Where do you buy music?

[Beancounter1]

My New Year's resolution is to bring more music into my life.
I've just ripped my entire CD collection onto my laptop, and transferred to MP3 player. I never played the CDs, but now I can play random tracks on shuffle, and delete album tracks I don't like - so much more fun.

Where is the best place to buy songs or albums online, preferably wma format?
I am not interested in streaming, as I want to own the tracks and play them offline.

That sounds ideal, except I don't have anything in the Apple ecosystem, so I am not familiar with iTunes.

I need to do a lot more research!

@mewkins and everyone recommending Spotify - the suggestions algorithm does sound tempting. I will maybe give it a try. Although from what people have said here it doesn't seem like it will solve the issue of downloading tracks to keep and transfer to the MP3.

It seems like the industry really is pushing people to subscription streaming. It must be more profitable for them than selling tracks.

I just explored Amazon Prime Music - my lord it is such an un-user-friendly interface. Absolutely not intuitive, and at every turn your are nagged to subscribe to the unlimited service. I gave up.

Spotify

Discovery: loads of classic CDs for sale on ebay for about £3 -ish. I would have to spend time ripping them, but it would be worth it for those albums that have mostly good songs with few 'filler' tracks.

That sounds ideal, except I don't have anything in the Apple ecosystem, so I am not familiar with iTunes.

I need to do a lot more research!

You can literally do this with Amazon, as I mentioned upthread. It works in a similar way to iTunes.

Eg you can buy Taylor swift's whole album, or you can buy just antihero

I bought my first album in 1970. Vinyl then CDs, then endless faffing with mp3s. Not to mention the players and speakers.
I pay for Spotify family now which is ooch, expensive but I have got rid of all the "stuff" which is liberating. I listen to new stuff all the time as well as old favourites.

This is interesting as I've been thinking of getting with the times and getting Spotify but DH is resistant cos he likes 'owning' his music and can't seem to move on from CDs. He also makes the point that streams don't pay much to the artists. I have thousands of mp3 tracks on the laptop but I never listen to them and now we have an echo dot it would be convenient to play music through that.

I buy CDs and rip them. If I only want one track or a few, I buy them and download from 7Digital. I always want them in MP3 at 320kbps - very high quality. Amazon's downloads are not of this quality. With many other services, you're effectively renting them - and they can stop the license at any time.

I get you, OP - I just want to have tracks offline, whether on CD and/or on the computer/memory stick and know that they're there to play at any time. I don't want to have to stay subscribed to a service that 'holds' my choices for me, even if it's free.

I buy the odd CD these days, but am going to rip all of our collection one of these days. Usually, I just listen on YouTube and download them for later listening/in the car.

I can't really see the point of Spotify, myself. I'm sure it's me being an ignorant old dinosaur, mind. Is it the fact that it recommends stuff based on what you've listened to before, if you like to discover new music? I'm old, so I've already heard loads of music already - normally rely on my rusty old memory banks reminding me of something random every now and again!

Spotify and I listen to Radio 6 for inspiration

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll i like both the large catalogue and the curated playlists.

For example, I’m listening along with this book www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/4709831-another-year-of-wonder-thread-for-those-reading-listening-in-2023?page=1

It is a lot of CDs to buy if I were to own the music following the book. I might listen to the piece for the day for a couple of times. Then if I like it, I listen to the album the piece is from, or other music by the same composer or the soloist.

The thread linked is following Clemency Burton-Hill second book on a piece a day. I have followed her first book A Year of Wonder previously.

In fact I used to read reviews from publications like gramophone for recommended recordings before buying. I no longer do it because so many recordings are on Spotify. I can listen to them and discover for myself which version I like.

Spotify also has a large catalogue of foreign music. For example, you can find a lot of New Zealand music not available on CDs here.

You can do the same on YouTube very possibly but it can’t stream to sonos.

spotify definitely isnt more profitable for artists than selling ownership to tracks

www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/12/books-music-amazon-spotify-chokepoint-capitalism-review/672372/

IMO its one of the few downsides.

btw - you are right, “downloading” tracks from Spotify is not like downloading an mp3 from itunes for instance. “Make available offline” would be a better description.

take your point about sound quality, but apart from that there’s no competition. Having a Spotify subscription is like buying every album out there, with no need to store them anywhere, for 10 quid a month.

when you’re singing along its no difference if it belongs to you or its being streamed 🤷🏻‍♀️

I honestly can't imagine a life now without Spotify in it. It's just so incredibly easy to have access to 99% of the music I could ever want instantly, no matter where I am, without need for storage, whether it's through headphones or blasting out in the kitchen. I love being able to Shazam a random song I hear in a shop to find out what it is, then find it on Spotify, and then go to the song radio to find suggestions for other similar ish songs I might like. And it's so easy to make playlists, and all the podcasts I like are in the same place. It's just brilliant.

That said, I do also love vinyl but my house can only store so much of it and it's incredibly expensive to buy any recent albums.

Oh and re needing the MP3 player - I used to keep an old iphone around for this very purpose. So I could plug it in without needing to attach my actual phone to a stereo.

Ah, thanks, @SnowAndFrostOutside - very interesting.

Sorry, are you saying that because of your age and the fact you have "heard loads of music" means you cannot fathom that there is an entire world of new music from artists and bands you've never heard of and thus, you cannot see the point of Spotify?

OP a quick solution would be to buy a cheap second hand iPod touch (or even iPad, depending on your budget and requirements) and host Spotify on that, plugged into your amp. You're not tied to it with your phone being attached and you've access to more music/podcasts etc than you have time to listen to.

A lot of us aren't really interested in listening to a lot of new music so a subscription does work out expensive, I have subscribed to Apple Music for a few years now but wouldn't have really had my money's worth so if I was watching the pennies it would be the first thing to go. Music nowadays is more like listening to the radio but your choice of music rather than really listening to it and emerging yourself in it.

Immersing not emerging

That is why we need a facility to keep the same name for threads we are on

OP a spare smart phone (family might help here if not one of your own?). You can connect it to speakers via your existing lead and your house Wi-Fi -it won't even need a sim in it to link to the internet and Spotify or YouTube or play MP3s.

My partner is a full-time musician and uploads to Spotify (it's one of about 8 platforms globally that tracks appear on via one distributor)

Any monthly subscription gives a lot of new artists a platform and the algorithms are superb. It's not just genre, it can be a particular feel of a track or even individual sound within a track that links suggestions together. Like a really spot-on personal DJ.

I pay for family on Spotify so my teenagers can explore and share (and so we don't have weird suggestions! ) it's a source of joy to us and we're a house with no TV license and only film and Spotify subscriptions.

With such good speakers it's a shame to miss out on the wonderful production quality of the music out there that you'd never discover otherwise, artists do benefit, big and small. These platforms are global and if you dive in it's way as much fun as scouring charity shops etc for cds and alot of the songs you look up on Spotify will have been remastered and out your speakers that would be a big treat for you.

Hope there's some ideas there.

I agree. I've listened and bought tons of music over the years but still find things I've never heard of before, old and new. I still buy vinyl and go to gigs to support artists but Spotify is a game changer in terms of access and exploration of music.