I have written often about music. I have a modest (1.5TB) collection of digital files, largely spanning my tastes of guitar based rock (classic rock, heavy metal, progressive, and hard rock), jazz with an emphasis on guitar lead, classical, and some off the wall items.
But, starting in 2012 or so, I have become more and more ensconced into the world of streaming. It started with Google Play, and a way to have all my files on their servers, and to stream it. Then Spotify came to America, and the dropping of Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
Now, I rarely play my local files. I have evolved to using Spotify almost exclusively (although I think Amazon’s streaming is the most tolerant of sketchy connectivity).
I do still buy some music, and I dutifully add it to my digital collection (I prefer to buy on vinyl, listen a few times, then shelve the albums, to listen via streaming, or digital files). Mostly to support artists I love (Paul Gilbert – I will buy anything you publish. Period).
When I bought my new car, it came with a Sirius XM trial, and honestly, I like enough of the stations that I am now a subscriber. The streaming only station “Classic Rock BBQ” is just fucking amazing. I stream that almost 24 hours a day.
Lately, I have moved to a Sonos Play speaker in my den/office, and plan on buying a few more, and I use its app on my Mac Mini to stream my music to it. But not as often as I thought I would. Alas, I am mostly streaming Spotify or SXM.
I do worry that this model squeezes the artists too much. They already got a relative pittance in royalties from the old world of music publishing, but this seems to screw them even more. Hence why I buy their albums, even if I mostly stream from Spotify or Amazon Music.
Nainoa Shizuru
