I Left Spotify (And So Can You)

A premature demolition

One unexpected consequence of living in Brooklyn between 2017 and 2024 is that I’ve had the chance to rub shoulders with a handful of Spotify employees. They were, to a man, chill dudes. I played in a band with one. Another I made friends with over doom metal at a BBQ bar in Bushwick and tagged along to a warehouse punk show afterword. Fun night. In both of those cases I never bothered to ask too much about their jobs. Who wants to talk about work, especially with someone who regularly talks trash about the people writing your checks? The longest conversation I’ve had about Spotify itself with an insider happened at the afterparty of a friend’s book release. After some typical ice-breaking patter about NBA basketball (he was a Nets fan) the Spotify guy learned I was a musician. Sensing an opportunity to be underestimated I asked him a few questions under the pretense of learning how to promote my music on the platform. He gave me patient answers, the most stunning of which was that the average Spotify user only keeps their account for six to ten months. Hearing that statistic I became suddenly aware that I was a freak. By that point I’d subscribed to Spotify for a decade, having signed up for a premium account in 2012. I had no idea until that moment that I was the Spiders Georg of Spotify users.

As of this weekend I am no longer an extreme statistical outlier in Spotify’s user data. On Sunday morning I uploaded all of my playlists to “playlists.cloud”, signed up for an Apple Music account, transferred my playlists from “playlist.cloud” to my Apple Music library and cancelled my subscription to Spotify. The process was simple and easy. A few of the playlists arrived on the other side with their contents jumbled up, but I love few things as much as a thorough re-organizing of a music library. ~*My Girlfriend*~ says this is because of my “Virgo Rising”. We’ve been watching the new season of Severance. All I know is that if you made the inscrutable evil office job look like the 2007 iTunes Library I’d happily put the numbers in the right bin until the cows came home.

This decision was a long time coming. Dedicated readers know that I’ve made my intentions to “delete my Spotify account in a blaze of glory” for years now. However with 484 songs left to learn for Drumming Upstream clearly this demolition arrived a little ahead of schedule. I can’t point to one specific straw that left the camel of my tolerance in agony on the desert floor, but I can name a handful of prime suspects. Spotify’s open support of the incoming administration is one of them. The ever increasing monthly price is another. The ongoing devaluation of music as a whole was probably a factor, yeah. However none of these blights are unique to Spotify. Apple’s own contribution to the inauguration makes Spotify look paltry in comparison. Subscription prices are going up everywhere, and none of these companies are sending much of that incoming dough to the musicians who make their platforms possible.

If I had to single out the moment that I knew I had to go, I’d say it was the day I learned the phrase “Perfect Fit Content”. This is the internal verbiage Spotify uses to describe music produced by third parties to slot anonymously into playlists most commonly used for background music. These companies, often directly tied to Spotify itself, hire musicians to record inoffensive instrumental music resembling jazz, classical, and ambient music. Because the musicians made the tracks for hire the companies that commissioned the tracks keep the mechanical copyright and can pocket all the income they generate while also crowding out tunes by real artists. I’d suspected that Spotify did something like this for the last few years after enduring a family dinner during which a “French Jazz” playlist cycled through nearly identical and identically bland versions of “La Vie En Rose”. This suspicion deepened when a stranger’s algorithm sent my tasteful and well considered queue of Brazilian music into a “Girl From Ipanema” death spiral by the end of the night. On a long enough timeline Spotify’s programming will drag you down into the slop and keep you there.

I find it personally insulting that Spotify chose the terrain of classical music and jazz to wage this war on good taste. That’s the stuff my parents listen to! Not only that, but those are genres that are socially acceptable to take seriously. It is as if Spotify are working to destroy the notion that any music at all is worth any serious consideration. I don’t think they contain outright malice so much as complete disinterest. By their own admission they are not a music company but an audio company. Their competition isn’t Apple Music or Tidal but silence itself. Well, as a drummer I feel a Vegeta-esque sense of pride when it comes to defeating silence. Only *I’m* allowed to do that.

I won’t try and convince you that switching to Apple Music is better for the world. My reasoning for the switch is somewhere between choosing the devil that I know and smelling blood in the water. Apple is entrenched. Spotify on the other hand is very easy to root out of my life. Besides, Apple Music is better for *me* in a number of ways. First off, it legit sounds better. As I revisit all my old playlists I’m re-hearing details in the songs that I hadn’t noticed in over a decade. Everything sounds sharper and more defined, instead of smushed and rounded out. The liner notes on each release are a neat touch and make it feel a little more like I’ve pulled an album out of a bin. The UI is clunky, but in a kinda charming way? I don’t feel like I’m being suckered out of my time or coaxed into anything more than listening to some tunes. Apple Music is at its core just a music app with no pretensions about changing the nature of human experience or anything so grandiose.

