Depends on if you care about making set playlists. That’s the feature that generally costs more - Pandora is like $5 a month without that option, and $11 with it. I only listen in the car and don’t care about picking exactly what songs are on my stations, so I have the cheaper one, but for other people, that wouldn’t cut it.
I have never understood playlists as a ‘feature’ of these ‘services’. If someone wants that, why the hell don’t people just download the music and make local playlists? But the entire idea behind playlists has always baffled me - ‘yes I want to listen to the same songs in the same order every time I select this’ bro you’ve just made a mixtape from the 80s. And paid for the privilege. Good job.
For me the one and only appeal of any of these ‘services’ is to take what I currently like, blend like 3% of ‘similar songs/artists’ that I likely don’t know about, and get the hell out of the way otherwise. I’ve never had a decent experience with ‘let’s throw random shit at you and pray you like some of it’ ‘discovery’ systems. I don’t care what is popular with the masses, I don’t care what your ‘djs’ have ‘curated’, I don’t want to listen to your reinvention of radio, I don’t want to listen to someone talk between tracks, I don’t want to even be aware of talk show ‘radio’ oh my christ. Just give me fucking music, that I like, with a hint of weird. I give you my imported data from X prior service, I give you my entire last.fm data, I cannot make it any easier for you to do this. Just, do, it.
deep breathing
Sorry, I went to a place there. After like 20 years you’d think someone would get the formula right.
Counterpoint, I love the Spotify Discover Weekly feature. I’ve found some great gems. As for random playlists, I like to find lists that other people have made based on different genres I may be in the mode to listen to. Finding and downloading songs, to me, is way more inconvenient than using Spotify.
Depends on if you care about making set playlists. That’s the feature that generally costs more - Pandora is like $5 a month without that option, and $11 with it. I only listen in the car and don’t care about picking exactly what songs are on my stations, so I have the cheaper one, but for other people, that wouldn’t cut it.
I have never understood playlists as a ‘feature’ of these ‘services’. If someone wants that, why the hell don’t people just download the music and make local playlists? But the entire idea behind playlists has always baffled me - ‘yes I want to listen to the same songs in the same order every time I select this’ bro you’ve just made a mixtape from the 80s. And paid for the privilege. Good job.
For me the one and only appeal of any of these ‘services’ is to take what I currently like, blend like 3% of ‘similar songs/artists’ that I likely don’t know about, and get the hell out of the way otherwise. I’ve never had a decent experience with ‘let’s throw random shit at you and pray you like some of it’ ‘discovery’ systems. I don’t care what is popular with the masses, I don’t care what your ‘djs’ have ‘curated’, I don’t want to listen to your reinvention of radio, I don’t want to listen to someone talk between tracks, I don’t want to even be aware of talk show ‘radio’ oh my christ. Just give me fucking music, that I like, with a hint of weird. I give you my imported data from X prior service, I give you my entire last.fm data, I cannot make it any easier for you to do this. Just, do, it.
deep breathing
Sorry, I went to a place there. After like 20 years you’d think someone would get the formula right.
Counterpoint, I love the Spotify Discover Weekly feature. I’ve found some great gems. As for random playlists, I like to find lists that other people have made based on different genres I may be in the mode to listen to. Finding and downloading songs, to me, is way more inconvenient than using Spotify.