Spotify

Happy Easter, everyone. This morning, I completed the long-overdue move of all my ripped CDs from my old 2012 MacBook Pro to the new one and, then, to my iPhone. I’m using Doppler on both devices. I like Doppler, a simple yet elegant MP3 player app with few well-thought-out features. I am increasingly convinced that returning to purchased music is the way. I’ve been listening to streaming services for so long that I almost forgot the accomplishment of listening to music I own. This music was so significant when I first listened to it that it was worth buying and carrying along over the years. It’s tangible, too: it’s sitting right next to me, on my hard disk and my phone; I can look at it and, yes, touch and move it as I please, as I can with my original CDs. The same goes for the new music I buy on Bandcamp or elsewhere. ...

I’m growing sick and tired of Spotify’s music-consuming model. There are many compelling and sometimes conflicting reasons, most perfectly outlined in The day I canceled my Spotify subscription on Raed’s blog. I used to cherish music, I used to religiously collect, catalog and enjoy every album on my iPod. I could navigate the endless folders and find that exact song that I needed for that precise moment. Spotify killed that, I listen to what it suggests and just accept that it will go away when it decides to rotate it out. Spotify trained me not to look too hard, to let the flow be, and if that awesome song is gone or removed, don’t worry, we still have a million more. ...

Wrapped by Spotify, the 2022 edition just landed in my mailbox. This year I listened to twenty-four different genres. My favorite was Indie Jazz, followed by Hip Hop, Jazz, Electronica and Rock. I am a little puzzled about that Hip Hop in second place. In total, I spent 14143 minutes listening to music, 80 percent more than other listeners in Italy did. My favorite track was Fear Of The Dawn by Jack White, followed by The Beginning by Native Soul, Sorcery by The Toxic Avenger, Spirals by Django Django, and Boy From Michigan by John Grant. ...

A few days ago, I was browsing my Twitter feed when a suggestion from my friend @flaper87 caught my attention: On my “comfortably old” MacBook Pro1, Spotify has been an absolute hog. The simple act of opening it will require three hundred MBs. That’s a remarkable amount of memory for staying idle and doing nothing useful. Let it play for a few hours, and have fun glancing at CPU and RAM usage ramping up like there’s no tomorrow. Just for the record, here’s Spotify memory usage at launch: ...