Streaming music – Auxiliary Memory

Albums You Can’t Play on Spotify

by James Wallace Harris, Friday, October 2, 2020

Update 9/10/22: the Gypsy, Cock Robin, and Ricky Nelson albums are now on Spotify.

Most streaming music services have tens of millions of songs or millions of albums. That should be plenty enough music for anyone, especially at the bargain price of $10 a month. It’s actually a better deal than Netflix because usually, only one music service is all you need. I subscribe to two at the moment. Spotify because it’s the best, easiest to use, and works on most devices with its Spotify Connect system. And I’m subscribing to Amazon Music HD because I’m testing out high-definition music to see if it is worth a few extra dollars a month, plus I have three Amazon Echo devices. (Spotify plays through Echos too, so don’t think owning Echos means having to get Amazon Music.)

If music services offered every album ever produced I’d give up both CDs and LPs. Streaming music is just too damn convenient. The Rolling Stone new list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” just came out and I bet most of them are on Spotify. There’s already a playlist created for it with 7,557 songs requiring over 471 hours to hear. (Although, I prefer to play albums one at a time.)

I keep trying to give up LPs, but some aren’t even on CD, much less streaming music. I’m neither enamored with LP’s sound nor am I nostalgic for the format. I’ve given all my LPs away more than once, but once again I got a hankering to hear some favorite albums and I bought four of them as used LPs. Also, my Friends of the Library Bookstore sells LPs for 50 cents a disc, so it’s kind of fun to buy them based on the covers.

But, I really would give up my LPs and CDs, and my turntable and CD drive if I could get everything on Spotify. The future is almost here. The only downside to streaming music is they don’t pay the artists fairly. I hope that will change too.

I assume some albums aren’t available on Spotify for legal reasons, otherwise, why would all of Nanci Griffith’s albums be available but not Once in a Very Blue Moon – my favorite. There’s always a possibility that Spotify just wants to annoy the crap out of me personally. I’m hoping it will show up one day.

I just notice another album I’ve been waiting for years has appeared on Spotify, Willis Alan Ramsey’s self-titled debut album, and as far as I know his only album.

Sometimes early albums are left off of Spotify while later albums from the same group are available. I assume they are from different publishers or because of legal squabbles between band members. For example the group Cock Robin. Their early albums aren’t on Spotify, but Spotify offers to link you to places where you can buy them CDs. I recently bought a used LP to hear After Here Through Midland (1987).

Another old favorite album I can’t get on CD or Spotify is Never Goin’ Back to Georgia (1969) by The Blues Magoos. Again, some of their albums are available on Spotify, the early ones, but not the later albums.

An LP I’ve bought three times over the last forty years is Which Way to Main Street (1982) by Wendy Waldman. Some of her albums are on Spotify, but not all, and not this one. Some of her other albums are on Amazon Music, but not this one. This album is her only album from Epic Records, so that might explain why it’s not on streaming music services. Which Way to Main Street is available on Waldman’s website on CD, but I’m trying very hard not to buy any more CDs. I’ve started a tiny collection of used records that aren’t on Spotify. I hope that collection never grows very big because I’m over physical media.

There are groups that have no albums on Spotify. It’s like time just swallowed them up, or maybe they were bands I heard in my dreams. For example, the debut double album by Gypsy is called Gypsy. They have produced several albums but you wouldn’t know it from streaming music.

Interestingly, they do survive on YouTube. In fact, many of these ghost albums haunt that service. I don’t know if it’s legal or not, but it’s how they live on in our pop culture hivemind. By the way, listen to this album. I think it’s great.

I do like looking through the record bin at the Friends of the Library Bookstore. For fifty cents it’s kind of fun to try something that just looks interesting, for example, this Peter Nero album, Tender is the Night. It’s not on Spotify. Most of the albums available on Spotify for Nero are compilations. For a lot of old artists, especially ones that were never big sellers, their individual albums aren’t available.

There is one whole class of albums that are often missing from Spotify and other streaming music services, and that’s soundtracks. I can listen to zillions of Ricky Nelson albums, but not this one:

But even this is changing. I’ve waited years for the GATTACA soundtrack to show up, and I see that it has. (Update – I was wrong, only a playlist that tries to recreate the soundtrack from other Michael Nyman albums.)

I’m still waiting for The Ipcress File. I have a copy on an imported CD, but I want it on Spotify. In the early days of Spotify, I hope to hear the early James Bond movie soundtracks but they weren’t available. Eventually, they showed up. I’m hoping the same thing happens with The Ipcress File. Over the years more and more John Barry albums have shown up.

