Spotify – A World of Music

What is Spotify?

“Spotify is a new way to listen to music

Music is everywhere. Any track you like, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Any artist, any album, any genre – all available instantly. With Spotify, there are no limits to the amount of music you can listen to. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.”

Thats what they say anyway, and there right! Spotify is probably the best free music streaming tool out there. You can pick any song that they have in their extensive library, their search tool allows you to pick an artist, song and album.

“Think of Spotify as your new music collection. Your library. Only this time your collection is vast: 8 million tracks and counting. You can create as many playlists as you like from this collection – just drag and drop the tracks you want. And because the music plays live, there’s no need to wait for downloads and no big dent in your hard drive. You can listen at any time, no matter where you are. Through your computer or your mobile phone.”

Features

Playlists

Drag and drop your favourite tracks into playlists to save them until the next time you listen. The playlists are saved to your account, and accessible from wherever you use Spotify.

Share

You share music by copying the link of a playlist or a track and send it to your friends. They open that link and – voilá – Spotify starts playing your music on their computer. Another great sharing feature is the playlist which you and your friends can manage together. Simply right-click any of your playlists, select ‘Collaborative playlist‘ and then share it. Whoever receives the collaborative playlist is now able to add or remove tracks or even rename the playlist all together. Music made simple.

Mobile music

Or even better, with Premium you can also use Spotify with your iPhone or Android where music is streamed – or saved as an offline playlists – on your mobile phone.

Offline mode

Taking your computer outside where there’s no internet? Don’t worry. With Spotify Premium, you can select which playlists are to be ‘available offline‘, and you can keep listening.

Top lists

The most popular music on Spotify is regularly gathered and displayed. You can filter by individual country or just display your own personal top list. All tracks have a popularity meter that measures its total amount of recent plays.

Music purchases

If you want even more freedom, we give you the option to buy individual tracks or albums by simply clicking the Buy button. From streaming to MP3 files in seconds.

Simple search

To dive into our huge music catalogue, simply type the name of an artist, album or track and hit enter. We’ll give you the results instantly, and our automated suggester will help you remember the spelling, all to make it easy to find the music you love. If you want to be more exact in your search query, check out the advanced syntax.

Artist radio

Top artists have a dedicated radio stream (that you control using the ‘next’ button). The stream plays songs that are similar to the songs of that artist.

Use from anywhere

Your account can be used from any computer; just login with your existing username. With Premium, this works even if you’re abroad.

Biographies

The top artists include biographies from the All Music Guide and we’ve got cover arts and images for thousands of available albums.

Similar artists

Each of the top artists contain a list of other artists that are similar, giving you the ability to surf around between artists and discover new music.

So How Do i Get Spotify?

Well… there are three ways, free, day pass or premium.

Free

“Financed by advertising, the free version of Spotify is the place where most people start. Simple to download and install, in no time at all you’ll enjoy having all the music in the world at your fingertips, instant access to whatever song you want with no restrictions, and the ability to create and share playlists with friends.”

Unfortunatly Spotify free currently is an invitation only platform where members with a premium account get so many invites for free accounts, up until recently there was a loop hole around this invitation only system but this has since been rectified and invites are a must.

Day Pass

“No recurring fees. No advertising. Just you and your favourite music. You might be planning a romantic dinner for two, or partying with friends into the early hours of the morning. A day pass is ideal for the casual Spotify user who decides that all they want right now is music.

Day pass does not give access to premium features such as mobile and higher bit rate.”

I did trial the day pass, personally it wasnt worth the 99p i paid for it at the time, all it meant was that i had no adverts dueing my listening times, the adverts play for about 1:30 and come on very 5-8 songs, now personally that isnt an issue for me, they are quite often entertaining or informative so from my point of view just dont ;P

Premium

“Spotify in its purest form. As a Spotify Premium member you’ll enjoy unlimited access to a world of great music without advertising. Plus the ability to take your music with you anywhere on your mobile phone.

With Premium you can also make your precious playlists available offline, and stream at a higher bit rate of 320kbps – so you can listen to all your favorites in hi-fidelity. You’ll also hear new albums before they’re released, get entry into exclusive ticket lotteries and VIP competitions and take advantage of unrestricted travel access. To listen to your music whenever and wherever you want, just go Premium.”

Now ontop of the free spotify platform you receive the following

Mobile music – Use Spotify on your mobile phone (iPhone, Android and Symbian devices).

If i had an iphone this would be perfect for me, unfortunatly i dont so i havent had the opportunity to test this app, maybe ill find someone who has

Offline mode – Make your playlists available for those times you don’t have an internet connection.

When i purchased a months subscription this is why i did it, its perfect, i listen to music on it at home, make a playlist, switch offline mode on then jump on a train for 2 hours and i have my music right there!

Higher sound quality – Stream music in a higher bitrate, up to 320kbps.

For those music buffs who notice the bad sound quality then Premium would be for you, instead of streaming at 128kbps Premium gives you 320kbps. Personally, not a clue what the difference is and as long as it sounds good im happy.

Travel access – Go anywhere in the world and listen to your favourite music.

Now some of the music on Spotift can only be played in certain countries with the Free and Day Pass Platforms, Premium gives you the ability to listen to the complete Spotify library with no restrictions.

Spotify Interface

Overall Opinion

Spotify is a great tool, if you can get it. With it being invitation only is is very restrictive and unless your willing to pay for premium your going to have to wait until it becomes open access. The music on there can be outdated at times, it can take upto 3 or 4 weeks before the latest UK chart songs are put on there but then again si that really an issue? Spotify has opened me upto a new world of music with its suggestions and it is almost comparable to Itunes Genius which does a similar job.

I really cant wait until i get enough money to pay for a years worth of Premium, maybe one day ill buy a monthly subscription or ask for one as a gift, at £9.99 a month is it really worth it? would it be used Would i rather have the music on my PC?

You can download Spotify From spotify.com and can either get on the waiting list for a free account or pay for premium.