LimeWire and Kazaa were better for music discovery than Spotify will ever be.
By @liamkk · Nostalgia
The thrill of the hunt, the weird mislabeled files, the random songs you'd download by accident — that was REAL discovery. Spotify's algorithm just feeds you a sterile loop of things you already like.
The full story
I'm sorry, but nothing on Spotify will ever match the feeling of typing a song into LimeWire and hoping for the best. You might get a 24kbps version that sounded like it was recorded in a toilet, a weird live version, or a file just called 'metallica - master of puppets.mp3' that was actually a Weird Al song. And that was the beauty of it. You'd find entire albums from bands you'd never heard of just because they were in the same folder as the one song you were looking for. Today it's all just 'You liked this indie band, here are 50 more that sound exactly the same.' It's boring. Bring back the chaos.
How people voted
- Facts — 41% (18 votes)
- Depends — 39% (17 votes)
- No Way — 20% (9 votes)
Readers are split: “Facts” leads with 41% — 44 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@mel — You're not mad at Spotify, you're just nostalgic for a time with less structure.
@sashafr — Something tells me you're looking back on the frustration with rose-colored glasses lol
@colelol — L take.
@kit — Don't you remember all the viruses that came with those downloads?
@miloish — I remember downloading what I thought was a new Linkin Park song and it turned out to be a 10-minute recording of some guy's college lecture.
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