Spotify Free July
July starts tomorrow, and I think I’m going to try something a little different: a Spotify-free month.
Not “music-free.” More like: a month where I stop reflexively opening Spotify every time I want to hear something and instead spend some real time with my own music library again.
Because the thing is, I have a personal music library. A pretty good one, actually. It has albums I bought, weird stuff I downloaded years ago, obscure releases that never made it to streaming, things that vanished from services, things Spotify has wrong, and things Spotify just flat-out does not have. And for all the convenience of streaming, I’ve noticed that I barely touch that library anymore.
That feels wrong.
Spotify is easy. That’s the whole trap. It’s right there, it works everywhere, and it gives you an endless stream of something that is technically music. But lately I’ve been feeling like I’m hearing the same recommendations over and over again. The same “because you listened to…” logic. The same safe loops. The same algorithmic rut dressed up as discovery.
And I’m tired of it.
I’m also tired of the broader bargain. The artists don’t get paid well. The platforms keep inserting themselves between people and the art they love. Everything becomes rented, tracked, optimized, analyzed, and eventually nudged into whatever shape keeps you subscribed. It’s convenient, but it also makes music feel less like something I collect, own, and care about, and more like a utility bill with playlists.
There’s something deeply satisfying about owning your own media. Not in some prepper “the cloud is going down tomorrow” way, although, sure, that too. More in the sense that a music library is personal in a way a streaming account isn’t. It has history. It has taste. It has weird gaps and embarrassing phases and albums you forgot you loved. It has stuff you tracked down on purpose. It has context.
A streaming service gives you access.
A library gives you a relationship.
So for July, I’m going to lean into that.
I’ll be using Plexamp, which honestly might be one of the best music apps out there. It is shockingly good. It feels like it was made by people who actually care about listening to music, not just keeping you inside an engagement funnel. The interface is great, and the caching controls: excellent!
I also want to spend some time trying the newer AI and mix features. I’m curious what it feels like when those tools are pointed at my library instead of some giant platform’s catalog. There’s a big difference between “generate a vibe from everything currently licensed by a corporation” and “help me rediscover the music I already cared enough to keep.”
That’s the part I’m most interested in: rediscovery.
I don’t expect this month to be some grand moral victory. I’m not pretending I’ll never use Spotify again. Streaming is useful. Discovery is useful. Shared links are useful. There are reasons these services became so dominant.
But I do think it is worth occasionally stepping back and asking what the convenience is costing us.
So that’s the experiment: no Spotify for July.
Just my library, Plexamp, and whatever forgotten weirdness I apparently cared enough about to save.
Honestly, that sounds pretty great.