Spotify is finally adding lossless audio for Premium members.
Starting now, Premium users can listen to songs in FLAC with up to 24-bit and 44.1 kHz quality, and more countries will get this soon. Gustav Gyllenhammar shared, “The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers.” He also said, “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.” It almost sounds like a magic trick, but it’s just better sound.
Other music apps have already done this, though. Tidal started in 2015 with a HiFi plan for lossless music, then Amazon Music HD arrived in 2019 with millions of CD-quality tracks and even fancier high-res songs for a little more money. By 2021, Apple Music decided to add lossless and high-res audio for everyone, and Tidal dropped the price of its HiFi plan, gave out a free ad-supported option, and even let people listen to Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 mixes. Sometimes it feels like every app is just trying to outdo the last one with more numbers and letters.
Fans sometimes wonder if any of these changes actually make music sound better.
Recently, a bunch of bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, and Hotline TNT have taken their music off Spotify. Some of them are upset about Daniel Ek’s company, Prima Materia, putting money into a defense tech business called Helsing that helps the military with AI. People have been talking about this a lot, and it seems like more and more artists are leaving because of it.
Hotline TNT’s Will Anderson said, “The company that bills itself as the steward of all recorded music has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that it does not align with the band’s values in any way. A cooler world is possible.” Godspeed You! Black Emperor went even further and deleted their music from all the big streaming places, not just Spotify.
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