albums on vinyl and/or cassette, most of the time because it is the only format I can get a physical copy in. I keep digital copies of all my music in FLAC format both on my desktop and on my jellyfin server.
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'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!
I have a Deezer Hifi sub and mostly download FLACs from there to play in Plexamp (which imo is among the best music players out there). Last.fm for discovery, sometimes I'll scroll through and go check out recommended artists on Spotify, and download through Deezer if I like them.
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...
For anything physical, I try to get on vinyl, but otherwise I rely on either Spotify for streaming or Soulseek for downloads/sharing. I’ve been meaning to set up a personal streaming server on Jellyfin but I’m way too lazy to convert a 4500+ song playlist into downloaded files.
Almost exclusively Bandcamp. I sometimes use YouTube or Spotify (but pay for neither) to listen to stuff that I can't buy on Bandcamp.
There are really not many places left where you can actually buy and own digital music, which I think is sad. I used to use eMusic before it became occupied with blockchain stuff, I used 7digital before it was made unavailable in my country, and I sometimes used Google Play Music for the stuff I couldn't find elsewhere. Now there is only Bandcamp left.
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?
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.CD died.
Radio, believe me or not. I try to fish on some indie radios.
Also, through podcast or YT: I like when they tell you the story or meaning or help you understand in any way. It helps me enjoy music. Then is easy to pull the threat to jump from one artist to the next.
Then I buy CD on their official website, but don't really listen to them.
I thought I was the only person that almost exclusively listened to the radio! I live in an area with a good variety of stations so that helps, I realize some people have very little options when they turn on the radio. I occasionally put on Pandora when I want to listen to a specific obscure genre or YouTube when I'm looking up a specific artist.
Use Spotify / Apple Podcasts more for podcasts…I collect vinyl, I think it “forces” me to listen to an album as a whole. It’s enjoyable. My set is isn’t crazy expensive and still sounds great!
I use Spotify for its convenience and music discovery capabilities. If I particularly like an artist, I'll buy their stuff on vinyl (if available) or I'll buy some merch.
I also support my favourite artist directly on Patreon.
spotify, believe it or not. for the genres of music that i nose around in it has an amazing catalog, i can listen all thru the house thanks to alexa, and i can favourite or skip a track with voice commands. i pay for the premium version because i hate ads and also because i want to listen to music at higher quality than 192kbps
shazam is one click away from being opened after i unlock my phone at any point. holy shit that's been a good resource when i'm out somewhere and hear something i like.
after that, however, i spend a lot of time on bandcamp hunting for obscure and decent sounding remixes of popular songs. THAT's what i dump on a dancefloor full of hippies. if you get the girls dancing then the boys dance with them and with charismatic music you can turn it into a party instead of just a bunch of people dancing to music
oh, and when you're listening to music that you're thinking about DJing with, you absolutely utterly NEED an enormous subwoofer and a surround sound hifi so you can hear it the way it's supposed to sound
i go about 50/50 between CD and bandcamp. I never got into vinyl, though i can appreciate the physicality of it. That being said, i do listen to a fair amount of stuff on youtube or spotify, especially when exploring new artists but also for stuff that i just haven't bought
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.
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 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.
Download 320kb/s and up only usually for free. I'd have to be rich to justify paying for things I can get for free at better qualities instead. Internet bill only life.
Mostly Spotify for my listening. I listen almost exclusively to full albums, but often will let the autoplay continue to see if there's anything I like.
Once in a while I will listen to BBC 6 Music. Have discovered a lot of artists there that I love.
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 probably obtain music in just about every conceivable way possible. Sometimes I'm listening on YouTube for city pop uploads, other times it's SoundCloud for weird obscure indie tracks. Sometimes I'll do some soul seeking to flesh out my local collection of FLACs for my iPod or Strawberry, or I'll pop into Bandcamp to find hidden gems. I also buy a fair bit of used vinyl from Discogs, and I'll occasionally hit up importCDs for the occasional budget-friendly Tatsuro Yamashita album. I even hunt around at local thrift stores to add to my cassette and CD collections, which have both grown to a fairly substantial size. Sometimes indie labels like Light in the Attic will get city pop reissues that aren't all that expensive, and I've bought a passable quality cassette from them before. I've been working on getting a thrown-together component Hi-fi setup from a bunch of thrift store scores, and it actually sounds and works quite well. I have a massive stack of portable CD players, and a trusty cassette walkman that has really decent W+F for what it is. Aside from MD (so far), I guess you could say I'm interested in diversifying my music-listening portfolio.
I use Spotify and Amazon Music for most things, with occasional excursions to Bandcamp and YouTube. If I really like something I'll buy an LP or a download. Spotify gives good recommendations but it tends to lock you into things that are very much the same as what you've already been listening to, and after a while you realize your musical world has become very small. So sometimes I go to everynoise.com for a different way to navigate the Spotify catalogue, and hop around genres until I find something interesting, then back to Spotify to listen around. And I perform classical music so that helps with discovery, and if there's a festival in town I'll go and listen to random bands.