Spotify - anyone heard of it?

I've been an (ill3gal) downloader since 2000 but the concept of Spotify irks me somewhat, I just don't know why. For a start the PC I play music from that's plugged into my hi-fi isn't attached to the net so I wouldn't really be able to use it anyway, but I think it's something else.

Maybe it's because it seems too good to be true. If this catches on it means that the idea of a music collection will be considered ridiculous in only a few years. Having every song ever available to stream for free sounds great, but will it replace downloading and format sales once they work out a way to make the quality top-notch? If so does that mean the end of the mix-CD, the end of DJing, the end of using recorded music in a creative way? will it all turn into a big messy jelly of sound with no accounting for quality control whatsoever? I can't remember the last time I went to a friends house all excited because I have a new album to show them and in a way I blame downloading. Remember "What's this? I'll buy it on Monday!", I haven't thought about that since 2003. Yeah blah blah move with the times, but once the iPhone Spotify app comes out, that's it - the idea of having a music collection won't exist and it'll be a big hivemind mass of music.

Haven't signed up yet, then again and I haven't read this thread, but how exactly do artists/labels get money for this? Is it all down to pay-per-play? What will happen to artists like the Beatles who, let's face it, never appear on Spotify?

yes basically spotify means your children will be raped in their beds and there's nothing you can do about it. it means the end of everything you hold dear.

^^speaker of hard truths

so, you've been downloading free music since 2000 but... the idea of free music irks you somewhat?

yes but downloading free music was a hassle, this thing is too easy.

Or maybe Spotify will simply mean the end of commodity fetishisation, and all we'll have left are our ears and our judgement?

goodbye music collection hello playlist collection

Goodbye groaning shelves of dead weight; hello gorgeous clear surfaces and aesthetic simplicity.

I haven't read this thread

Jesus ...

but how exactly do artists/labels get money for this? Is it all down to pay-per-play?

The bands you like don't get a penny. Instead they're forced into bonded labour as Roberta from Spotify's sex slaves. The bands you hate, meanwhile, are paid in swan, caviar and liquid gold.

What will happen to artists like the Beatles who, let's face it, never appear on Spotify?

Yeh, the Beatles? I imagine they're fucked. Don't think anyone will ever talk about them again.

As for everything else you say ... I'm sorry: your entire post is drivel, dude. What the fuck are you smoking?

it will be fvcked up if Spfy have to start paying PRS royalties per play tho. the only thing that seems to be stopping this at the mo is simply that the application isn't popular on the same scale as YouTube. ways around this would include making subscription mandatory ala emusic, or Google managing to win the battle on what they should pay PRS for providing majors with free ad space (sorry that just never gets old for me).

making subscription mandatory ala emusic

Hmm: I don't think that's a comparable model. eMusic maps to iTMS, if you like; the closest Spotify has is Last.fm ...

... who, of course, are now going to start charging all non-UK/US/German listeners for the radio service.

I'd agree that these might be Spotify's salad days, certainly :/

There will be no Spotify iPhone app, because Apple will never allow an app that relies on a direct server connection, rather than using a proprietary app. Or at least that's what a much-more-techy-than-me friend said to me.

Also, it would be a potential iTunes killer, so why would they allow it?

are we still posting playlists or just being angry about spotify?

i made this http://open.spotify.com/user/numbers/playlist/5LTSxg1kNL2BeY3cZStqaU to try and convince some friends to join me at secret garden party in july

http://lutt.se/lastfm+spotify+new/

nice

pity it only does the top 5o from your last.fm but it's quite handy.

f so does that mean the end of the mix-CD

Fuck a mix-CD. Killed off the mix-tape so it did. Isn't change horrible? An instantly shareable playlist just isn't the same!

Couple of Grouper albums added

Nice, everything I've heard on Type is good. Also Morr and Monika stuff added for yer early 00s indietronica needs.

I like old time music too

vinyl, tapes, CDs - I like them all!

but maybe a happy way of seeing it is:
we appreciate them all more, now we have spotify, etc

I use spotify a lot, and iPod, and also enjoy the other things above (and even radio), maybe more than ever in a way

maybe it's All Good?

New PJ Harvey album is on there. I'd have thought record companies would wait a few months before giving new releases to Spotify, but no.

may not be legit

Jeez. I was listening to Iggy Pop's The Idiot on Spotify earlier. It was inturrupted halfway through by Iggy trying to sell me car insurance. Fuuuuck.

rofl

He's not selling you insurance, he's selling you time!

The latest way to try make you subscribe - Preview streams of new albums.
If you're a premium user you can listen to the new Lady Sovereign on Spotify before official release date.

I definitely shall be staying on the free one :)

Is there an ILM playlist?

There's this spotify:user:raw_patrick:playlist:76IpHss348rO3mn7O15nU8

Do you know what really annoys me? You start Spotify, and think ah, I'll listen to an album. So you find, and it click play. After a couple of songs you think, I know what'll sound good after this album's finished, so you queue something else but because you didn't queue the first album you selected, it starts playing the second album after the current song's finished, and the your queue is full of the original artist's entire collection, which you can't delete or anything, (and because my monitor's a bit fucked these non-queued tracks are practically invisible). Am I just being really stupid? Is not queueing the first thing you listen to that much of a crime that I have to be punished in this way? Yeah, I should remember because I do this every day, but still. Maybe I should complain on their blog.

Also, Spotify not doing so well over here (so far at least) http://xrrf.blogspot.com/search/label/easter%20track%20smackdown

i just either wait until an albums finished then look for another or add albums to a playlist

MoHoBishOpi were utter bollocks. So any service that doesnt have them gets a +

iggy selling insurance advert on. ugh

He's selling time!

Hmm, I've had it pause randomly on occasion in the past, which I assumed to be a memory problem at my end, but now it's playing back and it sounds like a scratched cd, just jumping about loads. Anyone else noticed this?

Yeh: I think it's a problem at peak times. There's some chat about it on the Get Satisfaction forums, if I remember rightly ... put it this way, I think it's 99.9% agreed to be a problem at their end.

I assume subscribers get priority.

I'm not so sure about that. There seemed to be a very egalitarian cluelessness when we were moaning at them about the OS X/scrobbling thing.

Anyone else not really bothered by the ads because they remind you a bit of listening to the car radio in GTA?

no,but ive never played GTA

anyone got any good playlists?

have you seen the spotify playlist thread?

well yeah but I dont know if any of those were of interest to me. The posters on this thread I'd say know my taste better so could recommend stuff.

I might make a funk playlist that everyone can add to, but there's no Funkadelic on it!

funk playlist http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/79tiumovObNXLsJMy6fzJm

hey pfunkboy

good news! spotify have added some music by artists you've told us you love.

click on any of the titles to play in spotify (we're afraid some releases may not be available in your country yet though).
Growing

* All The Way (album)
* Lateral (album)
* The Social Club No 8 (single)

Earth

* Pentastar: In the Style of Demons (album)
* Phase III: Thrones and Dominions (album)

happy listening :)

from freshspotify

What annoys me so far: tagging of classical music. They're not alone in this, it just seems crazy that after XY years of tagged digital music the only universal model still seems to be artist + track title + album title. This means that some things are tagged with the composer as the artist, while others (the majority?) are tagged with the actual musician(s) performing, which is somewhat unhelpful when only browsing for stuff.

This is true for many music services btw, and most don't even seem to try to address this problem. Emusic is an exception I guess.

Or is there a workaround I'm missing?

I don't think so.

"especially in the bedroom"

it's fun looking for pre-1920s techno on this thing

like that 'mechanical music hall' comp?