Spotify - anyone heard of it?

I just read about this. Apparently some kind of streaming iTunes looking service with rights to all the majors cleared. Could be interesting? If nothing else just to see it fail miserably...

trying this now. blatant rip of itunes design-wise but looks better in many ways. all i really want to do with it is listen to whole albums easily and it seems to let you do that very well (i haven't heard the ads yet tho).

20 second xbox ad came in after 5 songs. not bad really.

needs last.fm support asap

the ads don't bother me that much either, haven't noticed if 5 songs is always the limit? in any case it's 5 songs of any length, and you can listen to "In C" for example straight through which is cool.

I love it!

I think there is progress towards spotify scrobbling happening here:

http://www.last.fm/group/Scrobble+for+Spotify

carsmile sent this link: http://code.google.com/p/scrobblify/

scrobbles perfectly

for Windows maybe!

Yeah this looks terrific, I like how easy it makes it to dip into artists with huge discographies.

Although I haven't actually listened yet, just been browsing so far.

i am so in love with this thing <3

some artist tag crapness tho

the radio is fun for discovering things totally insane and cheesy

Oh wow the quality is actually pretty good.

The radio thing is indeed cool. I'm trying to get it to find me some techno from the 50s.

the quality is good, the range not so much, but this could well prove useful.

Presumably the range will increase as they agree deals with more record companies? It seems fine for major label stuff and a quick search for eg Kompakt pulls up a lot.

does it pass the melt banana test?

the range seems identical to what's on 7digital (and therefore itunes i think). eg they have trina's first and third albums but inexplicably not her second or fourth. i dunno how much use i'll have for spotify but kudos for how well it works, the quality of the tracks etc - the tags need ironing out but i'm sure they'll do this in time.

actually it'll be most useful for stuff like the goldfrapp album this year - i didn't really expect to love it but i wanted to hear it, so obv i wouldn't buy it but couldn't be arsed blagging it. that's a ton of consumer laziness in there.

oh god i should've said i was american! fuck. could've got access to all the hip-hop and r&b which never makes it over to this godforsaken, miserable island.

Do they have a license for the US now? I don't think they did a couple of weeks ago...

Four MB albums, Deano: Teeny Shiny, Bambi's Dilemma, Charlie and Scratch or Stitch.

does not work in australia yet

Just searched for The Recession and that shows up in its entirety, and it hasn't been released here at all right?

It's really good for the one-album playback when you've no idea if you'll like it or not and can't be arsed downloading.

yeah i'm basically going through albums i've been wondering about checking out but didn't have the hd space for.

no the recession was released here, but the label didn't bother telling the pr - she only realised when she looked on amazon and found it had been there for a fortnight

"80s funk house disco" radio suggests Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers!

> Four MB albums, Deano

thanks. we don't have any, amazon.co.uk mp3 store has scratch n stitch and a couple of tracks from compilations, emusic had a lot... all these people seem to be getting their info from the same places though, they all make the same mistakes (search for broadcast on amazon - details are about duophonic / warp broadcast but the listed albums aren't)

One detail I like: when it gets to the end of what I've queued up, it just continues with the current album without me needing to ask it to. (I suppose I can see how someone might not like this, though.)

Finally got round to sorting scrobbling for this (there's a windows messenger box ticked by default in the last.fm client that somehow stops Scrobblify from working). So far I'm really liking Spotify - handy for hearng stuff you randomly think on that you haven't got in your library or for legal trying before you buy. The adverts don't annoy me in the slightest.

fails Boredoms test :(

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

anyone got a spotfiy INVITE?

If not, try the "oooh ask me please!" option on the website ("Get started" -> email in "Not invited?" field). Took about five days for me, was surprised to get it at all actually.

jordan, webmail me an email address to send an invite to.

didn't get asked for an invite here, just got straight in

This is amazing! You type in what you want to listen to, and then you are listening to it. all this needs is to work on an iphone, and then i'll buy an iphone, and then i will have achieved bliss.

Mine appears to have made it through an album without giving me any adverts. Maybe they've bumped me up to a pro account without realising it.

you can now scrobble to last.fm from within spotify (it's in 'preferences')

That's handy, saves me running that scrobblify thing at the same time.

Spotify lists 'The Prodigy' as 'Prodigy' and makes last.fm think this guy sings Smack My Bitch Up and Out of Space
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/17704623.jpg

can someone please send me an invite?

thanks!!

Er....

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

Think there's still a waiting list though.

<3 this service btw.

Got in straight away with the link I posted.

Aha they've obviously opened it up!

Downside is loads more ads (I've heard two during the same album), but you can hear them coming after a while and tune out. Still great.

thanks Chewshabadoo but I need an invitation code.

Please!

If i hear gareth jones from cardiff reciting pi again i'll scream

(advert)

And I'm not buying that White Lies record either.

At least it doesn't scrobble the adverts

jonathan from spotify sounds remarkably like Michael Vaughan

wtf 2 adverts in a row (the 2nd was for that White Lies album)

See what I mean about them? The Killers meet Editors big wowz!

can i get a spotify invite

thanks Chewshabadoo but I need an invitation code.

Please!

― kaiser, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 7:55 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

can i get a spotify invite

― dugong.jpg (jabba hands), Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:03 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

Have any of you actually tried the link posted? Quite a few of my friends in the UK have used the link and joined today. Maybe it doesn't work in other countries...

