cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/61959659
Spotify has been pissing me off recently. Repeated pop up (internal) ads, and now this. Are there any alternatives that don’t require selfhosting?
Cherry on the top: The new widget doesn’t work.
I ran into a bunch of AI slop on Tidal. It kept being on artist pages that I really enjoy. For example Against Me! is one of my favorite bands but some AI sloptist named their slop band Against Me. Tidal has no way to separate these two names and everything shows up on one page. To make things worse there’s no way to report this except by emailing to the artist being ripped off and hoping they see your email.
I found it so frequently, roughly 6 or 7 times in 3 months, that I cancelled and moved on to the next service, YouTube Music. It’s not necessarily better or worse in my experience but they can differentiate between Against Me! and Against Me and I have yet to discover a fake song since I switched about 3 months ago.
I’m not sure about the support I’m giving to Google, I kind of fucking hate it, but I have very very few complaints about the service. My main complaint is there is no dedicated TV app, it goes through the default YouTube app and that is significantly worse at finding playlists or surfacing new music.
I just couldn’t do Tidal any longer with the slopfest. And I left Spotify behind when news broke they were showing ICE ads. I’ll be honest I’ve not heard that YouTube is showing ICE ads but it would not surprise me.
Well, doesn’t have a tv app (that I know of at least) but for what it’s worth, I’ve been using Qobuz which is a little French outfit. Great selection, a vehement anti ai slop attitude and I believe that per stream they pay out higher than most services.
I’ve heard of Qobuz from a friend but haven’t used it. Having it not fit into my current system at home had made me reluctant to try switching to it.
I think I’m going to have to figure out a new system though because not being able to block Nazi music from auto playing on YT Music is a straw I can’t just let pass. Not to mention the other commentor talking about YouTube’s slop problem.
I feel like we’ve all been cursed by every time a character has said, “May you live in interesting times.” in any show or movie.
YT Music also has an AI impostor problem.
I was listening to Crimson Veil (melodic grey metal, woman vocalist) when it started playing songs of a completely different genre, but the ‘band’ was still “Crimson Veil”; but this other music was drone-y industrial with flat, uninspired lyrics that felt AI generated. I poked around a few other streaming platforms and found the same thing on Spotify and Tidal. I think the band was eventually able to get the impostor removed, but they were up there for at least a couple weeks.
Lots of musicians are getting their discographies infiltrated this way. The last time I listened to Primus on Tidal, there was an AI generated rap group, and an AI generated blue/jazz act listed in their discography. The streaming services must know that this is an issue by now, as labels are having to spend a lot of time finding and squashing these impostors. Hopefully they implement some way of validating artist uploads to prevent playlist hijacking like this.
I’ve been quite satisfied with Tidal for years, except for the exact thing you’re mentioning. It got a lot worse in the last year, and it happened to some pretty popular bands too, like Muse. Someone is uploading “albums” with a literal Gemini watermark on them under their name and they take months to get taken down. At first it made me wonder if they lost their minds and fell into the slopfest
Actually had another issue with YouTube Music.
While listening to a Mix, YT’s version of a radio, it kept putting Kanye West music into the mix. Now I like a lot of Kanye’s old music but I’m not going to listen to it now since he’s a fucking Nazi piece of shit. I don’t want his fuckass getting my fraction of a fraction of a penny. Fuck Nazis…not like that.
There is also no way to completely block an artist. So I have to be every vigilant.
I also have to vigilant about at least once other artist, while listening to an awesome, trancy mix last year I stumbled across a song that was hypnotic and said something like, “To have a good party you need to do Marijuana.” Weird but not upsetting, I can enjoy the vibe. Then it swings around to, “To have a good time you need to do Heroin…heroin…heroin…heroin…”
I dunno who makes this shit but it’s definitely not my vibe and I want to be able to block shit that cruises in from left field to ruin my vibe. YouTube Music had no way to do this and I’m not sure what I want to do about it next.