[hannasanarion]

You can use your own copies of music in Spotify. All you have to do is tell it where to find them on your disk.

And if you connect with a mobile device on the same network as the computer with the files on it, they'll automatically be transferred so you'll get them on mobile too.

Two of my favorite bands (Blind Guardian, Kamelot) put only their last couple of releases on Spotify, but with this method I can listen to their whole back catalog.

[vinceguidry]

Reading through Spotify's docs, I really don't want to put control of my music life in the hands of Spotify's tenuous relationship with the music industry.

[hannasanarion]

That's the point, you don't have to. The spotify software synchronizes your personal collection between all your devices and uses it to fill holes in their catalog.

Afraid that an artist is going to pull their stuff from spotify? Acquire digital copies of that artist's work some other way, and spotify will slot them right into your playlists where the old ones used to be. I did this when SPV Records pulled Silverthorn, it was practically no work.

Even if the whole industry abandons spotify, it will still be unique and valuable as a seamless way to synchronize your music library between all devices.

[vinceguidry]

If the industry abandons Spotify, and my entire music life was wrapped up in it, then I need to acquire 600+ individual music tracks from 400+ artists, if I hadn't already done it already, all to continue listening to music the same way I do now. The problem gets worse the longer I remain on the platform. And that assumes I'll be able to get my data, about which tracks I need to acquire, out when the time comes. If not then I'm really up Shit's Creek without a paddle.

I'd rather pay more in the short term, paying for individual tracks, for a solution that will work indefinitely, than set up a situation in which extreme disruption of a part of my life I'm utterly reliant on can be afflicted at a whim of a dipshit music exec who doesn't understand how people can become reliant on music or worse, understands and does it anyway because it'll make him more money.

[hannasanarion]

So you're saying, you're afraid of being reduced to small personal catalog in an unlikely future apocalypse scenario, and you are solving this problem by forcing yourself to use a small personal catalog today?

[vinceguidry]

I wouldn't call it unlikely. Music services have a history of getting shut down. Sure, Spotify's star is bright now. But it could get acquired tomorrow by a company that decides it doesn't want to support all my use cases. If one of those use cases is something I'm reliant on, then Spotify all of a sudden becomes totally worthless.

Whereas my personal catalog will never stop supporting my use cases.

[hannasanarion]

What music services have a history of getting shut down after 11 years of profitability and complete cultural and market dominance? Spotify is hardly comparable to Zune or whatever.

It's totally your prerogative to not use spotify or other music streaming services, I'm just saying fear of imminent market apocalypse isn't really a good reason to deny all of the upsides.

[freedomben]

Dude, just had to tell you that Blind Guardian and Kamelot are some of my favs too :-D

But to add something substantive, I also do this with many artists. I also really like Tool, which are notoriously absent from all the platforms. I ripped my old CDs and uploaded them to Google Play Music and now I can listen whenever, wherever I want.

[neurostimulant]

My only problem with this method is the volume level of imported songs is different than spotify's, which is very annoying because the imported songs are often a lot louder than other songs on spotify. Apparently spotify's volume normalization setting doesn't apply to these imported songs.

[KozmoNau7]

Blind Guardian has their full discography on Spotify now, in case you hadn't seen :-)