Rdio is shutting down and I will miss it tremendously.

I know other streaming music services existed before it, but it was the first one that I used. And I started using it at a time when a lot of friends and coworkers were also using it.

I would spend time finding interesting people to follow. I would download other people’s playlists to my phone. I would search for random phrases like “doing the dishes” and “indie driving” to try and find exciting new playlists.

I made a lot of playlists too. I made a playlist listing every song written by Ben Gibbard that had a bird metaphor in it. I made a playlist grouping two songs by the same artist from different albums that I felt like told two different chapters to the same story. I made other weird playlists with my favorite songs with an exclamation mark in the title or songs with “San Francisco” in the opening line that Rdio tweeted about and received tons of suggestions from other users. Note that all those links are to Rdio, so someday they may stop working.

I left this comment on “Apologies To the Queen Mary” by Wolf Parade:

I remember my first time listening to this album. I bought it with an iTunes gift card along with a bunch of other albums and loaded it all up on my iPod. For some reason I didn’t listen to this right away, opting instead for some of the other albums I purchased. I remember buying it relunctantly, having preconceived notions from who knows where that it would probably be a 1 hit album surrounded by a bunch of filler. It might have even been up to a week later when I first hit play on “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son”. I had my headphones on and I planned on doing some homework. But instead I just listened to the album all the way through. And then I did it again. And again. I proceeded to do this for weeks, maybe even months, each time picking up a different song that blew my mind. The combination of the first listening almost being on accident and the album itself being a solid 10 is why I listen to and seek out new music. It is still shiver inducing, thinking about hearing this for the first time. Knowing that I stumbled upon pure gold in a completely private moment and knowing that I would remember that moment forever.

I’m hoping that Rdio gives a way to download all this info in some way, although I’m not sure what I’d do with it. Probably just store it somewhere and look back on it fondly one day. I’m not sure I’ll even port it to another site. For some reason all these playlists and comments feel like they belong to the community on Rdio.

Thanks Rdio ♥️