So I’m happy with the move, and I expect that you will be too if you join me. But this raises the question of whether I expect anything to change beyond the company receiving my money every month. Will we ever move beyond the circular conversation of musicians complaining about Spotify and audiences not hearing them because their earbuds are in? I see five potential scenarios:

1. The Fans leave Spotify: This seems to be happening though at not exactly the rate of users leaving X for Bluesky. But it is measurably occurring within at least my social circle. Self-identifying music fans leaving Spotify probably won’t hurt their bottom line since their goal is to provide background static for every conceivable occasion. However, it will take a big chunk out of Spotify’s social capital and their Kleenex-level name recognition for music streaming. That might make it more likely that scenario 2 happens:

2. The Artists leave Spotify: Under the present conditions, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m sure many artists would like to but can’t because their label doesn’t want to (see scenario 5) or they don’t want to lose even the small amount of money they make from Spotify. On his twitch stream about his Spotify Wrapped independent rapper Open Mike Eagle said he makes about $900 a month from Spotify¹. For most musicians I know that’s too much money to pass up just for the clout. I think artists with less to lose could flee if they, like audiences, sense that being on Spotify is simply wack behavior or like being on Purevolume in 2009. Artists and fans leaving is a feedback loop, so the more that do it on either side of the equation the better for our chances of tearing down Spotify for good.

3. Spotify changes internally: Despite having chill times with dudes on the payroll in my personal experience I think this one is highly unlikely. I encourage all Spotify employees to organize for their own sakes because I’m sure they’re getting screwed too, but their struggle is not precisely mine. Even under the best of circumstances their business model relies on an extreme undervaluing of recorded music.

4. Trump gets mad about Swedes having access to our data. Wrapped is too woke or something, I don’t know. Maybe the American FAANG guys have a bad time with Daniel Ek at a retreat and get Succession level petty about it. Contemplating this scenario makes me want to retire to my quarters.

5. The Labels leave Spotify: Would only happen if audiences leave in large numbers or artists organize to make a stink about it. The labels have been the real villains this whole time. Spotify traded on customer animosity toward the labels and habits built up by piracy to win crowds over. Spotify only exists with their co-operation. The majors won’t ever leave since they’re invested, but if enough independent labels split that might be enough to shift consumer habits. Frankly, I’d love some more honest conversation from the heads of smaller labels about whether they could take the hit of pulling their catalog from Spotify.

I believe the most likely solution to the problem exists in the feedback loop between scenarios 1 & 2, but it’s going to take a while for either party to exit the standoff that’s locked us all into this ecosystem for the last 15 years. I look forward to the day that we can drop all of this talk about apps and just focus on the tunes themselves. Speaking of which…

# # # # # The Promo Zone # # # # #

• Ok sorry to drop a cliffhanger and then immediately pull in a different direction, but before we get to the music I’d greatly appreciate it if you subscribed to this newsletter. If you’ve been reading for a while now, maybe consider upgrading to a paid subscription. I charge way less than Spotify and the only musician I exploit is myself. I’ll have an exclusive for my paying subscribers heading out on Monday and I have others planned for later in the month. Your support makes this newsletter possible and I love and appreciate each and every one of you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“100 Feet Tall” by Aesop Rock (Integrated Tech Solutions, 2023)

When I was 17 I got briefly and inexplicably obsessed with Mr. T. I can’t explain why. I wasn’t even alive when he was super duper famous. I just got fixated on the image of the guy. I don’t think about this moment in my life often because I feel a little embarrassed by it the way I’m embarrassed by many of the fleeting passions of my high school self. All this is to say that I found this rap song about Aesop Rock’s chance encounter with Mr. T as a child in the actual 1980s and his modern day reflection on the man cathartic.

“Hollow Spaces” by Flux (Protoplasmic, 1997)

Shouts out to the homie Wolf Rambitz for putting me onto this tune and this album as a whole. He wrote a whole dang post just about this track. Blissed out, off-kilter electronic rock for a long, long drive.

“Nice” by Genevieve Artadi (Forever Forever, 2023)

Another week in 2025, another song I wouldn’t have heard if it weren’t for Ferrn practice. Well, maybe I would have bit the bullet and gotten into the whole Louis Cole extended universe on my own time, but I appreciate the push in the right direction from Ryan. A constant stream of notes with only the drums fighting against the tide. Gorgeous arrangements, especially in the B section.

