I’ve really started getting into listening to music on Spotify. I’ve been a casual music listener for years, but I usually just settled for YouTube to find songs and let Autoplay go. I have to admit though, I never really liked Autoplay (I hated it, who even decides that One Direction should be followed up by Meghan Trainor? And don’t even get me started on dodgy sped up lyric videos…) but I guess I was too lazy to find an alternative. But when I wanted to find a new album that just couldn’t be found anywhere remotely credible without paying $$$ I had no choice! I already had a Spotify account that I’d never really activated, so logging in wasn’t a problem. What I’ve noticed over the past month or so of daily use of this program is MEDIA. Surprise! I bet you were wondering where Uni was coming into this. After every few songs an ad plays and it’s honestly gotten so common to me now that I could probably recite the 3 audio advertisements that they play. One of the advertisements that plays is, and I don’t know if you remember, but the one that I was shown during a Media Research project a few weeks back. The one about voting from the Australian Electoral Commission? Yep! I was among the first to be shown that as an audience feedback thing where I got to give my opinion so that they could make their product ready for the public. So I’ve heard about Ballet Boxes a little too many times for the average teenager, I’d say.

(These are just a few of the advertisements on the program, including a promotional audio for Justin Timberlake)

I could deal with ads actually, I found it kind of nice to have a break between songs (well, no okay that’s a bit of a stretch, but I could tolerate the ads). Now though – I can’t stand them. Because they’re overplayed! I’ve heard the same three ads about 5 hundred times and I’m sick of it. Spotify does a lot of self promotion on it’s program, one of the ads constantly reminds me that if I just upgraded to Pro I wouldn’t even have to hear the ad telling me to upgrade to Pro. Still, I’m resilient (and broke) and will endure the ads if it means listening to hundreds of different favourite songs and artists for free. That’s a fair deal, I reckon.