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[–] 107 points 5 months ago (26 children)

Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer. All of them are cheaper than Spotify. Just saying.

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  • [–] 38 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I've started using the Qobuz store to slowly build back up my digital music library. Every month, I take what I would have spent on Spotify and spend it on flac files instead.

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  • [–] 32 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    If you want your Spotify library ported over. Qobuz offers a free tool to transition.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Where do I find this? This article convinced me and your comment pushed me toward Qobuz to replace Spotify, but now I have no idea where this tool could be lol. I admit I've only been here (web and app) 5 minutes but I'm lost at where else to look.

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Tidal is better than Spotify for music enjoyers. The quality is clearly labeled on each track and the UX has a focus on well, music. There aren't any podcasts or social features and other crap.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I tried Tidal but they didn’t have a bunch of the music I listen to. Like for instance at that time they were completely missing most of David Arkenstone’s discography that Apple Music and Google Play both have in totality.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    whoa another David Arkenstone fan!

    well at least I liked some Tibetan style album of his, never listened beyond that, but still, cool to be reminded!

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Can you download from any of these? Spotify seems to be pretty locked-down., even on something like Firefox on Linux.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    From what other people are saying, Qobuz allows you to buy to own and download.

    Pretty much all of them have some sort of store offline mode for their mobile app, but that would obviously be in a DRM'd format.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Qobuz sadly has no Linux app, so you have to use wine or the like. And the web Version lacks the features i use in the app quite regularly. (e.g. radio around a song, daily mix). But they apparently (recently ?) added the feature to control the web Browser Version via the app, so i can select the radio on phone and tell him to play it in the browser. Its a workaround for sure, but its good enough for me :P

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    That's the one feature I'm still waiting for Tidal to add. Otherwise I'm very happy with it.

    There's no question that Spotify still holds an edge in terms of features, but in the end I decided I was willing to put up with the loss of some conveniences to actually support artists, and take my support away from a company that keeps behaving so shittily.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    I tried to move to Qobuz from apple music, and it just never 'clicked'. I fed it my am played songs, + last.fm so like 2 decades of listem history, and it just... didn't use the data for playing music or artists I would like.

    I remember tidal being kinda similar but that was, jeez, 8 years ago? And I stuck with tidal for like a year. Qobuz was out before the second month was up.

    Shame since if it could ingest and actually use data, it seemed pretty good with features I would like.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    People actually want their music service to determine what they listen to?

    I like Apple Music because it basically acts as a music library where I can add every album I want to my collection. I pick what I listen to myself.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I don't like a ton of music. If it's top 500 charts mainstream and it's not 20 years old, or so new that hipsters don't even know about it, I'm probably not interested.

    So finding new music that isn't popular and isn't shit is annoying. I basically use 'discovery' systems that are 98% the same things you have listen to the last 5 years on repeat, but sometimes it'll slip a song I don't know by an artist I've never heard of that's metal screamo and I'm like WTF HELL YEAH. Then the next song is Vanilla Twilight by Owl City.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    I'm using deezer right now. It's decent but still not quite up to the Google play music radio for recommendations. Even Spotify was a bit better. But at least it's not funding that kind of assholes

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  • [+] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago*

    FY was what I was most interested in, but again it didn't seem to grab my play history, only the songs I had played. For like 18 years. And there was no weight between them so something I listened to once in high school had the same chance of trying to pull me in a direction/genre as a song I have 5k plays of. And everything, everything was favorited. That might have been the import systems fault, but they are partnered with them so...

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (1 child)

    I did the Deezer free trial and it was cool. I just ported over my music from Spotify via some web tool. But I prefer piracy for now.

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  • [–] 63 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Support artists, buy music on Bandcamp (especially on Bandcamp Fridays when they pay them more of the overhead fees), or from the artists directly.

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  • [–] 45 points 5 months ago
    [–] 39 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    It is slop. Quit doing coke, my guy. That sounds like some wolf of wall street "got to get ahead of this" BS.

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  • [–] 31 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I bet it is from his point of view. Don’t have to pay the artists if they don’t exist.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago

    Except when the artists use slop to pretend to be actual artists and used bots to farm listens on their totally real tracks, then spotify thinks it's very bad

    From september 2025 - https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/spotify-cracks-down-on-ai-slop-these-are-the-changes-youll-see/

    A new spam filtering system: Since Spotify offers payouts to artists based on how often users play a song, scammers are trying to take advantage. The company explained that spam tactics like "mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop" are easier to produce than ever with AI. Not only does this dilute the royalty pool for real artists, but it also reduces attention for those artists.

    https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/spotifys-new-policy-wont-stop-the-wave-of-ai-slop/

    They claim that over the last year, they’ve removed 75 million songs engaging in what they call “spam tactics”: people mass-uploading generic nonsense; the same songs uploaded twice or thrice; cheats to hijack the SEO (like stuffing keywords in titles to get algorithmically surfaced easier); and “artificially short track abuse,” which is when people split up longer songs into short segments to rack up royalties.

