From 2012 to 2023 I relied mainly on the Spotify streaming service for my music listening.
In 2024, I left it behind.
When I joined the platform as a student, it cost §4.99 per month. This increased after I had graduated, I can't remember the exact figure, but it was certainly below §10.
For a long time, I was really happy with the service I received for the price. Albums were expensive, the radio was crammed full of ads on most stations, and this let me have access to all the music I wanted for that monthly fee. Spotify gave me access to an enormous catalogue of music, and better yet, introduced me to newer, smaller musicians I'd never have heard on traditional radio. In fact, for most of the time I've used it, Spotify focused exclusively on music. Podcasts joined the platform in roughly 2020; Audiobooks were introduced in 2022 (most with an additional cost attached). 2023 onwards saw the introduction of things like the "AI DJ", and more aggressive push notifications to purchase gig tickets and merchandise. Meanwhile, the price of the monthly fee increased. Today, an Individual Premium membership is priced at §11.99 per month.
Put simply, I did not use those additional services which were touted by the platform as "adding value" to my subscription. In 2023, I began collecting vinyl, which meant more of my listening was happening off the platform. And that trend continued, partly because over the past year, Spotify seems to have stopped suggesting music that's new to me. It has certainly stopped suggesting music that challenges me to listen, that makes my ears prick up, that makes me excited. The app's UI has been updated several times over the last couple of years, none in ways I personally find are for the better.
Then, I encountered a series of video essays by "Digging the Greats" on YouTube which drove something home: I didn't enjoy using Spotify any more. Realising that led me to seek out alternatives, and that's how Murphy was born. That's how this web page was born, because seeing that I was repeatedly watching videos about abandoning modern platforms for a more hands-on experience, YouTube also sent videos about the indie/personal/web 2.0 -- Neocities -- my way.
In short: the deal is done. I don't intend to continue using Spotify beyond 2024, and am working on building my personal collection of music again instead.
In September 2024, I requested my personal data for the history of my account to be sent to me. I was advised this would take "up to 30 days to prepare", which happens to be the legal limit for requests for access to personal data in the portion of legalities I reside under. Once I have received it, I will sort through the data, and pull together a list of music akin to the others in the database.
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The turnaround time on this was much faster than I anticipated - I received a download of all my data inside of 24 hours, which I found impressive. The data is in .json format, so I can read it within Notepad, but it's currently not in alphabetical or chronological order. I'll have to do some research to see if there's a straightforward way to convert this into a spreadsheet or something so that I can reorganise the data how I like.
***There is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that it's actually quite simple to import .json files into a spreadsheet so that the data can be reorganised. The bad news is that I have over 1500 separate music artists in my Spotify streaming history.
This is probably because I've spent much of my time on the platform listening to huge genre playlists. ("Lazy Jazz Cat" is probably my favourite, unfortunately this is not included in the data download as it's a playlist created by Spotify, not me.)
The "Your Library" file is a little less daunting, with 218 albums saved. A file called "Marquee" has approximately 500 artists listed.
I am not entirely sure how to proceed from here. I want to have this data recorded here on my site, but I may need to spend some time picking over the data and beginning with a list of "favourites". Hmmm.
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Pulled together a wishlist from the data. It's a start.
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Created an alphabetised list of every artist I ever streamed on Spotify.
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1 October 2024
I cancelled my Spotify Premium account today. The process had an absurd amount of friction: first, at time of writing, this can only be done via a web browser; second, I had to click through four separate pages just to confirm the cancellation (this does not include navigating to the cancellation page); third, once done, I was confronted with THIS:
I... am honestly quite disgusted and outraged by this. I have cropped out the items on the playlist, and can't help but wonder if those artists know their music is being used for this purpose by the platform.
Needless to say: I won't be going back.
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2 October 2024
I thought I was done. But oh no. Spotify just sent me more files: "Extended Streaming History". Which, on the one hand, fantastic! That explains why there seemed to be artists missing - they just weren't in... whatever time frame the first batch of files covered. But it does mean that, at close to 1600 artists, the final count is far from over...
3 October 2024
The final count was 6919. I found a better way to collate them all, and got the artists page fully up to date.
