Spotify - Online music finally getting done right
Posted on 2009-02-15 [direct link] Tags: Music Stream.
I generally only listen to music either on my computer or on the radio, and the radio only gets any real use in the car. I own heaps of CDs but they never get played, and I haven't bought any for ages. So downloaded music makes up the vast majority of my listening; and the downloads fall fairly neatly into two camps:
Spotify is a fairly new Peer-to-Peer streaming music library thingy based out of the UK. Their library is far from complete... but it is remarkably good and has managed to cover 95% of the tracks I've wanted since signing up. Couple this with the price (Free) and there is finally a music service that's beginning to rival the Napster of old for convenience. The unskippable audio adverts are short enough (and infrequent enough) to not ruin the whole thing... and even the stupid user interface can't put me off. (Why are all the hip new "media" players still taking their design cues from Quicktime, a program so hideous that it was inducted into the interface hall of shame way back in 1999? eg. Songbird, Miro, et al. The ipod has (had?) the best user interface of all physical players but that doesn't mean that apple know best, itunes and quicktime are monstrous). But I risk sidetracking into a rant. I like this program despite all the failings. I even like it despite the fact it doesn't natively run on Linux and hence I have to run it under wine. But I don't like it enough to pay for their "premium" subscription service... obviously ;)
Posted on 2009-02-15 [direct link] Tags: Music Stream.
I generally only listen to music either on my computer or on the radio, and the radio only gets any real use in the car. I own heaps of CDs but they never get played, and I haven't bought any for ages. So downloaded music makes up the vast majority of my listening; and the downloads fall fairly neatly into two camps:
- Pre-release albums that I'm marginally excited about. I download them, listen to them twice and then forget they exist. The most recent example being the new Prodigy album. I've already forgotten what its called and it doesn't even hit retail until the end of this month. Not a good sign.
- Dance/Trance/Ambient mixes, the longer the better. I have an intense dislike of gaps and play-list management, so downloading a year's worth of some Dutch radio channel's weekly trance mix is perfection. Once a week (or less) I spend 10 minutes browsing The Mixing Bowl and I have more music queued than I'll ever listen to.
Spotify is a fairly new Peer-to-Peer streaming music library thingy based out of the UK. Their library is far from complete... but it is remarkably good and has managed to cover 95% of the tracks I've wanted since signing up. Couple this with the price (Free) and there is finally a music service that's beginning to rival the Napster of old for convenience. The unskippable audio adverts are short enough (and infrequent enough) to not ruin the whole thing... and even the stupid user interface can't put me off. (Why are all the hip new "media" players still taking their design cues from Quicktime, a program so hideous that it was inducted into the interface hall of shame way back in 1999? eg. Songbird, Miro, et al. The ipod has (had?) the best user interface of all physical players but that doesn't mean that apple know best, itunes and quicktime are monstrous). But I risk sidetracking into a rant. I like this program despite all the failings. I even like it despite the fact it doesn't natively run on Linux and hence I have to run it under wine. But I don't like it enough to pay for their "premium" subscription service... obviously ;)
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[2009-02-15 at 13:45 (updated once)]
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