Reject Streaming Services. Return to Monkey (local files)

Level up your listening and craft your own musical library.

Gif courtesy of Sony

Want a break from the bullsh*t?  

Excuse my french but you're in the right place! Now, I can understand why someone might enjoy or love services like Apple Music, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc for the convenience. Just download the app, sign in and get to listening!  

But others prefer them because, instead of spending money on each individual album or song, you can just purchase a subscription on an app and get everything for a “low” price.  

Maybe you just like how they help you find new music and curate playlists. Or, you might just find the interface simple and fluid.

While those reasons make sense, I'm here to introduce to you something better. “A level up in listening” if you would… (drumroll please)... local files! 

Local files are just the actual audio files of music on your phone or computer. They can be in the format of mp3, flac, wav, etc. If you're into vintage things, then the mp3 bit might have you thinking of an MP3 player – a great way to store and listen to your music. I used to have one myself, until I upgraded to bigger things.  

You can download them from apps like Bandcamp, where after you buy the album for a low price – and directly support the artist – you now have the audio files forever in incredibly high quality. 

Or if you want to sail the seven seas, there are plenty of free resources out there if your favorite artists aren't on Bandcamp.  

But I may already know what you're thinking. "Uhg, they want me to download every single song I've ever listened to instead of just using my 'XYZ' account?" 

Well… yes! But also no. Trust me when I say that you would not be the first person downloading every single song from all your favorite artists. If you're a lover of pop, rap, rock, country, or electronic music, there have been many to come before you that did all the dirty work of downloading songs already.

In fact, there are whole communities for things just like this. Once you create an account on a site like Bandcamp, you have access to a massive library of your choosing. Sometimes these communities have chat rooms so like-minded individuals can talk about their favorite songs and artists.  

But maybe you already know all of this and only want to know where you can store the files. This is where the “Apple v.s. Android” divide comes into play – but it doesn't change too much.  

I mentioned upgrading to bigger things earlier, and by "bigger things" I meant an Android phone that was released four years ago. Amazingly impressive I know, but for listening to music through the local files method, storage is the big (and only) thing that really matters.  

The switch to caring about storage may scare away some people but it's actually pretty simple. 

To start, you can use whatever storage you already have on your phone. All you need to do is plug it into your computer with the audio files on them, then drag, or copy/paste the files onto your computer.   

For Android users like myself, you can use sd-cards for extra storage. Transfer the audio files onto an sd-card then plug it into your phone. Voila! More room for music.  

Or if you want to go the real old school route and want to save storage space, just buy an mp3 player and store all the files on there. The name implies that .mp3 files are the only things that work on the player but double check and/or do your research! I found out my old player supported both .flac and .mp3 files which allowed for more flexibility and songs.  

So now you know what local files are, how you can get them, and where you store them. But what about why you should go through all this effort to make the switch in the first place.  

With this easy switch, now YOU (and only you) are in complete control of your music library. Streaming means you pay to just rent the songs temporarily on these services. Which means that they can decide to remove certain songs or albums whenever they like, leaving you out of luck. With  local files, however, you can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, by whoever you want! You don't have to pay a dime, can customize your library in countless different ways, have offline listening, can avoid censoring, and more! What's not to love?