I really liked Spotify, but when they started subsidizing hate speech I left. For the last year, I keep trying different platforms and cannot find anything that works well. I am ok with spending money for no ads. I have very diverse music tastes so want to have different “stations” based on my mood. Any suggestions?
I know YouTube Music got a lot of shit from the fans of the previous service, Google Play Music, but over the last year they’ve added most features back and YTM works really well. I also get YouTube ad free, although I’ve had it so long, I don’t know if that’s still part of the deal
The reason why I can’t recommend YouTube music is that it uses audio from videos instead of playing the studio versions of the tracks. The fact that it makes me listen to those silly audio parts in music videos while I’m trying to listen to a studio release is terrible in my opinion, and I couldn’t figure out a way to hide those results from search entirely. Does anybody know if they’ve fixed this?
I don’t think this is true, I only ever get audio from videos in some community playlists, it definitely doesn’t do this for me by default. Maybe it’s a setting somewhere?
I am using Youtube Music premium - there is a setting you can enable under Playback & Restrictions called ‘Don’t play music videos’ so that you should get audio only or album versions of songs. this setting works well for me and I haven’t heard the music video instances of songs yet
I use YouTube Music and this (usually) isn’t a problem if you have premium. The only times I’ll get the music video audio instead of the studio track is if I’ve liked the music video on YouTube. In that instance it’ll sometimes show up in my automatically generated Playlist. For me, it’s worth it for the huge music library that YouTube Music has.
I noticed this, too. But I think it’s a matter of how the search algorithm works along with a smaller streaming library than other services. First it checks the first party audio that YT has streaming rights to. If it doesn’t find it there, then it goes to the general uploads. And that’s where you start getting the music video audio instead of the studio version.
I’ve also found it will offer me playlists uploaded by users that match my search results.
It’s not exactly the same but you can use the SponsorBlock addon to skip the non-music segments of music videos when playing in browser, and for Android there’s a fork of NewPipe that has this integrated.
YouTube music has the best algorithm for radios in my opinion. But my account is almost 20 years old so it has a lot to work with.
It also has a lot of rare music that will never exist on other platforms e.g. old myspace bands that were mostly lost with the myspace database disaster. The original files and copyright are likely lost, so it’ll never show up anywhere else.
Have you tried Apple Music Yet?
Apple also pays one of the highest rates to artists compared to other services.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2021/11/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream/
I hate I phones and most things Apple. Maybe I am being stubborn? Is it worth looking into, even on an android?
It works pretty well on Android. They have a lot of curated “categories” which are like a mix of Spotify’s curated playlists combined with Pandora radio, which is pretty cool. Also, lossless audio is included at no extra cost, which is great if you have a DAC and nice headphones on your Mac/PC
I’ve heard good things about Tidal, it integrates with Plex which is why people in my circles like it, but overall from what I hear good quality, they pay artists fairly, and no ads
I left Spotify for similar reasons. I chose Tidal because comparatively more is paid to artists (still tiny amounts per play). Just like switching from anything (Reddit to Lemmy, PC to Mac, Coke to Pepsi, underwear to commando, iPhone to Android), there are differences to get used to but it’s not too bad. They do have curated playlists by editors, radio station based on your taste, “rising” track by genre etc. I think they have a free tier if you live in the US. but unfortunatley not yet available outwith.
