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Music service annoyances and pet peeves


Shadow2003

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Hello, members of this new "General Club" thingy. :ehidk:

Let's start off with a little kinda-unnatural-and-weird-for-me intro! :yay:

We all love pop music here, and we each have a way of getting, listening and enjoying it. One thing that plays a huge role in that are music services, which include, but are not limited to:

  • Spotify
  • iTunes
  • Tidal
  • Deezer

..and others.

These services give us the ability to enjoy our favourite albums and songs, support the artists and discover hidden musical gems, but they definitely aren't perfect. Certain things aren't really objective flaws / errors / glitches, but just things that annoy us personally. I made this thread to talk about this.

I really only use Spotify, and here are some things that annoy me:

1. The colours of certain album covers. They sometimes are way too bright (e.g.: Mariah's Rainbow) or washed out and gray-ish (e.g.: MARINA's Electra Heart). In both cases, the result looks off-putting and unattractive.

2. Unwanted / random things on the covers (e.g.: the deluxe edition of LP's album Lost On You has the f**king "Deluxe edition: contains ___ bonus tracks" on it :nyheadache:. Another example is a little white line at the bottom of Avril Lavigne's Let Go cover.)

3. The parental advisories on covers: I find them completely pointless, since there is already a little "Explicit" mark next to songs with explicit lyrics.

4. When it comes to collaborations, the title is always written in a very nice way, like this:

[Song title] - [linked featured artist]

Unfortunately, some songs look like this:

[Song title] (featuring [featured artist]

I'm not a fan of this "format" (if you can call it that). I always write it as this and generally don't appreciate this being written in any other way than:

Title:                                                       Artist:

[Song title]                                             [Artist] ft. [featured artist]

The linked version gives this exact result, and I like that. The other version does not. Still, this is what pisses me off the most:

[Song title] (featuring [featured artist]) - [linked featured artist]

Like, decide! Which "format" do you want to use??? :beynah:

I hope y'all get what I'm trying to say. Rant over. :divaney:

5. Linking random artists that aren't credited as features. An example of this is Kylie Minogue's "Chocolate", where some guy named "A. Guevara" is linked. The guy is not credited as a featured artist, and according to Wikipedia, he is just an "MC" (Wikipedia links the MC to "master of ceremonies", so I have no idea what that is :ehidk:). The same hapens with Madonna's "Don't Stop", which links a guy named Daniel Abraham (he is just an audio mixer for the album) and "Sanctuary" (the linked person, Nellee Hooper is responsible for some of the production on the album).

I don't get why this is done, but it is for some reason.

6. A playlist exists on Spotify's front page, titled "Today's Top Hits". This playlist has the following written:

"By Spotify • [Artist] is on top of the Hottest 50!"

That part about who's on top of the Hottest 50 tends to be false. For example, it currently states that Katy Perry is on top. That is false - Katy is only 10th in the playlist and Taylor Swift is on top.

I really have no idea how or why this happens, but I think it should be fixed / changed.

Anyway, that would be it for my massive rant. Despite all the criticism I've thrown Spotify's way, I think it's a neat music service and I'll continue using it.

Now, what are your pet peeves and annoyances with music services? It does not have to be Spotify, just any music service you use. Comment below! :divaney:

Let the discussion begin! :letitburn:

 

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is the cover for "How to Be a Heartbreaker" ****** up for everyone else too?? instead of the "Electra Heart" album cover it shows this really weird and tacky "Fitness Beats" compilation album cover and it's been that way for years now.. the rest of the album is fine, it's just this one song and it annoys me to death.. :plzexplain:

image.jpg?c=Xbi6ccvMAxSOi1XNxIAl8j6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=&f=5

I guess the album is part of the compilation but c'mon.. I didn't add the one from the compilation to my library, I added "Electra Heart".. :crying3: but I won't complain too much because lbr here: buying an album with 12 songs costs like 10 dollars but with Spotify I have access to an ENDLESS library of music for the measly price of 3,50 (student discount and even without it - 7 euros is an absolute steal).. :)

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On 6/15/2019 at 10:17 PM, iAlwaysSingLive said:

is the cover for "How to Be a Heartbreaker" ****** up for everyone else too?? instead of the "Electra Heart" album cover it shows this really weird and tacky "Fitness Beats" compilation album cover and it's been that way for years now.. the rest of the album is fine, it's just this one song and it annoys me to death.. :plzexplain:

image.jpg?c=Xbi6ccvMAxSOi1XNxIAl8j6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=&f=5

I guess the album is part of the compilation but c'mon.. I didn't add the one from the compilation to my library, I added "Electra Heart".. :crying3: but I won't complain too much because lbr here: buying an album with 12 songs costs like 10 dollars but with Spotify I have access to an ENDLESS library of music for the measly price of 3,50 (student discount and even without it - 7 euros is an absolute steal).. :)

YES! That does kinda annoy me too! Generally, if a song is part of a playlist, when you play it and it appears on the bottom of the screen on that "song playing strip" thingy, it usually has the cover and links the album it originated from.

