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Trey Songz's Fans Send Him 'Virtual' Champagne

By Andy Hermann
Montell Jordan Is Now a Megachurch Pastor

By Imade Nibokun
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony Ruined By...

By Paul T. Bradley
Dr. Dre Talks About His USC Music Academy

By Ben Westhoff
Henry Rollins: Why I'm Not Playing Music Anymore

By Henry Rollins
Here's Why Kendrick Lamar's New Video Is Awful

By Shea Serrano
Classixx Are L.A.'s Best Dance Music Duo

By Jeff Weiss
The Time Axl Rose and Steven Adler Nearly...

By Ben Westhoff
FYF 2013 Lineup Announced

By Katie Bain
Mysterious Vex Club Proprietor Joe Vex Speaks!

By Javier Cabral

Collapse of the Music Industry

Why Does Spotify Keep Ripping People Off?

By Emily Lundquist Wed., Feb. 20 2013 at 4:15 AM

Categories: Collapse of the Music Industry, Streaming Piles

flickr/Administrador Galeria Uninter

Ten dollars a month is a small price to pay for practically every piece of recorded music except The Beatles. Which is why, late last year, I signed up for Spotify. Only two months in, however, I was out, and feeling like I'd been ripped off. Turns out I'm not the only one.

A little background: Spotify Premium, the ad-free and mobile subscription arm of the streaming music service, has been available in the U.S. since 2011, and has over 5 million global users. All the kinks have surely been worked out, right? Not quite. When I signed up in December I was charged $9.99, the price for a month of service. The next day, my credit card was charged another $9.99. That's when the trouble began.

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Pop-Ed

What Are You Listening to on Spotify? Guess What, Nobody Cares!

By Ben Westhoff Wed., Jan. 4 2012 at 6:00 AM

Categories: Pop-Ed, Streaming Piles

We don't care if you listen to Selena Gomez. We just don't want to know about it

In the late aughts and the early teens, or whatever we're calling these decades, streaming music and social media began to merge; this, the geniuses of Silicon Valley, Alley, and Beach declared, would be utopia. Not only would it rain cash, but everyone's musical taste would improve.

And thus soon, whether you liked it or not, you knew what your friends were listening to at almost any given moment. The backlash was swift; in September, Spotify added a feature to let you listen to their service "privately," ie without sharing it with all of your so-called friends on Facebook. In their story on the issue PC Mag declared it a win for those who with skins too thin to announce to the world their love of Selena Gomez. While we at West Coast Sound don't believe in guilty pleasures, we appreciated this feature for another reason: Because nobody gives a shit what you're listening to.