Jun 5, 2016

Alright, so here is what my situation was a month ago... (bear with me, long read)

Swizz In the Good Old Days
*Trump voice* I had a great, big, beautiful music library. Tremendous. People tell me it's the greatest they've ever seen.
I've been building it for about 15 years or so. Hovering around 18,000 songs of all genres, from Beethoven to Biggie. I am anal about my tagging and categorization. I use last.fm pretty religiously to capture all of my scrobbles because I'm a numbers nerd and am interested in periodically checking in on, say, my top 100 most listened to albums. All of this makes me a music nerd, absolutely, but I'm happy with it. How do I listen to my music, you ask? On a good old iPod classic. 160 gig. They don't make those things anymore, and they don't make iPods that hold that much music. So with my iPod's pending (and unfortunately, inevitable) death somewhere down the road (perhaps tomorrow, perhaps 2 years from now), I've definitely been pondering whether I would ultimately make the move to streaming, as so many others have done. Streaming is tightening its grip on music listeners and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future - so what does someone with my preferences do about that?

The Game Changer
A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail warning me to stop torrenting I don't particularly want to go into the details of this. I know there are additional steps around getting caught that I could take. But, long story short, it scared me straight to the point that I decided I would no longer be torrenting movies/TV (this is why I'm not caught up on Game of Thrones ).

While much of my music downloading comes from music forums anyway (rather than torrenting), this event seemed like a natural point to try to make the transition to streaming. With my iPod guaranteed to die out in the relatively near future (I've had it for 4 or 5 years) and streaming becoming more and more prominent and practical, the move was probably inevitable, right? Why not try it now, and make a clean break from my previous life of crime?

At the time this occurred, streaming was not totally foreign to me. My wife pays for Spotify, but we still have separate accounts (the way I want it!), so I still have the s-----y standard version that only plays on shuffle and has all the ads. For that reason (along with some very notable absences - Taylor Swift, some big Radiohead albums, some big Van Morrison albums, some Beyonce, The Beatles up until recently), I have Spotify, but don't really use it all that much.

I decided it was time to try Apple Music.

The Reckoning
I am currently 3-4 weeks into my three month trial with Apple Music. I can't wrap my head around what to do.

First, there's the good. Apple Music has a ridiculous selection. I can find just about any major release I want, instantly. I like the format/layout of it. It's overall very easy to use and convenient.

But then there's the bad. I'm sure most here are familiar with some of the drawbacks to Apple Music, but the most troubling to me is the havoc it can wreak on your iTunes library. Duplicate songs (three versions of One Dance doesn't seem necessary, tbh) and songs deleted altogether (this has only happened once or twice to me so far but the fact that it can happen at all feels like a big dark cloud hanging over my music library). This sort of garbage is a nightmare for someone like me who has always been anal over his music. Lately I've been doing a lot of questioning about my habits - should I stay anal and keep/build upon the library I've gathered over the years? Or do I need to just...let go, stream the music, and stop giving a s---?

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The Bottom Line
Anyway, I know none of you can make this decision for my obviously. But it feels like a crossroads for the way I listen to music. I have to admit that at the moment, I'm sort of close to cancelling and going back to my old ways of just downloading everything I want to hear. And yet my earlier comments still stand - streaming is the future, and is far easier and more low maintenance in the long run. So I'm just curious - especially for those of you who have been control freaks over your music like me - have you transitioned to streaming yet? Why/why not? What do you use - Spotify/Apple/Tidal(lol)/other? What do you see as pros/cons? If you use Apple, have you had similar situations where Apple seems to f--- with your library?

 

Jun 5, 2016

I am not a fan of streaming. Just finding music I like & download for free works for me.

 

Jun 5, 2016

I'm a music nerd just like you. Tagging always has to be accurate, bonus songs have to be noted as bonus songs, features have to be noted in parentheses Etc.

Ever since my computer crashed and ever since my iPod touch (16gb) broke, I've been using my phone for music. And I gotta say, Spotify changed my life! While there are minor annoyances (No In Rainbows, no Tool albums, Prince, etc) it is the most convenient way for me to listen to my music. For 11 dollars a month I get access to so much of the music I love, and it also is a great way to discover new music!

Bottom line:

Spotify is f---ing awesome, and whatever it doesn't offer I can just buy on iTunes.

 

Jun 5, 2016

I use Apple Music on my Android for now.
Pro is that it's a lot easier to stay up to date on newer releases and s---.
Cons is that some older albums I want to have aren't on there (Reasonable Doubt, Blueprint, etc.) Another is that some albums aren't complete. The most extreme example is last month there was a version of Tha Blue Carpet Treatment that only had two tracks available though that seems to be fixed now.

 

Jun 5, 2016

I'm just like you. I have OCD about the organization of my iTunes. I have about 15k songs in my iTunes spanning across various genres. I'm not a fan of streaming, I like having all of my music tagged correctly on my iPod. I'm gonna try and get a classic iPod that is able to hold all of my music.

 

Jun 5, 2016

just do it. i try to stay away from torrenting unless i have no to other choice. Mostly a google search containing album title with either m4a, rar, zip, google drive, 320 finds me what i'm looking for.

 

Jun 5, 2016

@Swizz what you need to do is get Exodus for Kodi, its a program that searches all streams online depending on what show/movie you want.

 

Jun 5, 2016

Stream game of thrones

Download zip files of the albums u want

Apple Music will be ruin ur life at some point

 

Jun 5, 2016

Hire the musicians to play their hits and deep cuts for you in your home.

 

Jun 5, 2016

@Swizz

I'm very similar with how I categorize my music. The info for every song has to be neat and tidy (None of that "2Phones brought to you by www.hotnewhiphop.com/Gates with tags").

I've never tried Apple Music, but if what you're saying about it downloading a thousand things to your library, then I never will.

You said it deletes some songs. I'm surprised with your library of 18,000 you managed to catch that. My worry would be I would lose songs and I'd never know.

What I would suggest is continuing to download music, but perhaps stop torrenting movies and tv shows. I think that's the killer.

Besides, if you're this OCD about how the music is organized, then I can't imagine you just not caring and sticking with Apple Music anyways.

And I have a question: How did you organize Life of Pablo with the different versions? It has been h--- for me to try and do this.

 

Jun 5, 2016

always stay anal

 

Jun 5, 2016

i'm gonna cry when mine dies finally...

made one new version of the album called So Help Me God and just kept the tracks that fit and I liked, including All Day/Only One, and re-arranged the remaining tracks.

 

Jun 5, 2016

 

Jun 5, 2016

Get the iPhone 6s with 128g of memory. It works well for me!

 

Jun 5, 2016

I'll stream music at home through Spotify but I don't like the idea of streaming music on my phone while out cause of data usage. I don't even know how much data an hour of streaming music would be. So I still download the music I want and put that on my phone and not worry about losing connection or go over my data limit.

 

Jun 5, 2016

I dont care how low the price is i refuse to pay for music


For me i get some kind of satisfaction organizing my itunes library, i have like 17k songs tagged perfectly.