None of them. Buy music, don't rent access to it.
If you're talking about artists under labels, the real way to support them is go to their shows. They get very few proceeds from music purchases.
that would be so expensive no? to buy thousands of songs? and I'd have to buy an album/ track to listen, what if I don't end up liking it?
Please be realistic, who does that in this day and age?
I only know two sides (in the bigger scheme) people who rent it and people who pirate it.
In all kinds of tech media that exists the disc music are the ones that amazes me the most because they still have their spot in certain stores.
I do have a few friends who love collecting vinyl. They're reasonably established in their careers, really seem to love rooting around record shops whenever we travel and have amazing collections that take up a chunk of their living space...
But basically, I agree with you. Those collector friends are definitely the very rare exceptions.
Heaps of people still buy music, sales still account for around half of music revenue.
I pirate music, but I also purchase most things I end up enjoying as long as it’s reasonably available
Unless the artist self published it, even buying physical media doesn't give the actual artist much. If you want to support the actual artist, you go to live shows (with tickets bought at the door and not through Ticketmaster) as well as buying the merch they sell at those events. More of those sales go to the bands. Sometimes even 100% of it.
Do both. Spotify to gain access, buying it to maintain access in perpetuity. I have about 60 or so vinyl albums that I would like my kids to hear in 10 years or so, and I'm hopeful they'll say hey vinyl, cool (it won't happen). But at the end of the day, I've picked out a number of albums that I want to carry into the future with me, and some of those I discovered through my Spotify subscription.
Keeping a local library on your phone and computer.
No need to worry about if a streaming service changes anything, not pepetual bulls just to listen to music
I generally do this for all my media, but I will never do this for music, there's just such a huge lack of discoverability. Are you just never seeking out new music on the fly?
Oh, you like Cattle Decapitation? Then you might like Skinless, Guttural Secrete, Devourment, Pig Destroyer, Rivers of Nihil...
It's not good with really new artists (e.g., The Anchoret, Temic), and artists that have had significant shifts over their careers might give you overly broad results. But it gives you some starting points.
I do love PlexAmp, I need a much bigger storage capacity on my phone these days because of all the bangers.
That's fair, I have about 720 songs bought on my iPhone, and plenty more downloaded from remix64.com in VLC
I think Apple Music and Tidal pay the most per stream, but Tidal has a smaller library than Spotify. It might be different now so not sure.
Anecdotal, I've not actually had a lot of instances (if any) of Spotify having something but Tidal not, usually find albums that I'm interested in from band camp no problem and if it's missing its missing on both. Sound quality is noticeably higher which is the reason I tend to prefer, the app has gotten better in my experience
I have all my digital copies on my NAS with jellyfin to stream them as well, sometimes it's just easier to stream off tidal or Spotify though
Plexamp
With Tidal hell yeah!
ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
I like Qobuz. I find it really good quality through my home hifi and I can purchase from their site too. There is a bundle where you get discounts on the purchase with the sub. Music is really important to me so this is the only thing I sub too.
One of the big benefits for me is that it offers gapless playback. Also I find it the "best" quality and for context I am streaming through a Cambridge CXN V2 into a Musical Fidelity M6si and into a pair of Kef ls50's with a couple of REL subs.
Napster pays the most to the owners of the recording as far as I recall
I’ve been trying it because I wanted to support the artists more than Spotify, but the app is… not very good in my experience. :(
Same here. The app is so ass and the recommendations are straight garbage too.
Revanced YouTube music
Innertune is nice too.
does bandcamp suit you?
I strongly recommend Apple Music. It has one of the largest libraries and pays better than YouTube, Amazon, or Spotify.
Apple Music is also platform agnostic; there’s even a browser version now. Also, you can download music and choose the quality. It’s far less “algorithm-y,” which I prefer.
Tidal and Qobuz do pay out more, but have much smaller libraries. I don’t personally like them much. The apps feel subpar.
YouTube and Amazon are straight up bad experiences for me. If this was back in 2013, I’d actually have recommended Google Play Music. RIP.
Apple music on android is so bad that I didn't even wait for my premium trial to end to cancel.
What device? I’ve only used it on the Samsung S22 Ultra and the Pixel 7. IMO was a fantastic experience.
Device doesn't matter, the app sucks. It doesn't even have volume normalization. You just get hit with a sound blast out of nowhere because you had to turn it up to hear the previous song.
I love Tidal + Plex. I already had a Plex server set up, but the integration with tidal is great. Good music quality, pays the artists well, and no gaps in the library that aren't also there in the other services. When you add Plex you can then fill in those gaps with your own music files.
I've recently started hosting my music on Jellyfin and using the symfonium app for android. Symfonium is pretty nice and handles offline files well, plus it has a ton of hosting options including Plex, even some experimental options like dropbox
Navidrome
Deezer
Youtube music after you uploaded your personal library there, it was how I used play music before.
Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu