# Spotify



## Chris Hobson (Aug 17, 2020)

Here at the Hobson house we have entered the 21st Century and opened a Spotify account. For those not in the know, this is a music download service but instead of buying songs one by one for fifty or ninety five pence each, you pay a subscription and then just help yourself to their colossal music library. I have very eclectic tastes. I also tend to get bored listening to the same stuff so I do tend to want to find new things to listen to all the time. Some of this might be modern stuff but often it is old stuff that is new to me. So my Walkman has been consigned to a drawer as all my music is now in my phone. I have an up to date music system in my car with bluetooth connection so I can jump in, switch on my app, put it on shuffle and go. I'm really impressed with it, it is so much simpler to use than the Amazon Music store and I'm happily learning my way around it. I needed a bit of help from my daughter to start with but I think that I'm getting the hang of it. They aren't paying me to say that I like it, in case anyone is suspicious.


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## Lisa66 (Aug 17, 2020)

Ha ha, I’ve also joined the 21st century, my daughter got me into Spotify too. I often download a playlist or podcast (switch playback to offline) for when I’m in the garden, phone in pocket, ear things in...very happy. I like all the playlist suggestions it gives you too...rarely anything I’m not keen on and often bands I’d completely forgotten about. 

I really like Radio 6 too, it’s a great mix of music, new and old and interesting djs who know their subject. I never find myself having to turn it off because some of the music annoys me. I love all sorts of music and between the two they keep me very happy.


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## Chris Hobson (Aug 17, 2020)

I mostly listen to Planet Rock when I listen to radio. I keep a note book by the radio and write down songs that I want to download. Some are songs that I sort of expect that I'll like and download. I don't always get that right and find that I didn't really like that one after all. On Spotify you can unlike the songs as easily as you can like them so it's great. Two songs that really were love at first listen were Ashes by the Struts and Backwater Zoo by The Temperance Movement.


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## C&E Guy (Aug 20, 2020)

In the words of T.Rex, I'm still a "20th Century Boy".

I use a 160GB Classic I-Pod (it's on at the moment), and I have well over 30,000 tracks on my I-Tunes library. Many were uploaded from cd's and not bought from Apple. I had a very large collection of those too. Some obtained overseas. I don't think my obscure album tracks are all available on Spotify. Are they?


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## Chris Hobson (Aug 22, 2020)

They don't have absolutely everything but they seem to have most of what is out there. Morning Glory by James and Bobby Purify seems to be one that is difficult to find. One problem with downloading is that the searches don't work if you have the song title wrong. Songs aren't always called what you think that they are called.


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## Chris Hobson (Aug 24, 2020)

Update.
I've started exploring some of the other features in the hope of finding some new music. The playlist that is supposed to be a random selection based on the stuff that I like resembles the Smashy and Nicey seventies rock pop cliche show. 

You can also get 'artist that you like radio'. this plays tracks by a selected artist mixed with tracks by other supposedly similar artists. I'm not sure how the similar artists are picked, I think it might be 'people who like X also like this'. Anyway The Sandra's Wedding Radio selection produces a playlist full of Rolling Stones, The Who and Fleetwood Mac songs. So far I haven't found anything that I haven't heard a thousand times and know all the words to. I think that the algorithm has me marked down as a sixty something dinosaur.


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## Chris Hobson (Aug 28, 2020)

Update.
I have now listened to Katie Spencer Radio and The Struts Radio and found lots of interesting new, to me, stuff. No adverts! I really can't believe how brilliant it is, I suppose that movie fans got the same buzz when they first encountered Netflix.

Listening to my favourites on shuffle has also highlighted what a brilliant guitarist Katie Spencer is, she outshines even the classic rockers that I love.


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## Chris Hobson (Oct 26, 2020)

Fun with the technology. I'm listening on my headphones, my phone is buried deep in the leg pocket of my workwear type trousers and I'm wearing a boiler suit. I'm needing to fold down the seats in the car and, while I'm on, it being late October, I decide to put the clock back in the car. I turn on the ignition to do this and the phone automatically switches to the car radio. I adjust the clock and turn off the car and the phone pauses the music so that I have to dig out the phone, unlock the screen, bring up the spotify app and press play to get my music back on.

Edit.
I have now discovered that I have a screen on my watch that tells me what is playing. It also has play, forward back and pause buttons on it so that I can control the music from that.

After becoming more accustomed to the way that Spotify works it has occurred to me that it is a very different way of accessing music compared with the old ways of buying records, CDs or even downloads. My way of thinking of music in terms of the time that it was released has completely changed. The stuff that I access now comes from all over the place and the time that it was released has become fairly irrelevant. It occurs to me that younger people who have known nothing else but this type of music service are likely to have little awareness of how old, or new their music is.

Bizarre fun find, Harry Chapin, 30,000 pounds of bananas.


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## C&E Guy (Oct 30, 2020)

I watched something on YouTube yesterday about the 20 most collectable albums.

I've got 18 of them. So I must be doing something right.


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## Chris Hobson (Oct 30, 2020)

Any chance of a link or a list?


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## Chris Hobson (Oct 31, 2020)

Ok, in the absence of a link or a list, and I know that it is boring and self indulgent, my top ten albums. These are not in order of preference just my favourite ten.

A Night at the Opera - Queen.
Axe Victim - Be Bop Deluxe.
Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd.
Hotel California - Eagles.
Hunky Dory - David Bowie.
Piano Concerto #5 - L.V.Beethoven.
Rumours - Fleetwood Mac.
Songs from the Wood - Jethro Tull.
Trilogy - Emerson Lake & Palmer.
Weather Beaten - Katie Spencer. 

This is off the top of my head so that another time I might come up with a slightly different list depending on what came to mind.


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