With this one, it kinda seems like "How To Be A Heartbreaker" originated from that fitness playlist and was "added" to Electra Heart later on.

Speaking of Electra Heart, I really wish this washed out and gray-ish cover (that I talked about in my OP)...

Image result for MARINA - Electra Heart on Spotify

...would get replaced by this much nicer, more colourful version used on the CD and vinyl:

Image result for primadonna marina and the diamonds

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2 minutes ago, Shadow2003 said:

YES! That does kinda annoy me too! Generally, if a song is part of a playlist, when you play it and it appears on the bottom of the screen on that "song playing strip" thingy, it usually has the cover and links the album it originated from.

With this one, it kinda seems like "How To Be A Heartbreaker" originated from that fitness playlist and was "added" to Electra Heart later on.

Speaking of Electra Heart, I really wish this washed out and gray-ish cover (that I talked about in my OP)...

 

...would get replaced by this much nicer, more colourful version used on the CD and vinyl:

 

I agree though I doubt it's Spotify's doing.. chances are, it's the labels / whatever artists' representatives that curate the libraries so yeah.. :) I do have quite a few album cover pet peeves too though.. for example the album cover for Florence + The Machine's "Lungs" is really grainy and low quality but the thing is - it's LQ on iTunes too (here it is) which proves my point.. :tehe: pretty sure Kesha's "Warrior" is grainy too or at least used to be.. :bedtime:

 

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I use Spotify too. My annoyances:

1. Wrong album covers: Baby One More Time uses the US cover in my country (I live in the UK) when it should really be using the international album cover as that was the album cover here. I also prefer that cover too.

2. Album cover watermarks/not in high quality: Britney's album cover has this red watermark logo thing in the bottom right corner. It is NOT supposed to be there!!

3. Certain songs not available in certain territories: Girl in the Mirror, You Got It All, Amnesia and Over To You Now are missing on Spotify UK when all four of those songs were bonus tracks here, so they should be available here. The other OIDIA bonus, Heart, is at least still available on The Singles Collection. And it's the case with other artists too. Girl group Sugababes' 3 Spoons of Suga was a bonus track on the UK edition of Change but it's not on Spotify here. They only put the international edition of Change up which doesn't have the track.

4. Songs just missing in general: some artists b-sides are missing because Spotify haven't bothered to put the actual CD singles (that had said b-side up). And some albums have greyed out album tracks but the rest of the album is still available to listen to. I know this is the case with Gaga's ARTPOP (Do What U Want) but I can understand that one as Gaga wanted to take the song down, but there's a few other cases with other artists where songs just randomly get greyed out and are unavailable on certain albums but the rest of the album is still available to play. This proves really annoying when these songs are actually available on iTunes/Apple Music.

I'll probably think of more later.

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On 6/15/2019 at 9:17 PM, iAlwaysSingLive said:

is the cover for "How to Be a Heartbreaker" ****** up for everyone else too?? instead of the "Electra Heart" album cover it shows this really weird and tacky "Fitness Beats" compilation album cover and it's been that way for years now.. the rest of the album is fine, it's just this one song and it annoys me to death.. :plzexplain:

image.jpg?c=Xbi6ccvMAxSOi1XNxIAl8j6KsMttLlyBmmVTZ6_CLs0=&f=5

I guess the album is part of the compilation but c'mon.. I didn't add the one from the compilation to my library, I added "Electra Heart".. :crying3: but I won't complain too much because lbr here: buying an album with 12 songs costs like 10 dollars but with Spotify I have access to an ENDLESS library of music for the measly price of 3,50 (student discount and even without it - 7 euros is an absolute steal).. :)

Wait that happened to me with a Justin Timberlake song from Futuresex/Lovesounds, even though I was playing it from the album the album cover was for some random compilation called ‘R&B Lovesongs’ :orangu: 

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18 hours ago, Isla said:

I know this is the case with Gaga's ARTPOP (Do What U Want) but I can understand that one as Gaga wanted to take the song down, but there's a few other cases with other artists where songs just randomly get greyed out and are unavailable on certain albums but the rest of the album is still available to play. This proves really annoying when these songs are actually available on iTunes/Apple Music.

Oh, and speaking of "Do What U Want", I find it really lazy that the R. Kelly version was first greyed out and then removed, but nobody botherd to replace it with the Christina Aguilera version, which is also available on Spotify as a single.