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  • [–] 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

    There is a new strategy I noticed recently. My wife was listening to an 80's "radio station" (autogenerated playlist) on YouTube Music and I noticed that some of the songs sounded a bit odd. It took me a bit but I figured out what these scammers are doing.

    1. Use Abelton to separate the vocal stem from the original track.
    2. Use ReVoice to change the vocals to an AI altered one that is almost identical to the original. ReVoice is a plugin that modifies "your" vocals instead of generating new vocals. The result is a vocal track who's artificialness is difficult to detect by most.
    3. Replace the original vocal stem with the ReVoice one.
    4. Upload it as a "cover" or "vocal cover".
    5. Profit.

    Please note that the song and the vocals remain exactly the same but the voice is just ever so slightly different. I have no idea how this is legal.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    All it takes to make it legal is proper attribution. There are actually publishers that can do this for you. You upload your song, provide all of the proper attribution, and they will blast it out to every platform.

    Easy and legal.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Which songs? You're saying it sounded identical, but was listed as a cover, meaning the albums they came from were different from the original versions? I have YT Music, can you link some?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    The one that really caught my ear was "(I Just) Died In Your Arms", originally by Cutting Crew. I cannot give you a link to that specific track because my wife started the playlist via our old (no screen) Google Home, but it doesn't take much to find them if you kick off a generic "radio station" based on older music.

    They are the same songs as in the album but with an AI based voice modulation on the vocal stem. Pitch shifting the track ever so slightly can also disguise it.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    It's literally called AI slop by everyone, dipshit.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Your boss is a stuid boring turd thats why he is a boss. We live in a inversion that serves the purpose of extracting baby blood for the blood ritual of capitalism and providing fresh meat to the pdfiles as they pee their pants because the did too much "K". It is a dum dum world that needs to change. asap

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  • [–] 21 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I take exception to the claim that AI-generated music is popular. I guarantee you those stats are misleading. Just like if you believe that all of the "views" on X are real, well, I have a bridge in Manhattan to sell you.

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  • [–] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    So glad I left Spotify years ago. They will be a case study on how to destroy a brand, lose a leading market position, and eventually run the company into the ground

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  • [–] 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Left Spotify years ago after they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti vax podcasters. Tidal was fine for me, but then I kept coming across uploaded ai crap masquerading as legit established bands. So now on qobuz, but I miss the tailored to me recommendations. I'm considering just moving to a completely non-streaming solution - but I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to start.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Not sure how tech savvy you are but you could always buy music CDs. They are still a thing. You can also buy some pretty premium MP3 players if you know how to burn music CDs. Vinyl is also fun to collect. Browsing in a CD / vinyl shop is a great way to spend an afternoon

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago*

    So now on qobuz, but I miss the tailored to me recommendations.

    My tailored recommendations didn't come to me until like a week later but they were kindof shit. And their library is also shit.

    The past year I was using Spotube with the ListenBrainz recommendation engine (want to avoid proprietary services), but it hasn't been updated in months and today it finally shit the bed. So now back to looking for alternatives. I came across some self-hosted ListenBrainz integrations with torrent/soulseek but they're way more complex than Spotube and I can't set that up right now for various reasons.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I havnt pirated since 2008, and given I dont own a proper computer even, Ive taken to ripping audio files (songs) from newpipe into a folder on my device. I wish I figured this out years ago.

    My household has also been rebuilding our CD collections over the last year which helps.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago* (6 children)

    I am once again recommending:

    • Tidal: mainstream streaming platform you may already be familiar with, if you're shy about engaging with lesser-known ones
    • Quobuz: mainstream streaming and digital downloads
    • Bandcamp: some mainstream but mostly indie streaming and digital downloads
    • local concerts
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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    local concerts

    Damn, I want to listen to some bands I like while I commute. Better go check out if any of them are giving a local concert right now on the back of my bicycle.

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  • [+] 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Used it for 3+ years no problem, care to explain why?

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  • [+] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I agree google music was goated, so I assume the last time you used Tidal was 5-10 years ago since google music has been defunct and rebranded as YouTube music for nearly a decade.

