I've been listening to music using Spotify for over half my life. But there was still a before.

I was very lucky to have grown up with access to a huge music collection. My parents had amassed hundreds of records and CDs and we were always burning stuff from the library, or downloading it online.

But with the advent of Pandora Radio and services like it, I started finding music outside my family's library and making requests.

The first artist I can remember discovering on my own was Modest Mouse. I was like 8 or 9 years old I think? I walked into my dad's office and asked him if he could download some of their music for me. Specifically the song Gravity Rides Everything which had just played for me on Pandora Radio.

Dad downloaded their whole discography and pulled some songs for me to listen to. He reviewed them first, and turned into a fan! This became a pattern.

I'd hear a song I liked, and ask for it, and then we'd end up exploring the discography together. There's a video of me in third grade, cleaning my room. My mom walks in with the camera and asks "what are you listening to?"

I run over to the computer and check the screen, "Uhhhh…Needle in the Hay by…Elliott Smith!"

In the 2000s and early 2010s my siblings and I stayed up to watch Saturday Night Live like nearly every  weekend. Sometimes Conan's show too. I revisit a lot of performances from that time and keep a running playlist on Youtube of my faves. I can remember seeing Vampire Weekend play Mansard Roof on SNL and having a sense of oh. This is special.

Of course there were (and continue to be) soooo many ways to discover music.

When my parents got divorced, my listening habits became more and more immersive. Before that I'd mostly listened to albums/artists on their own, or one large playlist of all of my favorites. But now I was curating playlists and mix CDs for specific moods and themes. Soundtracking my life. And constantly collecting and looking for new stuff.

I think I was like 11 when I first heard about Spotify. I don't really remember how. But I lied about my age and signed up to be a beta tester for Spotify in the US. At that time, it was only available in the U.K. and a couple of other countries.

And then, I got selected! At age 12 I was one of the first American beta testers, and received 18 months (I think? Maybe more or less) of Spotify Premium completely free.

It was a new world.

Since 2012 I created or saved a total of 488 playlists. These mixes fell into different folders for different occasions.

The structure looked like this:

• Archive: Playlists for each year, that housed all the music I collected that year. Between 2012-2025

• Moods:

  • Moments: Playlists constructed to be listened to in or to memorialize a very specific moment. For example, I have a playlist called Grumpy Little Turd Goes to the UPS Store
  • Seasonal: Playlists literally meant to be enjoyed during specific seasons and holidays
  • Themed: Playlists curated around specific themes. Like songs with numbers in them. Or Songs about _.
  • Vibes: Songs that vaguely fit different moods.

• Functional:

  • Instrumentals for focused work
  • Reference Tracks for music I was working on

• Other People:

  • Playlists I made for other people
  • Playlists they made for me
  • Collaborative playlists.

• Curated: Playlists made for me by Spotify's algorithms

This collection felt like it was mine. But in reality, none of it belongs to me. After making the decision to discontinue my Spotify Premium membership, it's now hitting me that the over a thousand dollars spent on this streaming platform over the years did not in fact culminate in a music library that I can enjoy and pass on. Or even fair dividends and royalties to the artists I listened to.

I've been contemplating leaving for a couple years now. The biggest push for me is financial. I just can't afford to shell out $18 a month for anything anymore. Especially stuff that doesn't even belong to me.

Additionally, there are plenty of political reasons not to support the company. I'm not the right person to give all the facts and figures, but a great zine I picked up from my neighborhood record store says this:

My equally music-obsessed partner is making this leap with me (honestly she's the one who took the first steps!). I'm grateful not to be alone in this weirdness.

It's October 13th, 2025, and as of this moment, I have basically no music. It feels really weird.

What I do have, thanks to an amazing service called Exportify, is a TON of data. 488 spreadsheets categorizing the name of each artist and track I saved, the time I saved it, the album titles, the record labels the durations, and a bunch of misc and fun variables like loudness, energy, and time signature.

My music listening experience on Spotify became so enmeshed with my routine that without it, I'm feeling lost. As Spotify's algorithm became more and more advanced, the amount of music I was discovering and saving grew. In 2012 I saved a total of 128 songs. In 2025, I've already saved 1,018.

But, Spotify was doing a lot of the new music discovery for me. Pointing in the right directions based off the mountains of data I supplied it with.

At some point, I was started saving so much music that I would routinely forget I'd already saved a song or album. My retention for lyrics deteriorated too. I think this transition will probably result in a return to a less discovery-based and slower, more savory approach to music listening. I've definitely been missing that in recent years.

I know myself well enough to know that a systematic approach at this moment will not pan out. But whatever I end up doing, I'll log it on this site. Thanks for being a part of whatever that turns out to be!