Honestly, the benefit of streaming services is not being able to listen to music legally. It’s discovery. Playing a song I like and getting recommended a similar song turn an artist I’ve never heard of has introduced me to a lot of great music. That’s not something you can replicate by going to the webshop of your favorite band and buying their newest album.
That’s something you could recreate with a scrobbling service like last.fm (don’t use last.fm though, they are owned by CBS).
A quick Google search leads me to ListenBrains, which is also American, but operated by a non-profit.
I’ve used neither service and my music listening habits never relied on algorithmic recomendations, so I could totally be talking out of my ass here. But it could be worth a look.
The problem there is that scrobblers aren’t nearly as convenient as a streaming service. With a scrobbler I have to actively check out recommendations. With a streaming service I can just have it play related songs until I get one I really like.
Honestly, the benefit of streaming services is not being able to listen to music legally. It’s discovery. Playing a song I like and getting recommended a similar song turn an artist I’ve never heard of has introduced me to a lot of great music. That’s not something you can replicate by going to the webshop of your favorite band and buying their newest album.
I find Bandcamp at least a great way to discover especially smaller musicians!
But I totally get what you mean, though. You can’t have that experience buying from artist’s sites.
That’s something you could recreate with a scrobbling service like last.fm (don’t use last.fm though, they are owned by CBS).
A quick Google search leads me to ListenBrains, which is also American, but operated by a non-profit.
I’ve used neither service and my music listening habits never relied on algorithmic recomendations, so I could totally be talking out of my ass here. But it could be worth a look.
The problem there is that scrobblers aren’t nearly as convenient as a streaming service. With a scrobbler I have to actively check out recommendations. With a streaming service I can just have it play related songs until I get one I really like.