You might have noticed something by now. There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of any of these albums. There’s a good chance you could subscribe to Spotify and never search for an album you can’t find.

If you’re a music nut like me, there will be albums you hanker to hear but can’t. And patience pays off. My small list of albums not on Spotify seems to be shrinking. Please Mr. Spotify, if you are reading this, put these albums on your service, especially Nanci Griffith and Wendy Waldman.

JWH

Amazon Music HD

by James Wallace Harris, Saturday, February 1, 2020

Amazon Music HD promises to fulfill nearly all my current wishes for a streaming music service. The main ones are:

Provide sound quality equal to CDs
Provide every song ever recorded, or let me upload music into its system
Let me try super-high-resolution music
Have playlists that work across all music services

Streaming music has always been more convenient than listening to CDs or LPs, but audiophiles have bitterly complained that its sound quality was a compromise. With Amazon Music HD it’s now possible to stream music in CD quality. Audiophiles need to stop sneering at streaming music. This also means I can forget about physical media (if streaming always offered what I want to hear). And for years I’ve been chasing the idea of high-resolution music. I’m not sure I’m capable of hearing it, but so many audiophiles claim the difference is night and day and I’d hate to miss out.

To play Amazon Music HD or Ultra-HD tracks requires having the right equipment. My iPhone, Denon, and Yamaha systems can all handle the HD setting of CD-quality of 16-bit 44.1kHz. My iPhone and computer can play 24-bit 48 kHz songs, which is the low end of Ultra HD. So Amazon HD music lets me check off one of my streaming music wishes.

Another great aspect of Amazon Music HD is it always tells you about the quality of the streaming file. Actually, I’ve yet to find a 192kHz file. Of course, I’m not sure I can tell the difference between 16bit 44.1kHz and 24-bit 48kHz music.

Amazon Music has always let me upload my files to their system, so I can put songs on my playlists that Amazon doesn’t offer. Spotify doesn’t let me do that. That checks off another wish. I have 1,900 CDs uploaded to Amazon Music. So my collection is with their 50 million songs.

It’s my last wish that is so frustrating. Amazon offers the super-high-resolution files that I’m anxious to try (24bit 96 or 192 kHz files). Could I really hear a difference? I don’t know, because I don’t have the equipment to play them. And I’m not sure what equipment can. I know I could add a Dragonfly Cobalt DAC to my iPhone to get up to 24-bit 96kHz files, but what about those elusive 24-bit 192kHz files? Am I chasing a non-existant Holy Grail? I keep reading articles like this one that argues selling high-resolution music is a complete con. Still, I want to try the snake oil for myself.

However, to play the 24bit 192kHz files will require having a DAC that’s Amazon Music HD aware. And what I really want, is hardware that I can remotely control. I have a Yamaha WXA-50 streaming music server amplifier. It works great with Spotify, but its MusicCast software/app is the pits for any other service. I tried it with Tidal and its built-in interface to Tidal music was atrocious. So I canceled Tidal. Theoretically, the WXA-50 could be upgraded to handle Amazon Music HD but everyone is saying Yahama is terrible about upgrades. I feel I’m getting my money’s worth out of the WXA-50 now for Spotify, but I don’t plan to buy Yamaha equipment in the future.

I’ve read the Denon HEOS will handle Amazon Music HD, but I’m afraid if I buy one of its receivers I might be disappointed like I was with Yamaha. To work properly, I need a receiver that can serve all the Amazon Music HD files, and it has to have an iPhone app that works well with Amazon Music’s catalog of songs. The reason why Spotify works so well with the Yamaha is it uses the Spotify app itself. And that’s possible because the WXA-50 has a Spotify Connect awareness. Before I buy any new hardware to listen to Amazon Music HD I’m going to wait until stereo equipment has the equivalent of Amazon Music HD Connect. This is true of Amazon’s Fire/Alexa products, but I’m not sure if any of the present hardware can handle 24-bit 192 kHz files. My current Fire TV only handles 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

Spotify Connect is truly awesome. The Spotify app on my iPhone sees my computer, the Yamaha WXA-50, Denon AVR-X1000, as well as my Roku Ultra and Amazon FireTV Gen 2. The music doesn’t stream through my phone, but my phone controls the music streaming through all these hardware devices. It’s this app/server relationship that I want for Amazon Music HD. Theoretically, the DACs in all my devices could handle high resolution if they were upgraded with the right software, but I get the feeling I need to wait for new hardware to be specifically designed to be Amazon Music HD aware. So I’m getting close to the third wish.