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In my OP, I forgot my biggest annoyance and the main reason for making this thread:
Song title capitalization inconsistency

Allow me to explain:

(For me at least) there are two ways of captializing song titles:

1. Every new word starts with a capital letter (example: "Break The Ice")

2. The "grammatically correct" version, the rules of which are nicely summed up here:

Quote
  1. The first word and last word in the song's title should be capitalized.
  2. All other nouns and active verbs should be capitalized.
  3. Conjunctions (e.g., and, but, or), short prepositions (e.g., in, out, by, for, from) and articles (e.g., a, an, the) are not capitalized unless they belong to the first rule of being the first or last word in the title.
  4. For prepositions, words that are four or fewer letters should not be capitalized. Words that are five or more letters should be capitalized, such as "across," "among" or "beyond."
  5. Some other short words should always be capitalized, such as also, be, if, than, that, thus and when.
  6. Phrasal verbs also need to be capitalized. Phrasal verbs combine verbs and prepositions or adverbs into an idiomatic expression whose meaning differs from that of the actual definitions of the individual words used.

 

 ~ Your Dictionary / Capitalization of Songs

[Link: https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capitalization/capitalization-of-songs.html]

Now, I like to capitalize all the words in a song title. I think it just looks better and more consistent.

When it comes to Spotify, they are extremely inconsistent with this.

Here are a few examples:

1. In Femme Fatale: "Till the World Ends"

     In B In The Mix: The Remixes Vol. 2: "Till The World Ends" - Alex Suarez Club Remix

2. In Justified: "Cry Me a River"

     In 12" Masters - The Essential Mixes: "Cry Me A River" - Dirty Vegas Vocal Mix

3. In the "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" single: "Can't Get You out of My Head"

     The title of the single itself: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head"

      I find this one to be just extremely stupid.

And, finally, since you probably get the point by now, the one that pisses me off the most:

4. The solo version: "Until the End of Time"

     The Beyoncé duet: "Until The End Of Time"

      These versions are one. f**king. song. apart. and they could even be consistent here, for ****'s sake! :nyheadache: :icant:

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in my apple music library they often randomly split albums into two, like some songs in one, the rest of the songs in the other... it's super weird. And then to get it back to one you have to delete the album and re-add it which is annoying because deleting an album removes all of those songs from your playlists automatically...

also for some reason apple music will not let me add "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey to my library. Everytime I click add it says added but then reverts back to not being there. Which is especially annoying considering I literally bought the whole album on iTunes in like 2013. Anyone else have these problems?

for iTunes, I remember having so many problems with it not properly adding music to my iPhone, so many headaches with that. I do sometimes miss the excitement of buying an album or CD, unwrapping it and listening to the tracks a lot, but iTunes was just such a crap service sometimes. I also think they should do better to insure that music you paid for will always be available. I bought Glitter on iTunes and they removed it from the iTunes store (for whatever reason) and now my album is slowly dissappearing from my library track by track and I have no way of getting the songs back which sucks cause I actually paid money for them... I actually heard of the Glitter thing happening to other people as well.

EDIT: I just checked and my Glitter album is all there and back to normal... well that's nice.

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3 hours ago, Shadow2003 said:

Oh, and speaking of "Do What U Want", I find it really lazy that the R. Kelly version was first greyed out and then removed, but nobody botherd to replace it with the Christina Aguilera version, which is also available on Spotify as a single.

Yeah I wish they had done that. I know the Xtina version was never actually on the album, but the album feels really incomplete without the song. I always liked DWUW regardless of what R Kelly did and I really like the Xtina version too.

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  • 1 month later...

Here's another one that I thought of: you know how Spotify has only some editions of albums and doesn't always have all bonus tracks available? Well, sometimes, said bonus tracks are available on Spotify, but not as part of their respective albums.

Example #1:

Britney's fourth album, In The Zone, is available as the standard, 13-track edition on Spotify. However, the In The Zone DVD Audio EP is also available. This EP contains two remixes, as well as "The Answer" and "Don't Hang Up" - the international and Japanese editoin bonus tracks. This begs the question - why didn't Spotify just make "The Answer" and "Don't Hang Up" part of the ITZ album; that way it would've been much easier for users to listen to the full album with bonus tracks than having to save two different albums (and maybe create a playlist to have all the bonus tracks in one place).

Example #2:

Madonna's Rebel Heart is available on Spotify as the deluxe edition, with 19 tracks. There is also an EP available, titled simply Rebel Heart. This EP is basically the super deluxe edition's second disc. This is what I don't understand - wouldn't it be easier to combine both of these releases into one super deluxe edition? I mean, it isn't country- / region-exclusive or anything...

Both of these don't make any sense to me. :idkney:

EDIT: I was wrong about the second example. I was just browsing through Madonna's Spotify page and checked the Madonna Complete Collection playlist. As it turns out, Rebel Heart's super deluxe edition does exist on Spotify. Yes, the songs are taken from the two separate releases I talked about above (if you click on the song at the bottom of your screen, it takes you to either the deluxe edition or EP, depending on which disc the song is from, IDK how to explain it :deadbanana:), but it is available.

 

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