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 just did a bit of research and it looks like if you have a free account it will almost always play the Youtube video instead of the album version (possibly as an attempted foil for ad-blockers?).
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.
There's an easy fix for this.
Settings > Recommendations > Show Your Liked Music From Youtube ~> uncheck
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.
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 use Apple Music on Android/Windows, would recommend
I have used apple music on my android for years it works fine. But nothing compares to spotify reccomendations.. If my apple music wasnt free Id be back to spotify in a heartbeat. So easy to find new good music there
I use AppleMusic and love it….but I’m super invested in the Apple ecosystem. It’s part of a monthly subscription bundle that includes Arcade, AppleTV and cloud space so….perfect for me. Can’t see it making much sense for android users.
It’s actually pretty good , i think it’s the only apple service that has good integration outside of apple devices. It works with android, windows and even has a web app. You can of course try it out for I believe 3 months for free.
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.
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.
Do you mean because they host Joe Rogan?
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 have a free pandora account which is curateable (is that a word?) and there’s a setting for “deep tracks”. I’ve got some wild combinations just for fun, one being Billie Eilish and Michael Jackson. Then you discover new stuff too! Ads are minimal too.
Been using Amazon music for a while and I am happy with it
Deezer is pretty good at auto-generating playlists/stations based on tastes, genres and moods.
I've used Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music
Id rank them:
Apple Music
Spotify
Amazon Music (hot take I know)
Deezer
YT Music
Tidal (expensive and didn't like the UI
On Android/Windows btw
Tried many, but stuck with Deezer as it has got excellent pod cast support.
Had many issues with offline support with Spotify, and their support was horrible.
Deezer for audio quality
I use Astiga, which is like a private Spotify you need to fill with music yourself. I buy CDs which I rip to get music to fill it with. Leaves me with higher quality audio and no trash to filter trough while never having to worry about licencing issues removing my favourite music, and leaves artists with much more financial support than services like Spotify will ever offer.
Have you tried deezer?
Spotify web player with a good ad block at least gets around the “supporting them” bit.
As a music listener, I've found Tidal has the best sound quality and algorithms. As a musician I surprisingly get the most payout from Amazon.
I like spotify due to the many options I have (web player, awesome mobile apps, and 3rd party clients like ncspot (cli), or psst(GUI client written in Rust)).
I have tried Tidal, but the cost seems a bit prohibitive at the end of the day. For privacy-minded/tech-savvy folks, I would say local music library is the best solution and after that, self hosting some subsonic-compatible software like https://www.navidrome.org/docs/.
I personally have a small VPS running anyways so I use gonic (https://github.com/sentriz/gonic) on the server and symfonium(https://symfonium.app/) on android as a client. So, personal music collection combined with spotify premium, is, IMO, as good as it gets.
I really like spotify for Spotify connect.
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