I’ve been a happy Spotify user for almost 14 years. But, this summer, I added music to my personal Plex server. This may seem odd, given I already pay for Spotify. However, Spotify doesn’t have all the music I want.
Pitchfork’s 2024 Album of the Year was 32 tracks of retro-style indie pop called Diamond Jubilee, by the Canadian band Cindy Lee. The album isn’t on Spotify or Apple Music! It’s on YouTube, Bandcamp and, amusingly, a free download from the artist’s personal GeoCities website. It’s a superb piece of art - like the Nico tracks from The Velvet Underground came to life and had ennui.
I also wanted to give my partner a way to listen to some of their music. They spent their high school years digging through The Metal Archives, soaking in obscure Finnish bands from the 2000s. My partner has a strong attachment to a couple bands so unknown, you can’t buy their music anymore, let alone stream it on Spotify.
So, I added a new folder to my server’s hard drive and started adding music. Plex automatically recognizes and organizes any files with reasonable mp3 tags. For Cindy Lee, I used the free download on the artist’s website. For the metal bands, I found some decent YouTube copies and ripped them with yt-dlp. Tagging was a cinch with Mp3Tag.
Plex offers offline music playback through the Plexamp app. But, I found it ugly and not iOS-y enough. I prefer Prism, which is a one-time $5 in-app purchase.
It’s been a blast setting up my own music collection. When I add album art to mp3 files, it feels like I’m 15 and pirating songs for my iPod again. A delightful experience and easy way to enjoy music not on Spotify.