I’m happy enough with Amazon Music HD to keep subscribing, but I’m not ready to cancel Spotify. I love Spotify, and it has a great interface, plus it works on so many devices. If Spotify offered HD music and the Spotify Connect servers in my Yamaha and Denon machines could handle 24-bit 192 kHz files, which I think they can, I might end up sticking with Spotify.

Plus, to switch to any other service would require recreating all my Spotify playlists. That would be a huge amount of work. My last wish is for a universal playlist format that would allow all my music services to use the same playlists. I doubt this will ever happen, but I can wish.

I follow a number of YouTubers who review Audiophile equipment. Three of them have had shows about audiophile burnout. They ask, “Are you into music for the equipment or the music?” I was passionately in love with the music I listened to in 1962 on AM radio played through a single 3″ speaker. My present equipment is lightyears beyond that. I shouldn’t think about hardware at all. Spotify offers millions of songs. What I really should be doing is trying to play all of them, and not worry about how theoretically perfect they might sound. But I do.

JWH

Spotify, You’re Killing Me!!!!

by James Wallace Harris, Saturday, April 1, 2017

If you don’t use streaming music, this essay might be meaningless. But if you love music you should be into streaming music. The trouble is streaming music is in its infancy and is going through some annoying growing pains. For most people spending $9.99 a month for a massive library of music is the best bargain on planet Earth. And even with all its faults I gladly pay for streaming music. Right now I’m subscribing to two services (I’ll explain why later).

Once you start using streaming music, you realize it has the tremendous potential for being a music listening utopia. Anything that keeps your music listening experience from being perfect is as annoying as a skip while playing your favorite song on an LP.

Right now it’s possible to think of a song and play it within moments. This is where the problems arise.

How quickly can you play a song – once you find the song playing is almost instant.
The music you want isn’t available – right now I’m 95% happy. This is the best part of streaming music and why it’s worth $9.99/month.
Finding the music you want – menu navigation depends on the device you use.
How the music is organized – also varies from device to device
Creating and organizing playlists – again device dependent
Menu consistency between devices – see last three items
Managing your virtual library – needs work
Meta-data about the music – I want much more

I’ve been through several streaming music services, but for the last few years, I’ve used Spotify. I was euphoric with Spotify on the Roku, which is connected to by big TV, receiver, and floor standing speakers. It’s a fantastic way to listen to streaming music. Spotify on the Roku was the best system I could find for playing what I wanted with the least fuss.

Then months ago Spotify started acting up on the Roku. The problem was playlists. Other people also complained about the problem on the Spotify Community forums. I kept hoping they’d fix the problems. When they didn’t, I bought an Amazon Fire TV hoping Spotify worked better on it. It didn’t. It worked very different but had some plus features. Overall it was a step down from my streaming music nirvana on the Roku.

This week playlists just disappeared from the Roku app. On the forums, Spotify claimed they were working with Roku. Damn, damn, damn. Spotify on the Roku was a killer app for me.

Now I have some theories. If you look at my list of aggravations above you might notice a consistent issue. It’s the menu for Spotify working differently on different devices. Basically, the problem is you have millions of songs at your fingertips but picking them out is problematic, especially when the method is different on each device.

My guess is Spotify has put most of its programming dollars into creating great apps for iOS and Android smartphones. That’s how most people listen to music today. Thus writing programs for the Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, WebOS, and other streaming TV boxes is a pain in the ass, plus costly. At their forum, Spotify pushes using smartphones as controllers for playing Spotify on TV/stereo systems via Fire TV and Chromecast. And this could be the direction other device makers are heading too. Roku lets you use your smartphone as a smart remote. But I’m not sure I like this direction, but I might.

Smartphones have way more programming potential than streaming TV boxes. Plus the high-resolution touchscreen with a virtual keyboard is faster for looking up songs. Phasing out the playlist feature on Roku might be Spotify’s way of pushing users to use their smartphones. One advantage of using the smartphone for a controller is I can access my den stereo from any room in the house.

I can accept this in the long run as long as the music streams through my Ethernet to a TV streaming box that’s connected to my receiver by an HDMI cable. I hope it is not playing on the phone and being redirected to the Fire TV box. I want maximum fidelity.

