Circle of Sound // Spot(ify) The Difference

“I’m really glad I didn’t waste loads of money buying records like you did.” Yes, that is a genuine statement from someone I know. A certain someone who has just discovered the world of Spotify.

I might be very late to the party (expect an article from me on the blistering new sounds from the wax cylinder next week readers), but I’ve always held quite negative views about the world of subscription based streaming, or streaming in general. What happens if (like many of these companies founded on innovation) it all grinds to a halt? Where is your music then? If you’ve spent £10 a month for several years and the service provider turns it all off, because maintaining the library is no longer viable, you’ve nothing to show for your cash. But to avoid falling into the trap of making opinions based on little or no evidence; I decided to sign up to Spotify for a bit to see what it really offered to a non-typical music fan and those panicking at about the future of the music industry.

When I started doing the research for this article I originally intended to see if I could go without using my “actual” (i.e. in my possession, whether it be vinyl, CD or MP3, as opposed to hosted elsewhere) record collection (or “waste of money” as my friend would call it) for one month. But upon signing in to the service I realised this wasn’t going to happen. Just searching for some of my favourite (but slightly left of centre) bands yielded poor results, practically all the electronic music that I’ve really liked this year wasn’t there, I became frustrated as search after search returned blank screen after blank screen. But occasionally there were some surprises there and after a while I began to populate a playlist with things I liked, all without worrying about disk space or backing up my library.

I also installed the client on my phone, as I’m not always chained to the computer, and was pleasantly surprised by the persistent view I was presented with when I logged into the mobile client; all the time and effort spent finding stuff with a full keyboard and mouse didn’t have to be repeated by jabbing randomly at my touch screen. This, alongside good performance (if you are in a strong signal area) makes the mobile experience quite a positive one, but in areas without reception the service is limited (there is caching but it’s a poor cousin to the full fat model) and it’s no substitute for locally stored music. Also with most mobile operators pulling the shutters down on unlimited mobile data, frequent users could be pushing up their cost of listening from the cloud.

Anyway, back to the hunt for music, maybe I was expecting too much in finding everything I want from a service that is still in its infancy. Yet, in asking other users if they can find everything they want, the answer is almost always resounding yes (bar a few outspoken big names). I’m sure that Kings Of Leon generate a lot more money than Bang Bang Machine, Shellac or Polygon Window ever will; maybe the brains bean-counters the operation realise that the time, money and effort spent negotiating long lost license deals for obscurities will never be returned in revenue.

But maybe (and this is the key point) this isn’t a supposed to be a replacement for a record collection (despite what some might suggest), maybe it’s an individual-centric radio station offering the chance to listen to the stuff you love and dip your toe in the water of things you’d like to try before buying? If I was fifteen and just getting into music this would be an invaluable database for sampling artists I’d heard about (and prevent me buying some of the howlers I’ve hidden behind the cupboard), but I was fifteen in the 1980’s and I didn’t have the plethora of other online resources (YouTube, MySpace, LastFM) that the curious fifteen year-old music fan does in 2010.

Although, if you are expecting a guiding hand through the musical maze from Spotify itself you are going to be disappointed. I left it playing Napalm Death for a few hours to see what it recommended: Kei$ha, James Morrison & 3OH!3? Hmmmm, granted the service doesn’t make any music matching claims, but it would certainly be a nice addition for those wishing to expand their listening based upon their current tastes. Of course I’d take a human selector over an algorithm any day. Listening with a guide in the form of radio or podcast presenter (like TLOBF monthly podcast or my own more amateur effort) will certainly open up more musical doors than a bit of a shuffle based upon the wisdom of crowds.

But it’s in the further listening and artist investigations that Spotify really starts to shine. If you’ve heard a great track and want to know more, Spotify provides a cheap and easy way to have a proper listen to artists that catch your attention, in a way that a podcast or radio show can’t.

What of the industry as a whole? Can it survive with a TV license style “all you can eat” subscription model? That’s extremely unlikely. Plus there will be many people, like me, who prefer not to experience music from the cloud or aren’t technically au-fait enough to get involved. And as for the person whose quote opened this article, what does he do when he finds something he likes on Spotify and wants to keep? “I download a torrent of it,” he tells me, “I never really bought much music anyway.” He’s in a sub-set that is never going to pay, but current research shows the average UK music listener who does not partake in illegal downloads spends £44 a year on music whereas those that do illegally download spend £77 in the same period. So there certainly seems to be a case for exposing people to more music whilst trying to ensure that so the artist gets some (however small) remuneration for their work in the process.

The big concern is that the current perception of free and freely availability music today will make people really struggle to justify buying records. How the industry collectively re-instills this sense of value (especially for digital bits and bytes) will be one of its largest challenges moving forward, but one it has to do resolve if it is to survive.

Would a blended strategy in which those who purchase more music legally are waived their monthly subs to services like Spotify, sent free remixes or given early offers to tickets to beat the touts (so those fans who are buying the artist’s work and supporting them avoid bidding wars on e-bay for over inflated tickets). Certainly some recognition of their patronage might encourage them to keep supporting the music they love being made. Tracking and managing users purchase might seem like an admin nightmare, but it certainly isn’t impossible to do.

So, to look back at what started this investigation – do I feel I’ve wasted my money buying records? Certainly not. I’ve enough gems in my collection that Spotify will never have, I have an overwhelming love of music and I am proud to have supported those artists over the years. I also prefer the security of the ownership model to a subscripton one that could be pulled from underfoot at any time. My kids can fight over my records when a bus has flattened me (no doubt after trying to locate a Mambo Taxi track on my iPod, rather than looking where I was going). They aren’t going to care about my Spotify subscription.

Do we now have a generation of people that will never physically buy a record again? For some this will be an attractive proposition. But, if you are of a certain age Spotify isn’t going to replace your bowing shelves of discs. It also isn’t going to excitedly tell you about some great new band (only to declare them as shit when everyone else likes them) but it does give you a convenient way to investigate them when someone else does. It also isn’t going to save the industry in its current form, but if used correctly it could certainly make up part of a collective suite of tools that could start people thinking about the value of music once again.

I haven’t renewed my subscription and can’t see any reason why I would want to. But if I was starting again from scratch it might be a more attractive proposition. I’d be interested in hearing from musicians whose tracks are on the service and understanding what works for them (and what doesn’t), alongside the experiences of those of you who have used Spotify as a customer. Hoot your trap off in the comments boxes below.