“Bonne année” by Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta (Mapambazuko, 2025)

Checked this one out on the strength of the album cover. This track is a conversation between a constantly increasing number of guitars anchored by one hell of a bassline and a fleet of burbling electronic drums. Great music to walk dogs to. I imagine that this is a close approximation of the overstimulated good vibes running through a dog’s mind as it sits panting in the sun.

“Tell Me Something Good” by DJ Screw (Bigtyme Vol II: All Screwed Up, 1995)

I listened to this record while getting absolutely drenched in rain. While I lack the uh, pharmaceutical experience to say whether that accurately matched the headspace DJ Screw was in, personally I thought it fit perfectly. His tracks sound like they’re happening beneath a surface, be that of consciousness or buckets of water falling from the sky. The mix of samples (is this patient zero for “Moments in Love” being everywhere in the early 2010s, considering how influential Screw was in that moment?) and pitched down vocals is disorienting the way a dream is.

\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /

Here are five micro reviews of albums from my vast Rate Your Music catalog. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links so that you can actually hear the music instead of just taking my word for it.

You Fail Me by Converge (2004) - Metalcore

My first Converge record. Hearing these drum parts for the first time when my only frame of reference was 80s thrash felt like going from picking up leaves in the park to AP Biochemistry. This one cuts down the noise and size of Jane Doe, the second half of the record practically splits before you get the check. Sports the two best Converge songs to hear live (“Last Light” and “Eagles Become Vultures”), the first real expression of Converge’s “dark folk” impulses, and a bunch of very fun short tunes. The lyrics were printed as one continuous poem in the liner notes with no demarcation between songs, a hilarious move for a band with vocals this garbled. Love this one, but No Heroes refined on the general shape of what they were doing here.

Leviathan by Mastodon (2004) - Heavy Metal

Right band, right album, right time. A metal band of plausibly seafaring looking dudes on the come up after a strong debut, take on American literature’s biggest fish [Editor’s Note: this joke about how Ishmael keeps calling whales fish in Moby Dick got me a bunch of annoying “well actually” messages, or should I say “whale actually”] right when American hipsterdom was riding a nautical wave (Decemberists, star tattoos etc). This had massive crossover impact, and Mastodon were ready to hit the stage with the best music they’d yet written. Dailor’s drumming fits perfectly with the setting, crashing against the riffs from all sides like turbulent waves. Every song has a distinctly identity, a standout hook, some special sauce that keeps the album from ever losing your ear.

Operation: Mindcrime by Queensrÿche (1998) - Heavy Metal

About as perfect a collection of heavy metal pop songs as you’re likely to find. Every single chorus on this record is a home run, to the point where saving a monster like the chorus to “Eyes of a Stranger” for the finale feels like showing off. The album is so strong song-to-song that it never sags under the weight of its dystopian comic book concept. Keeping the musical theater impulses reigned in makes the album’s one epic showstopper feel huge by comparison. I like this album so much that I’ve never tried out any of this band’s other records, how could they complete with this many hooks? [Editor’s Note: I’ve since tried a few other Queensrÿche albums. They’re good, but not as good as this.]

Remedy Lane by Pain of Salvation (2002) - Progressive Metal

After three albums of social melodrama, Daniel Gildenlöw aims his conceptual eye inward. The results (miscarriages! suicide attempts! adultery!) are no less dramatic or melodic. Of any of Pain of Salvation’s best records this is the most song-friendly, meaning you don’t have to know the full concept to drop in and enjoy a tune. That said, Gildenlöw’s style (over-singing, over-playing, and now over-sharing) is not for everyone. It is at the very least for me however. The guy knows how to make really complicated music really catchy, and even if this album is a lot to land on your plate at least that feels like “the point” in this case. “A Trace of Blood” and “Beyond the Pale” are the top jams.

BE by Pain of Salvation (2004) - Progressive Metal

LMAO this album. Maybe the only album I’d call a personal favorite that also features 20 minutes of skippable junk. Gildenlöw’s biggest conceptual swing, and maybe the most hubristically ambitious rock opera of all time? So far up its own ass that it emerges straight through its third eye. A story about the birth, death, and rebirth of God, the whole of human history, and sentient AI told by a metal band and chamber orchestra. Should not work, and almost doesn’t. Its biggest hurdles are a cringy skit about road head and two unbearably schmaltzy musical theater numbers. The mix of rock band and orchestra sounds great and the album’s tight system of motifs are some of GIldenlöw’s best writing. I have some disagreements with the album’s Malthusian arguments, but more art should go for it the way this album does.

1. FWIW I love Open Mike Eagle’s stream highlights. It’s so refreshing to hear music biz commentary from someone who’s actually doing the work day to day. He’s also extremely funny. I should listen to more of his music.