One reason why I never tried Tidal music is that it didn’t have a Roku app. This makes me wonder if the Tidal app for iOS will stream to my Fire TV or AirPlay to my receiver, and would I hear the higher fidelity of their CD quality streams? To complicate matters, Spotify has reported it’s considering a CD quality streaming tier.

Because of my problems with Spotify on Roku I bought a Fire TV and signed up for Amazon Music. I wrote about that at “Spotify vs. Amazon Music” where I explained the advantages of Amazon music. But switching streaming music services is a pain. I’ve done it many times. The more you commit to playlists the harder it gets.

Using the Spotify app for Fire TV is very different from the Roku app. It’s far more visual, which has its appeals, but lacks many of the detail features the Roku app. Like being able to add songs to a playlist. Those features are on the Spotify for iOS app. The iOS app also has more features that are not on the Roku app. This leads me to believe the Fire TV app is actually a visual supplement to the Spotify smartphone app.

Spotify, if you want us to move to our smartphones as the standard interface for controlling your music library, you should just tell us straight out. I’m currently pissed at you because you’ve ruined the Spotify for Roku app, something I’ve used for years. You should have put explanations in the Roku app, so we knew right away what’s going on.

Even without the playlist feature looking up albums is much nicer on the Roku than the Fire TV. But finding albums is even nicer on my phone. If that’s where you’re going just tell us. Come out and say the iOS/Android apps will be the standard UI for playing Spotify. If you can’t create the standard UI for Roku or Fire TV just say so. Don’t let us think its broke and you can’t fix it, or even appear to blame Roku.

Update: 4/2/17

Spotify is my current winner because the iOS Spotify app streams through my Fire TV box and I much prefer its UI. Amazon Music app on iOS downloads files to the phone and then streams it to my Denon receiver. That means playing songs aren’t instant because of the download time. It’s a shame that Amazon Music doesn’t remotely control the Amazon Music app on the Amazon Fire TV like Spotify. That has worked out very well. The phone UI is far superior to using a TV remote.

Also, Spotify wins on the UI front because it lists albums by reverse release year order. I wish they would list by both release year and recorded year because most albums get released over and over again. Spotify lists by the latest release date. I would prefer the recorded year because a 1970 album rereleased in 2009 will be much higher on the list making it appear like a newer album if you didn’t know its history. And that’s what happens when I’m trying out artists I don’t know. I’m currently checking out jazz guys who started in the 1950s. Most of their old albums are rereleases or compilations, so it’s hard to know their time order of creation. I usually go to Wikipedia to check on original release dates.

JWH

Spotify vs. Amazon Music

by James Wallace Harris, Sunday, February 12, 2017

Update: June 29, 2017. I now consider Spotify/Fire TV/iPhone combo the best way to play music through my main stereo system using my iPhone as the remote control.

I love music. I love technology. And I love music technology.

Decades ago I daydreamed the perfect music delivery technology would be one where I could say out loud the name of the song I wanted to hear and it would instantly play. I even pictured myself taking walks with a cloud of music following me like the dirt cloud following Pigpen, the Peanuts character. The iPhone and ear buds almost creates such magic. Now that I have an Amazon Echo, I feel like a Jetson when I declare to the air I want to hear a song and Alexa plays it. However, I’ve since revised my dream music delivery system. I no longer can remember all my favorite songs or their titles, so the “open sesame” bit isn’t as fantastic as I once imagined. Now I dream about having instant access to all music using a savvy streaming music database that knows everything about the history of music.

I’ve subscribed to many subscription music services over the years, starting with Rhapsody. I’ve hopped from one to the next trying to find the perfect blend of technology, user interface, and music catalog. Spotify is my current favorite. It has 98% of the music I want. It’s very close to a perfect streaming music service. However, in recent months it crashes on my Roku 3, my primary device for listening to music through big speakers. Before Spotify I used Rdio and loved it. But then I tried Spotify on the Roku and it’s user interface blew away Rdio’s. Plus, Spotify would play songs nearly instantaneously, which wasn’t true of Rdio. So I switched. I’ve been mostly content with Spotify, until it started loading slower on the Roku, even freezing up quite often. Spotify is still instant on my computer, tablet and phone, so I assume the problem is with the Roku.

I love my Roku 3, and thought maybe buying the latest Roku model could fix this problem. But what if it didn’t? Since I’m an Amazon Prime customer, I thought of giving the Fire TV a try. But spending $89 to fix the problem via hardware might not be the only solution. I wondered if subscribing to Amazon Music would allow me to keep my Roku 3. So I signed up.

In every way I prefer Spotify except one – but that one feature might make me switch. However, Amazon’s user interface is so clunky that I don’t know if I can. Oh, that one feature? Well it’s going to be hard to explain if you don’t use streaming music. But I will try.

Streaming music services have vast catalogs of music – not everything ever recorded, but it almost feels that way. Once you start using streaming music it’s just too inconvenient playing LPs, CDs or MP3s. They’ve become a damn bother. I stopped listening to The Beatles for years even though I bought their remastered CDs. I was just too lazy to play them. Spotify is that convenient. (The Beatles are now on Spotify.) But every once in a while I really want to hear songs not on Spotify. I have to get out my CDs or play the MP3 from my Amazon cloud player. Not a lot of work, but not my idea of my perfect music system.

For background listening I use playlists, especially one playlist, the “Top 1000” list I’m building. I HATE that I own songs I can’t put on Spotify playlists. Well, that’s the great feature of Amazon. It allows Amazon Music subscribers to play songs from their personal cloud collection. I have 1700 ripped CDs, and some LPs converted to MP3 on my Amazon cloud storage. Making playlists using songs from both pools of music is a snap.

This means I can create playlists that contain 100% of the songs I want to hear. 98% from streaming and 2% from my personal collection. Now, that’s an over-the-top feature! Maybe it’s a time to switch feature. Of course I’ll have to recreate my Spotify playlists on Amazon. That’s will take some work. Mainly because looking up songs on Amazon Music isn’t as quick and easy as Spotify. Not that Amazon doesn’t have some nifty UI tricks that Spotify doesn’t, but Spotify is what I know, and it’s much more refined.

I could switch to Amazon Music with the hopes that Amazon will perfect its user interface over time. I’ve written a number of essays begging music services for features I want. Being able to upload my music was the major wish. There are many features I want that could get me to switch services again, though. The next biggest feature I want, is for streaming music to incorporate more song/album metadata information. That way I could search for “Jazz albums of the 1950s” or play songs that came out in July, 1965. I want streaming music to have the kind of information that record collectors use. There’s no reason why streaming music couldn’t catalog every album/single ever recorded. But that’s for the far future, maybe 2019 or 2021. Here’s some of the sites I use for music information:

Best Ever Albums – great for search by year
Billboard 200 and Billboard #1 Albums at Wikipedia
AllMusic – for year ranges by genre searches
MusicStack – where to buy old music
Discogs
Playa Cofi Jukebox – play hits by year, and it has Cash Box hit lists

There are many different companies offering streaming music. Competition isn’t about price, since $9.99/month is standard, so user features will be everything. For years I’ve been jumping from service to service looking for my music streaming utopia. But as I build longer playlists switching services is getting harder. I thought I was committed to Spotify, but Amazon’s feature of mixing their collection with mine is tempting. However, if a streaming service offered the data services from the above sites, it would make me want to switch again.

To be honest, since streaming music is about convenience, Spotify is more convenient than Amazon Music right now, so I’m sticking with Spotify. What I might use is Amazon Music’s $3.99 a month subscription for Echo owners, and create playlists for Alexa to play me when I want to hear missing music from my collection. However, if Amazon improves their software I would switch. If you’re an Amazon Prime user and are a casual music listener, it’s $7.99 Unlimited plan might be the best deal.

Another feature that would be handy, is a universal file standard for playlists, so we could easily import and export them.

Update: I’ve since discovered that the Amazon Music app on the Roku does not play or show music from Amazon Music – just my music in the cloud. I hope they fix this. I can play music from the blended libraries on my iPhone and send it to my receiver via AirPlay, and that works much better than the Roku App.

[By the way, the album covers I’ve added here are albums not available on streaming.]

JWH

Do You Feel Guilty That Spotify Pays Artists So Little?

By James Wallace Harris, Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Since a generation of young people had no ethical qualms over stealing music, asking if artists are paid too little under the new streaming model might be a moot point. We live in a society where we want everything free or very cheap, but we’ll also pay $7 for a cup a coffee, or $200 to see a Broadway roadshow. For many people, music is a peak experience, more important than coffee or plays, often providing the emotional soundtrack to their memories. Shouldn’t we worry that people who create the songs we love get paid properly?

