...So I Finally Quit Spotify
and what I listened to in 2023
I have a playlist which reminds me of my first relationship.
I have a playlist for the airplane journey I took to Canada, to move away from home.
I have a playlist for reading. I have a playlist called ‘DON’T DIE’ which I made for when I couldn’t sleep for anxiety. I have a playlist for dancing alone, for cleaning the kitchen, for sleeping. Nearly 300, all sitting in my Spotify library.
Most impressively, I have a playlist for every month of the last ten years of my life. I can tell you what I was listening to in March 2012, August 2016 or December 2020 at the drop of a hat. This habit started when I downloaded Spotify back in 2011.
Back then, Spotify opened up a world of music which I wouldn’t have heard before. My listening habits evolved too: I could pick and choose songs out of albums, I could listen without the commitment of buying, I was free, I tell ya, FREE! Albums became obsolete — who needed to listen to the filler tracks, anyway? And when you finished listening to a playlist, Spotify would give you more music to listen to. And Wrapped! Wrapped was so fun. My top bands and songs of the year, and all my listening habits right there to review at the end of the year. Spotify, in general, was my best pal when it came to music for the last ten years.
This month I cancelled my Spotify premium membership and deleted it off my phone.
After 10 years, I was officially done. I’d been toying with the idea for a while, but it had always seemed like a ridiculous dream. Delete Spotify? Go back to hosting music on my computer? Buying albums? Like a CAVEMAN? Listening to the SAME 1900 SONGS EVERY DAY? Might as well break my phone in half and string up a tin can, while I’m at it. Might as well take an axe to my boiler and start up the log fire! Might as well DIE OF THE PLAGUE LIKE IT’S 1347!
But I had reasons, and these reasons outweighed the convenience of streaming.
😠 The First Blast of the Angry Trombone Against the Monstrous Regiment of Streaming
My main reason was this: Spotify has been paying artists £0.003 per stream. A third of 1p per play. Which means I’d have to have a song streamed 366,000 times in order to make minimum wage. It ain’t a good start.
And in 2024, Spotify will stop paying out songs which get less than 1000 streams in a year. Which means for me, as an artist in the early stages of my career, I am going to get paid nothing. I could get over 1000 streams on all my songs in total, but still get paid nothing. I could get 999 streams on a song one year and 999 streams on it the next year… and still get paid nothing.
As a musician, I forget that most people don’t actually know the costs that go into producing an album. I sat down with a friend the other day and we talked about my current project and the process of making it all happen. When I told her that mixing alone would cost £1400 she was shocked. Oh, and there’s mastering which might be up to £500, but it could always cost more. And then there’s the thousands you might spend on a radio plugger, just to get the songs heard. I’ve got some funding but that only covers 1/4 of the project. I’ve already pledged over £2000 of my own money to this project.
So why…. why am I handing over £10 of my cash to Spotify again? Especially if they aren’t paying me a dime?
Another reason was the fact that I knew I could live a happy music-listening life without Spotify. I am the kind of woman who will listen to the same 3 songs over and over and over again and not tire, until I find the next song to listen to over and over and over. Despite having every song in Spotify’s catalogue available to me, I would still choose to listen to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge again over the ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist.
And it wasn’t like Spotify was any better! Spotify kept suggesting the same songs to me, over and over. My ‘Release Radar’ which is meant to be all the new music I’d want to know about was just re-issues and live albums. Every time I’d finish listening to a playlist it would then immediately start playing me THE SAME FUCKING JAPANESE HOUSE SONG EVERY DAMN TIME.
So, really, why was my own music library any better or worse than Spotify?
My final reason was this: I wanted to own my music again. I wanted to press ‘shuffle’ on my entire catalog and have it surprise me with my own taste. Spotify lets you ‘like’ albums, and save songs to playlists, but you’ll never get a full idea of what songs you have in your catalogue. And what if some artists pulled their work from the platform? I constantly reach for Joni Mitchell’s Turbulent Indigo and it’s not there. Owning your music means that you will never lose it at the whim of someone else’s business decision. And it will be a catalogue that exists in its entirety. All together, in one place.