    In its current state Tidal has a huge selection and I've seen no differences in reliability or available music compared to Spotify since my switch years ago. Its got great choices for audio quality streaming as well and a better payment plan for artists (still not amazing but better than Spotify).

    I can't speak for its quality early on but now its a reliable and decent streaming platform.

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    [–] 11 points 5 months ago

    We've learned that "bosses" will defend absolutely anything, of course he defends his own stupid decisions. Not even worth a quote, it goes without saying.

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  • [–] 17 points 5 months ago

    Another piece of shit platform i never had any interest in is in the news for wildly fucked up reasons.

    Hmm.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    I deleted my spotify, tried apple music 3 month trial. They ransom my playlists but I have screen shots of it all. Ended up collecting a folder of my music I had and new songs I like. Transfer it to my iphone with Tinyftp(just what I found, probably better choices.) to vlc, created my playlists again, without the ransom or subscriptions.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    Buying drm-free music works for me. It's more upfront cost, but eventually you have a big library of stuff you enjoy.

    Fuck Spotify.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Don't use Spotify.

    Use Metrolist.

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  • [–] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

    Stop subscribing NO MATTER WHAT. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU ARE THE PROBLEM. Completely remove yourself completely from big tech... will to power... the dum dums do it. Will to power!!!! Quit now... take up masturbation. Go on a walk. Enjoy the silence but never ever subscribe evvveeeeeerrrrrr! No no no shhhhhhhhh... Be brave Be bold... Be a monk but don't be a chump. Computers are tools. You let them rip the hammer and the sickle right out of your hands. You are a baby that the billionare steals from. He is stealing your sucker because you are suckers. Some people are led to extremes like blowing up a federal building.... You can be extreme by telling them how it is and like a bull opting the fuck out. I go ape if you grape. Lay flat if their shit is wack

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    I never once gave money to spotify and I have never felt more justified in my refusal to even visit their shitty platform out of curiosity.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Done, currently using Noutube via fdroid, but checking out others.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago*

    Last week, the platform announced a new feature in which premium users will be allowed to create their own, AI-generated remixes and song covers using music from participating artists.

    Can’t understand why anyone would want that.

    If you want more music, then listen to new stuff, doesn’t Spotify have like almost all music ever created?

    Also, ironically piracy doesn’t have this problem, torrents might end up being the most reliable way to get non slop content.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Left spotify 2 months ago. Never looking back.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Wasn't it not long ago that they were in the news because they had a spot of bother with people making AI music, and then using bots to run up the listen count for the royalties?

    This hardly seems like it would fix the problem any.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    And so, the genre Slopera was born.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Every time I see another article about Slopify I'm only more glad I spun up a Navidrome server last year. I love being able to support the artists I care about more directly by buying their music and actually owning it.

    I did the math the other day, at the per stream payout rate Slopify gives their artists (~$.005), you would have to stream a song(s) 3,000 times to equal a single $15 album purchase. If you go with an average 3 minute song that's ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY HOURS. Fuckin scam.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    No one is really doing enough to combat AI music. I don't think that AI music has no place. However, I think it should be free and it shouldn't profit off the music it's copied/remixed from. I do not believe writing a prompt constitutes creating music. And I don't want it mixed in with real music.

    I also don't like a lot of electronic music, before anyone asks, but that's not the same thing. Programming beats takes more skill than writing a prompt. I can see the slippery slope comments, but I don't think they hold much water.

    Apple Music (one of the 3 things I use) says they are flagging AI music, but this won't be shown to consumers. Apple has lagged behind everyone else with AI, but apparently they are going all in this year. They registered genai.apple.com, but we don't know what they're going to do with it yet. They're replacing Siri with Gemini (Google), but apparently trying to keep it private. I don't really buy it.

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    [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    It doesn't matter how good it is. It could be the absolute best possible music ever, both sensorially and technically, and it would still not matter !

    Music is a human experience. Without an artist, there is nothing there. AI music can never be better than human music.

    I would rather listen to an untalented toddler's first violin lesson on loop for an hour than to 30 seconds of AI slop.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago*

    To he fair, ai slop is better than Spotifys fash podcasts...

    It is a terribly low bar, yes.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Y'all, I need some suggestions for alternatives to Spotify, starting to get sick of their shit. The one feature I find difficult to replace is finding new music that's similar to others I'm listening to. I don't listen to music, I listen obsessively to one song until I get almost physically sick of listening to it. So I need to listen to snippets of multiple songs which Spotify does allow you to do. Do any of the alternatives have this feature?

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