I use spotify for most of my listening, but I also buy a lot from bandcamp (digitally). I keep my purchases downloaded on my home server and on my phone for offline use.
BandCamp is great. Forgot about that
I usually download my FLACs from Bandcamp or Deezer. Sometimes I rip them from CD when I can't find an album anywhere else.
I stream them from Jellyfin afterwards.
Jellyfin is so nice
mostly listen via youtube, sometimes buy music via bandcamp, but usually not downloading nor listening via it, it is just an act of reward and encouragement.
i have a several vinyls and a cd, that i cannot get rid of, because the artist does not sell his music anymore. (but i have no way to play it).
Soulseek (with the nicotine+ client) is pretty good
Spotify for finding new music and most of my listening.
I'll buy vinyl for my favorite albums or if I see something at the record store that takes my fancy.
I'll usually listen to my records while cooking or if I want to just sit and listen as a primary activity
I actually use archive.org for a lot of live concert recordings. bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish have been allowing/sort of encouraging fans to record and freely share their concerts for a long time and it’s all just out there to listen to and download as much as you want. there’s also the official streaming services like nugs.net and LivePhish for higher quality professionally recorded concerts, the subscription is kind of pricey but I think the artists get a better cut than on regular streaming services.
other than that I do use Spotify a bit and try to buy stuff on Bandcamp to support the artists when I can.
I buy mostly digital mp3 and FLACs from BandCamp, the band's website, or Amazon, expect for Band-Maid, which I buy the CDs for. I don't stream.
I also borrow from the library and rip CDs from there to add to my digital collection. Thankfully, my library system has a great selection of CDs and gets music from bands from like The Pretty Reckless and Sabaton. The library also has stuff that hasn't made it to digital or is hard to find like some live Jimi Hendrix.
Use the library to expand your music collection. You can find a lot there. You just have to look.
yt-dlp from yt, SoundCloud etc. Download from Bandcamp, Spotify free. Basically I use everything where the music lives and then download it.
Bandcamp and very rarely SLSK.
I buy CDs and rip them.
I refuse to stream because of the possibility of services shutting down and losing all the music you "purchased" (never mind needing an internet connection), and the sorts of copy protection and other things I've encountered when purchasing digital music turned me off of the whole thing years ago. Now I have all of my music on my phone, on my computer, and a physical backup too.
Plus, you can sometimes find CDs cheap at garage sales and thrift stores so there's a fun treasure hunt aspect there too.
I have some vinyl and pick up more occasionally from yard sales or thrift shops.
I'm really big on using a YouTube converter to MP3. I try to find HD/HQ versions of songs I want and then pick highest conversion rate.
I use Apple music. It may not have all the indie artists of Bandcamp or whatever, but it’s super convenient, it has all the music I need, and it works so smoothly within the Apple ecosystem. Every device I have can share my account and pickup where another device left off. Plus the family account works great where everyone in my family can have their own account while there’s only one payment per month.
I buy mostly from bandcamp and Amazon.
I use Plex to host my music. It's not super difficult to set up. And Plexamp is a pretty good player.
Plex also has the option for you to subscribe to Tidal, which I do. And the ability to stream my own music that's not available anywhere on any stream plus almost everything out there that Spotify has is the best combo.
Jellyfin is another server like Plex, but I haven't ever set it up so I don't know how involved it is.
I use Jellyfin, and this was my first home server. Think if I managed it it has to be relatively easy for most people comfortable enough with computers. Probably slightly more involved than Plex though I imagine!
When I find a song, I like to keep it. Streaming cant do that. You can create playlists of course, but they may at any time silently remove or replace that song. You dont know suffering until you've heard a bad cover of Hotel California.
Now I only buy mp3s. Mostly from 7digital.com or Bandcamp. Amazon dont sell music to Norwegians somewhy. The last album I bought I finally had to download iTunes because thats the only place except for Amazon they released. The app wasnt as intrusive and DRM enforcing anymore as it used to be a long time ago. So I might use iTunes a bit more now. (Yeah, I tend to hold a grudge against software companies for a LONG time. You hear that, reddit!)
Got all my mp3s (23 GB) stored on Onedrive, and use CloudPlayer on android to stream it wherever.
Independent artists: buy physically in person or online, or digital from bandcamp.
Mainstream or in affordable stuff: rip flacs from deezer
Everything on a self hosted airsonic instance
Same for me, first Bandcamp then 7digital. When neither have what I’m looking for, I’ll check on Discogs for a used CD.
Apple Music has become my main 'first stop' after Spotify's latest UX overhaul. I've also started buying physical CDs again because I've realized the importance of physical copies. Never got into vinyl but I think the CD boom is still to come, ha.
I buy my music on BandCamp when I can and physical when I can. I prefer to buy albums on CD, other than Dungeon Synth music (which I prefer to buy on cassette for the sake of consistency). I do also own a number of albums on vinyl and/or cassette, most of the time because it is the only format I can get a physical copy in. I keep digital copies of all my music in FLAC format both on my desktop and on my jellyfin server.
A private torrent tracker and sometimes I buy vinyl.
Just Spotify and my pre-spotify (yarr) collection.
I'm interested in vinyl, but I don't have space for it ATM.
