Is Spotify going to save the music industry ... or destroy it?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, I've had a good butchers round Spotify and it's pretty poor stuff. I picked a few female vocalists to search for - not obscurities; singers with hits and long careers - Della Reese, Chris Connor and Dakota Staton.

Della has actually got a whole album on there - Della cha cha cha - unsurprisingly, as 'Come on-a my house' is featured in a nice TV advert, a few tracks from several albums (one of them, astoundingly, from the 70s) and a compilation or two.

Chris Connor has 3/4 of 'Witchcraft' on there, a few compilations, and a handful of tracks from a number of Atlantic albums. Apparently nothing more recent.

Dakota has a whole album there - 'In the night', with George Shearing, a few compilations from her Capitol period and some odd cuts from various artists albums.

Who on earth can think this is progress towards a time when, according to the boss, people will be able to listen to everything?

On the plus side - yeah, there IS a plus side - there are a fair number of albums by Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey and Dr Orlando Owoh. But the Mali, Guinea and Senegal scenes are poorly represented.

On the jazz side, there are a few albums by Fred Anderson (though not the Nessa one or the Thrill Jockeys, surprise surprise, which I've got anyway) as well. And about 2% of Sun Ra's recordings

Oh well, it's free. I'd be really rather miffed if I had to pay for this.

MG

[David Ayers]

Who on earth can think this is progress towards a time when, according to the boss, people will be able to listen to everything?

Some things may never be digitized. But those that are will all be distributed online. The only question is how. What do you think is going to happen?

[AllenLowe]

I have not read that article yet, but Spotify engages in some thievery, whether they say so or not - I have posted a few sound files of our new upcoming thing (maybe January 2014) on Soundcloud that have popped up in Spotify - under incorrect titles (sometimes they were re-named later) and various other things. So clearly they just grab whatever the hell they can.

[David Ayers]

I have not read that article yet, but Spotify engages in some thievery, whether they say so or not - I have posted a few sound files of our new upcoming thing (maybe January 2014) on Soundcloud that have popped up in Spotify - under incorrect titles (sometimes they were re-named later) and various other things. So clearly they just grab whatever the hell they can.

Under your name? I can only see Woyzeck's Death and American Song Project here in the UK. Spotify license content and the name of the company that licensed it can be seen on the album page. That is something you could look at.

I don't know what the contract is with Soundcloud when material is uploaded.

Are you sure you're not doing an MG?

[AllenLowe]

interesting, but these things were not saved on my hard drive as far as I know and have all been deleted;

I will have to check again -

[David Ayers]

@MG - if you had time, one use of spotify would be to start a playlist of the African stuff you like so we can share a little without maybe investing in the old K7s with you....

[John L]

Now this was an entertaining thread to read!

Now I am going to go check and make sure that Spotify wasn't accessing my external hard drive while I was away at work today.

[robertoart]

That must have been a weird trip for a while there MG.

Go and put on Idle Moments and forget all about it

(Smile). Ha ha!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

@MG - if you had time, one use of spotify would be to start a playlist of the African stuff you like so we can share a little without maybe investing in the old K7s with you....

I'm not sure what you mean. I've seen that there's a Chief Osdebe album with the title '51Lex Presents Ogom Egbunem' . Is that leading me in the right direction.

Wouldn't mind doing that, if I understood it

PM me, if you like.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

To see how this works, I've created a little playlist of half a dozen cuts from 5 different albums by Sekouba Bambino. It's called 'MG's Sekouba Bambino favourites'.

MG

[page]

If you won't mind me asking M.G. How did you manage to get into Spotify without Facebook? I hate all these requirements everywhere for Facebook, so I generally avoid the sites which ask for them.

Edited November 13, 2013 by page

[David Ayers]

MG - I'll pm you when I'm not on the fly...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

If you won't mind me asking M.G. How did you manage to get into Spotify without Facebook? I hate all these requirements everywhere for Facebook, so I generally avoid the sites which ask for them.

I do agree. I had to pay some customs dues on a bunch of records from the US a while back. These are collected by the post office and they say you can pay by credit card on line. So I tried and found that I couldn't proceed past entering my details because I didn't put my mobile phone number in - I haven't got one. So I found a phone number and complained bitterly and at length and the lady I spoke to eventually put me through to someone who could take my credit card details over the blower.

Complaining bitterly sometimes works - when it happened again a couple of weeks ago, the post office site didn't have that field as mandatory, so all was easy.

OK, to answer the question

When you go onto Spotify and it asks you to register through Facebook, it's not obvious that, a bit below that part of the screen, there's an alternative way to sign up. I can't remember exactly what it says, but if you read carefully below the Facebook bit, you'll find it. Of course, any normal person would see the word Facebook and back out immediately - so they're obviously not interested in normal people

MG

[page]

If you won't mind me asking M.G. How did you manage to get into Spotify without Facebook? I hate all these requirements everywhere for Facebook, so I generally avoid the sites which ask for them.

I do agree. I had to pay some customs dues on a bunch of records from the US a while back. These are collected by the post office and they say you can pay by credit card on line. So I tried and found that I couldn't proceed past entering my details because I didn't put my mobile phone number in - I haven't got one. So I found a phone number and complained bitterly and at length and the lady I spoke to eventually put me through to someone who could take my credit card details over the blower.

Complaining bitterly sometimes works - when it happened again a couple of weeks ago, the post office site didn't have that field as mandatory, so all was easy.

OK, to answer the question

When you go onto Spotify and it asks you to register through Facebook, it's not obvious that, a bit below that part of the screen, there's an alternative way to sign up. I can't remember exactly what it says, but if you read carefully below the Facebook bit, you'll find it. Of course, any normal person would see the word Facebook and back out immediately - so they're obviously not interested in normal people

MG

Hi MG,

thanks. I'll look into it. I didn't want to join Spotify so far for that reason. An alternative to Spotify is Grooveshark which seems a bit users friendly. You don't have to join there to be able to listen to music. I'm surprised people give their personalia so easy to any site that asks for it. I'm pretty hesistant to that myself, I have done without Facebook so far and I think I will manage even if it would mean I can't use sites like Spotify.

Thanks again.

regards, page

[bluesoul]

Spotify's new privacy policy

Edited August 21, 2015 by bluesoul