A couple weeks ago, I finally worked up the courage to do it. I can’t tell you what eventually led to that decision, but this feeling of right-ness came over me and I knew it was now or never. I was saying NO to Spotify, NO to paying artists nothing, NO to the decline of the album as an art form, and NO to not owning my own music catalogue. I deleted my premium account, deleted Spotify from my phone, and then downloaded apps which would host my files locally on my computer and phone.
🎧 How I’m Listening To Music in 2024
I now listen to music on my computer with the application Swinsian. It costs around £25 and that’s the only thing you ever pay, forever. No subscription. And it’s perfect because it looks like this:
Believe it or not, this looks like heaven to me. I did consider using iTunes but it is no longer iTunes, it’s ‘Music’ and ‘Music’ sucks. I will not get into this but just trust me. All I want is just a LIST OF SONGS which I can easily search. That is ALL I WANT. I do not want album art the size of my face clogging up the place. I do not want complication. I want to listen to music.
I have downloaded Foobar2000 on my phone to host files locally and listen to them on the go. The name Foobar2000 sounds like a robot from a children’s TV show and I’m okay with that. There’s hardly any bells and whistles, and it’s pretty easy to add music. And I now never have to worry about whether I’ve got a playlist downloaded or I’m eating up my data for the month, like I did with streaming on my phone.
There was a beautiful nostalgia that came with being able to listen to music on my computer and phone in this way. I have been feeling so connected to my 15-year-old self these past two weeks because of this change.
To celebrate my newfound freedom, I downloaded a 13-minute long Taylor Swift megamix, and CAN YOU DO THAT ON SPOTIFY? I didn’t think so. I also then went on to Bandcamp after I got paid the other day and bought some music. It felt good.
Listening to my catalogue… I was a bit disappointed at first. The music that exists on my computer is reflective of my tastes back in 2010, I’d say (just before I started using Spotify full-time). It’s peppered with some nice songs from the mixtapes my boyfriend made me when we first started dating in 2019, and some of my own songs which I’ve produced since. But for the most part, it’s kinda out of date. But it gives me an opportunity to build it, slowly and organically, and then it will become mine.
💿 You Can Do It Too, I Promise
And now, after all this, if you are feeling inspired to make a change to your music library and keen to download a song, then I am gonna recommend one of my tracks. ‘Happy New Year‘ is like if Low’s ‘Just Like Christmas’ had a little sister song for new year’s eve. And you can buy it on Bandcamp, and own it! Forever! Alternatively you can take a look at the rest of my catalogue on Bandcamp and find something else that you love. Or go buy that one album you’ve been streaming over and over the last month. Thank you for supporting an artists, like little ol’ me! Directly buying from us keeps money out of the CEO’s pockets.
🎶 My Favourite Songs of 2023
So, here is what I listened to in 2023, my favourite tracks of each month, thanks to my final round of Spotify monthly playlists.
January - Erica Western Teleport by Emperor X (loved this whole album this year)
February - I Believe by Caroline Polachek (one of my top favs of the year!! euphoric & bittersweet)
March - Really Want To See You Again by more*
April - Melanie Martinez’s album PORTALS
May - Pélleas et Mélisande by Alexander Litvinovsky (this is my default reading music)
June - Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift, and People = Shit by Slipknot (ah, the duality of man)
July - I’m Just Ken… naturally
August - I’m Still Here by The Goo Goo Dolls. Yes, from Disney’s Treasure Planet. Look, I don’t know what to tell you.
September - Olivia Rodrigo’s album! Oh, it’s brilliant. Pop will never die.
October - Angels of the Silences by Counting Crows (this RIPS. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard it before)
November - Violins by Lapwagon
December - November by Cloudbelly
It’s almost 2024! Check out some ways you can support me & my music:
buying a ‘Gneiss Guy’ tote bag on my Bandcamp
buy my music on Bandcamp and make a real difference
forwarding this newsletter to a friend!
and if you haven’t already, subscribe:
Til next time! Be good,
Olivia 🌈✨🏔🎶
hell ya i'm gonna do this but also wait are you...paying for all the music? even like a led zeppelin cd?
Oh, how I miss the days of paging through an album cover while listening to it. And I still love listening to a whole album, but that mostly happens in the car because that is the only place I still have a working cd player.
But on the topic of non-streaming music player apps for phone and ipad - do you have any more suggestions? I bought Data Lords from Maria Schneider via ArtistShare a few years ago, and have been listening to it using VLC, but are there any other good recs?