I have a Deezer Hifi sub and mostly download FLACs from there to play in Plexamp (which imo is among the best music players out there). Last.fm for discovery, sometimes I'll scroll through and go check out recommended artists on Spotify, and download through Deezer if I like them.
As someone who is Powerfully Middle Aged and the owner of several iPods, I have a tendency to buy used CDs from charity shops for next to nothing. If it's not something I'm keen on buying, but want to check out, I have Apple Music.
I'm also known to take the high seas on the odd occasion...
Spotify, buy god that app is getting worse every day. Thinking of switching to something else
I'm not jazzed that they're trying to turn it into an Instagram/TikTok of sorts. I don't want little video clips with my music - I just want the music!
You can turn the clips off in the settings if you want. That’s what I did because I also think those little clips are annoying
if i want to own something, vinyl. only exception it an NF CD i got because it was cheap and signed
aside from that, spotify
i go about 50/50 between CD and bandcamp. I never got into vinyl, though i can appreciate the physicality of it. That being said, i do listen to a fair amount of stuff on youtube or spotify, especially when exploring new artists but also for stuff that i just haven't bought
Mostly Pandora for music discovery with some occasional Spotify mixed in
yt-dlp to download a few favorites to listen to in car via phone
For anything physical, I try to get on vinyl, but otherwise I rely on either Spotify for streaming or Soulseek for downloads/sharing. I’ve been meaning to set up a personal streaming server on Jellyfin but I’m way too lazy to convert a 4500+ song playlist into downloaded files.
Almost exclusively Bandcamp. I sometimes use YouTube or Spotify (but pay for neither) to listen to stuff that I can't buy on Bandcamp.
There are really not many places left where you can actually buy and own digital music, which I think is sad. I used to use eMusic before it became occupied with blockchain stuff, I used 7digital before it was made unavailable in my country, and I sometimes used Google Play Music for the stuff I couldn't find elsewhere. Now there is only Bandcamp left.
really like soulseek, and theres a great android app for it called seeker. you can sort by variables like quality, size, encoding, bitrate, etc.
Soulseek is what I use to get more obscure titles that cannot be bought anymore and aren't on spotify. It let anyone visit other people library of music, and some users share a lot.
If you want to find more stuff on it you should try it on a pc and setting up port forwarding (I don't know if it's possible with the seeker app) as without it, you can only see the content from users who port forwarded themselves.
I was a r/soulseek user, so I hope a soulseek sub will pop up somewhere here.
Ohhhh, I knew port forwarding affected torrenting, but I didn't think about how it would affect Soulseek. I'll have to get that set up as it's my primary music source since W.CD died.
I hadn't heard of Soulseek before. I see it depends on some central servers though the file transfer is peer to peer. Do you need to take precautions with Soulseek as with Bittorrent to hide your IP address?
Your ip is indeed public with soulseek. I've never heard of anyone having issues with that as soulseek is really unknown from the public but you can use a vpn to hide it.
Radio, believe me or not. I try to fish on some indie radios. Also, through podcast or YT: I like when they tell you the story or meaning or help you understand in any way. It helps me enjoy music. Then is easy to pull the threat to jump from one artist to the next.
Then I buy CD on their official website, but don't really listen to them.
I thought I was the only person that almost exclusively listened to the radio! I live in an area with a good variety of stations so that helps, I realize some people have very little options when they turn on the radio. I occasionally put on Pandora when I want to listen to a specific obscure genre or YouTube when I'm looking up a specific artist.
Use Spotify / Apple Podcasts more for podcasts…I collect vinyl, I think it “forces” me to listen to an album as a whole. It’s enjoyable. My set is isn’t crazy expensive and still sounds great!
Torrents, Soundcloud Downloader with subscription and YT Music.
I buy it digitally via Qobuz or Bandcamp. I then put it in my nextcloud. That way I can stream it to my phone.
Free spotify with ad blocking , newpipe mostly.
I use Spotify for its convenience and music discovery capabilities. If I particularly like an artist, I'll buy their stuff on vinyl (if available) or I'll buy some merch.
I also support my favourite artist directly on Patreon.
YouTube > Stacher > DoubleTwist
spotify, believe it or not. for the genres of music that i nose around in it has an amazing catalog, i can listen all thru the house thanks to alexa, and i can favourite or skip a track with voice commands. i pay for the premium version because i hate ads and also because i want to listen to music at higher quality than 192kbps
shazam is one click away from being opened after i unlock my phone at any point. holy shit that's been a good resource when i'm out somewhere and hear something i like.
after that, however, i spend a lot of time on bandcamp hunting for obscure and decent sounding remixes of popular songs. THAT's what i dump on a dancefloor full of hippies. if you get the girls dancing then the boys dance with them and with charismatic music you can turn it into a party instead of just a bunch of people dancing to music
oh, and when you're listening to music that you're thinking about DJing with, you absolutely utterly NEED an enormous subwoofer and a surround sound hifi so you can hear it the way it's supposed to sound
CD's, Beatport, Beatsource, iTunes. Sometimes there are only tracks and albums only available digitally.
I prefer to buy and download my music. I buy a ton from bandcamp. For music that I cannot buy I might sail the high seas. I do own a few vinyls but those are of my favorite albums.
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