What we’re seeing here in America is a economic paradigm shift that’s effecting all aspects of society. The middle class is being deflated while its wealth is being shifted to the ultra rich. More and more people work for minimum wage. Even once well-to-do professions are under attack. And people who were once rich rock stars are now making far less. The super-stars are always well-rewarded, but making it big isn’t as easy as it used to be. Streaming music is great for tens of thousands of would-be stars to get a start, but it’s now much harder to make a living from even a moderately successful album. The middle-class artist is disappearing too.

So, I’m asking, are you fine with that or not? I love Spotify, but it bothers me that artists who once made much more money from the CD sales model are now making much less renting their music. Listening to music over the internet is far more convenient than playing CDs or LPs. Having access to nearly all music with the tap of a few keys is fantastic. Paying $10 a month is an incredible bargain. And knowing it’s legal is righteous. But, is it fair compensation for the artists?

PBS News Hour has been running a series on this issue. Their coverage is probably all you need, but this discussion is all over the web, especially since Taylor Swift pulled her catalog from Spotify. Here are some recent articles:

In the age of streaming music, just how much is a listen worth? – PBS Newshour
Can the music industry survive the steaming revolution? – PBS Newshour
How music on demand is killing the album – PBS Newshour
How an underestimated song became a streaming summer hit – PBS Newshour
If you care about music, should you ditch Spotify? – The New Yorker
Spotify Royalties Appear To Be Awfully High Despite What Thom Yorke Says – Forbes
New Spotify report debunks “per stream” payments for artists – ars technica
Spotify To Taylor Swift: Would You Rather Have $6 Million or Zilch? – Business Insider

If you read enough of these articles you’ll realize this is a vastly complicated issue. Part of the problem is most of the streaming royalties goes to the record companies, and song writers, singers, and musicians get the tail end of the payment stream. But that was also true back in the LP/CD days. How the record companies divvies up its money with its artists is between those parties, but as fans we pay for the music, and set a standard. At least streaming is a major step up from stealing. Personally, I’d like to see more profits go to the artists themselves, and I’d like to see royalties paid to musicians. I think it stinks that all classic songs I love, the musicians were only paid a one-time fee.

The solution I would suggest is streaming services should charge a subscription fee for their service only, and then we pay 1 cent per stream to be divvied up by the record company, composer, singers and musicians. So Spotify might charge $2.99 a month for me to use their service, and that would go to them. And I would be billed 1 cent per stream, so my monthly bill would vary. If I listened to no music that month, it would be $2.99. If I listened to a 1,000 streams, it would be $12.99. Most people pay $9.99 now, so that would be equal to 700 streams. That’s about 25 streams a day, or about 1.5-2.0 hours of music a day. Which is probably more than what most people listen to. If you want constant background music you should use radio or Pandora type services.

Such a payment system would also allow me to subscribe to more than one music service, because they do offer different content and different features.

CD and digital song purchase sales are down. At one cent a stream, it would take 129 listens by a fan to equal the purchase of a song. I think this is a decent equivalent. But if you watch the PBS Newshour shows you’ll see how artists lament the passing of albums. Fans really prefer hits. Spotify could encourage albums listens by charging 5 cents to stream an entire album.

Streams should not count unless we listen to more than sixty seconds of a song. Any song we give the hook in less than a minute should be considered a free trial.

If artists wanted to sooth listeners who hate the thought of constantly renting, they could let streaming services count the plays and after 129 mark the song as owned, and free from then on out. This would also encourage subscribers to stick with the service.

I bought thousands of albums in the last fifty years, and many of them were duds. I’d only listen to them once or twice. Most often I’d buy an album and listen to one or two songs many times. Album sales were not always fair to listeners, even though artists made the most money from them. The streaming model of pay per play is actually more fair to listeners and artists. It’s fair to artists because they’re paid each time a fan plays a song. It was always depressing to spend $15 for an album that turned out to be a turkey.

I hear the complaints by my favorite songwriters that Spotify cheats them. I feel bad. But I also think one cent a stream is a fair price. It’s more than what they get now, and if their songs are actually popular, they’d earn about the same, or even more in the long run over CD or digital sales. Songs that people really love will get played 129 times, and if an album has enough good songs, it will eventually earn about the same amount of money.

I’ve bought many albums by Bob Dylan three times, first as LP, then CD, then as SACD. I still play his songs so much, I’m sure at one cent a play, I will eventually pay more than what I did buying those albums three times.

JWH