I’ve been listening to music using Spotify for a few days now and I’m very impressed. It’s a subscription-based service, with a (currently invite-only) free plan, that lets you listen to a seemingly massive catalogue of music. You download an application that lets you search for specific artists/songs/albums, or you can select a time-period and a mix of genres and listen to a generated radio-style playlist.
There’s playlist functionality and you can see what are the most popular songs/artists, but that pales in comparison to the on-demand style of the service. It’s given me the chance to find first albums from bands I’ve only heard more recent stuff from; it lets me listen to the good songs from bands I’ve been generally unimpressed by and it lets me find albums that aren’t readily available in shops (MIA & Diplo’s Piracy Funds Terrorism, for example, which I’m currently in love with!).
I’ve found some stuff from small labels (Honeytrap are a local band that’s on there, my beloved Sequins don’t seem to be) but I hope that changes. There are also some region-restrictions in place both for people signing up (people in the US and Canada don’t seem able to) and from within the catalogue, some albums have red labels informing they’re not available in the UK. This is a shame, but maybe just a matter of time before it’s widely available?
The free plan is supposed to be ad-supported and to have uninterrupted listening will cost either £0.99 for a 24hr pass or £9.99 a month. I’ve had it playing for quite a long time now, and for significant periods at a time, and I’m yet to hear an advert. Possibly a problem with the Mac client, or maybe I’m just special, so I don’t know how disruptive they are.
As it stands, I think if I could listen at work I’d definitely be prepared to subscribe, but for just at home I’m not quite sure. A monthly subscription also gets you invites to give to others (I assume for the free plan) and you don’t need an invite if you want a paid subscription straight away - funny that!
