Caught a long thread of posts about some fully evil shit Spotify is getting up to again and just thinking about how, even without a lifetime history of stealing revenue from artists and other ethically-challenged practices, the entire model of streaming music has done tremendous harm to our (read: my) ability to simply Enjoy Music.
I definitely used to be the kind of person who got by saying "well, at least it's a place you can discover new music", and in some instances that was true. Shit, I found one of my favourite bands through "[artist] radio". But the endless churn of algorithmic playlists and generative suggestions feeds you through these insular spirals, the software learning what you'll tolerate and narrowing down until you're hearing the same inoffensive stream of the same sounds on repeat ad infinitum.
I noticed that I was no longer even really listening to music with Spotify. It was just a blur of noise going on in the background, an indie-rock ambience that I had no connection to because Spotify had figured out what I liked and was just looping a perfectly tolerable series of sounds to keep me on the system. It didn't even really matter if I liked something that came up - it'd be forgotten within the noise sooner than later.
A couple of years ago, between knowing too many musicians getting screwed over in payments and a long night of listening to a friend re-score the Rankin/Bass Return Of The King animated feature, I ditched streaming services pretty much outright and started buying music again (mostly on Bandcamp), saving things locally, building a library.
You know what rules? Putting together a music collection. Seeing your tastes expand and change and diversify over time without needing some "Wrapped"-style marketing event to tell you what you listened to. Putting on music feels like a conscious choice now, and even sticking on an ambient background album feels like I'm engaging more with the medium than scrolling down a "Monday Morning Study and Relax Playlist".
I'm still discovering new bands every week. I probably "discover" a more varied range of artists and genres through friends, discords, flipping through a local record store or simple sheer happenstance than any algorithmic recommendation feed could offer. It kinda makes me feel like an insane person to be like "hey have you heard about SOUND?" but it's genuinely transformed my relationship with music.
