Not necessarily piracy, but I realise that it might be the only option.
I’m planning to get away from Spotify. Is there some good places to get music. I don’t mind paying for it. But I don’t want a subscription service. I just want to be able to give someone money in exchange for a product. And ideally a MP3 or something similar so I can use it offline and move the file between devices.
Does something like that exist somewhere?
Honestly the best store right now all these years later is still iTunes. Great price, better than mp3 quality, no DRM. Largest catalog available by a long shot, especially for international stuff.
If you need lossless, I use a combo of Bandcamp and Beatport. Bandcamp is great because most (maybe all?) of the money goes to the artist, but it has very little and tags are usually off. Beatport is crazy expensive but sometimes your only option for lossless. (Edit: checking out Qobuz as others suggested, seems to be another good option similar to beatport in offering and price)
Also: I know this is a piracy sub but the downvotes are not warranted. I’m all for piracy especially large manufacturerd mega-artists where the money just goes to the label anyway, but it’s still super important to support indie artists when you can especially if playing their music at clubs and shows etc (which is why I buy music instead of streaming). All that said tickets and merch are the best way to support!
Agreed about the last point. I actually prefer to pay for my media. I like supporting the stuff I like, and I have an acceptable income now so that’s not really an excuse any longer.
My reason for occasionally turning to piracy is because the products I’m offered seems to be getting worse, and that’s something I cannot accept. Not being able to listen to the music I bought because I moved the files from one device I own to another, or my audiobooks being unavailable because I’m somewhere without internet access and the Audible app not letting me log in. All unacceptable as far as I’m concerned.
And. Tickets and merch is obviously great.
you can purchase individual albums through the download store.
or you can buy a month of the unlimited download subscription and download everything you want
can be downloaded in either MP3 or lossless FLAC (though, don’t download above CD quality because you won’t hear the difference)there also may or may not be a set of resources out there under the name Firehawk52
Great. That seems perfect! Time to go spend some money I guess.
I mainly get my purchased music from Qobuz and Bandcamp. If it’s older, don’t dismiss compact discs, used or new. A lot of times you can get the CD cheaper than the digital download, then just rip it to any format you want.
Hit up your local thrift stores, they have tons of music cds, then rip them?
there’s Bandcamp if your favorite artists are on there, usually they allow download in exchange for money.
Bandcamp is nice because even if the album is $0 you can still add some money for the artist.
Similarly, many times albums will be pay what you can, so it can be nice spending $0 on an album.
I’ve been using them for years. They work off of a “add money to an account” model so you have to be willing to put money in before you buy your music. They look sketchy but never had a problem but always use Privacy.com CC just in case. The down side is the UI Sucks.
I just download my favorite music directly from YouTube with youtube-dl or something similar. It’s not pay-walled and it usually doesn’t even have ads on it.
I check bandcamp first, as you get multiple file formats when you purchase something. Assuming I can’t find things on bandcamp, they are on Beatport 99.9% of the time.
Personally I avoid iTunes as I don’t want AAC files.
