HACKER Q&A
📣 tempestn

Options for curating a music library in the 2020s


My first music was in books of CDs. Then came the iPod; I imported all my CDs into iTunes, and stuck with it longer than most. I'd regularly rate songs too, so eventually my library of thousands of songs had 0-5 star ratings, which was great for building smart playlists. Also liked that I could still easily listen to a complete album.

Of course I haven't bought an album in the past 10 years or so, since everything's on Spotify, Youtube Music, etc. But what I've lost is a sense of music that's mine. When I hear a song I like now I might hit the thumbs up or whatever, but it's not the same as adding the album to my collection. So I'm trying to recapture a bit of that sense - of curating a selection of music that I like. Ownership isn't really the issue; I don't feel a great need to actually own copies of the songs or albums, as long as whatever platform I use isn't going to disappear without the ability to export my library/ratings/whatever.

But what I would like is some kind of better system than the lack of one I have now. Ideally something that combines the feeling of an iTunes music library, where you have a list of songs in your library and potentially various (smart) playlists built based on genre and rating, with the reach and discovery of streaming platforms. For ratings I'd love to have star ratings and the ability to import my old ones from iTunes. As far as discovery, Pandora used to be great at that, although they stopped supporting Canada forever ago. Spotify seems OK, and youtube music kind of crap but better than nothing. But none of these seem to have the curation I'm going for. There are playlists, but no real sense of a library of songs that span playlists, nor of albums as distinct entities, nor star ratings. (Although maybe I'm not using them to the fullest.)

Does what I want exist? Has anyone cobbled together something close? Am I just using these tools wrong? Enlighten me.


  👤 eimrine Accepted Answer ✓
I do not know anything better than download hundreds gigs of music in interested genres in my pc and to form playlist every day from scratch based on the cover images.