\o.0/

I'm in the US and that link asks for one of two things:

1)an invite code

or

2)your email address so they can notify you when it goes "public"

I wonder what their excuse is. Don't they want more people to hear their stupid ads?

is it UK only?

mr bimble check your email

It's odd and a fucking pain how Spotify often doesn't specify that tracks are remixes in any way.

i'm in the US and unless something changed in the last few days, we can't use spotify and all the workarounds have been blocked

2)your email address so they can notify you when it goes "public"

I selected this a couple of weeks ago, and got an invite from them within the same day. May not be the case now, of course.

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/ gets you straight in without an invite.

I went in on that link above, no trouble at all. I'm in the UK tho - maybe there's a problem with the US, I dunno.

It's awesome, btw. Nearest thing to the "universal jukebox" I've seen for a long time.

I think it's staggering. At least 95% of my track/artist searches to date have returned results. And I like the concept of shared playlists.

Spotify Premium is available in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and the UK. The Free version is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain.

It amuses me to see the adverts briefly appear in last.fm (and permanently in your Spotify history).

This is impressive. There's a lot more weird, small stuff on than I thought there would be, thopugh also mystifying gaps too.

Someone should set up a shared ILX playlist for Jan (then we can move to Feb etc to stop it getting unwieldy). I'll do it tonight if no-one else does.

Excellent idea. I was thinking of doing one for the Pazz & Jop Top 50 singles, and maybe the Rocktimists poll tracks as well. But it'll have to wait until tonight.

Gaps spotted so far: no King Crimson, very little UK Funky, no Aeroplane mix of Grace Jones "Williams Blood" (although their mix of Friendly Fires "Paris" is on there). Remixes are generally well represented, though.

Remixes are generally well represented, though.

But not always listed as remixes, I've found. And they don't scrobble as remixes (sorry, I'll take that to the last.fm thread)

I also like the non-bloatiness: the software was running at around 14,000k on my home PC last night - so I could close iTunes for once, and benefit from the faster performance.

I hope this thing a) goes global so the US can use it b) they make a mobile/iphone app c) ushers in a new era of music use.

I confidently predict big 4 will put a stop to it.

All the majors have signed up in europe, though. I suppose it's whether the US ones are far-sighted enough.

It's also notable that most of the big digital music holdout bands aren't represented- no Beatles, Metallica, AC/DC.

Every Stones album is there though, yay!

Another thing I've noticed is that the service avoids any queueing problems, as you occasionally get on, say, last.fm.

Last.fm is screwed unless they can come up with something as wide ranging as this.

The DJ Khaled selection is spotty and Denim aren't on there either.

I do like the way that you get to see all the crummy compilation albums that bands appear on. If you pick someone like The Sweet it takes about 5 mins to scroll through them all.

How on earth are they going to make any money out of this model? I can only imagine that once they've got a critical mass of people using it, they're going to radically increase the amount of advertising.

That and premium subs I guess.

At the moment, the advertising is pretty unobtrusive so I can't see why anyone would want to be a paying subscriber. Which is why I'm guessing they'll up the advertising once they get enough people hooked.

Indeed, at the moment the advertising is infrequent enough not to annoy but I'm sur it'll increase in frequency. Service is good but not quite thorough enough, some bizarre gaps in artist's discographies e.g most of Sparks 70's output and their most recent work but little from the 80s/90s. Once they can plug those gaps, get on board the digital refuseniks and most importantly provide a mobile service then £10 a month would be very tempting.

Getting enough people hooked should mean they don't have to up the advertising - advertisers will simply pay more for a bigger audience.

Maybe if they get enough people hooked they'll be able to offer ad-free for £4.99 instead of £9.99.

I wonder how much artists are paid through this. We could have weekly campaigns where we all play obscure tracks from some almost forgotten band so they get surprise royalty cheques.

I do like the way that you get to see all the crummy compilation albums that bands appear on

So true - the other night I found myself marvelling at how many "a tribute to" albums Sigue Sigue Sputnik have appeared on (from memory: NiN, Soft Cell, Smashing Pumpkins, Madonna, KMFDM, Prince...) - who keeps asking them?

We could have weekly campaigns where we all play obscure tracks from some almost forgotten band so they get surprise royalty cheques.

Or those bands could just set up a computer with their songs on repeat!

I wonder how much artists are paid through this

Maybe, John D could answer. Hopefully I made him a few cents when I listened to 'Palmcorder Yajna' earlier this week.

Well last.fm's royalty rate is $0.0005 per play, and presumably something similar in Europe too.

So a million plays required for a measly $500? I don't think mobilising the ILM masses will be enough to get J0hn D that rockstar mansion.

I didn't think that the artist would get much from each play but $0.0005 is shockingly low.

My guess is that record company gets half a cent and the artist get 10%.

Here's a collaborative ILX playlist. just click on the link to get it going. I've called it ILX Feb 09 coz January is nearly over. Have at it.

Here's the Pazz & Jop Top 100 singles list. Only 10 tracks are missing.

both those links give me "playlist not found" ;_;

Me too any chance of a re-up?

I've just re-checked, and both links are valid; indeed, I picked up Patrick's ILX playlist earlier today and added to it, and someone else has added to it since.

You have already got Spotify installed, yes?

no King Crimson

Eh? The first album I listened to on it was In The Court of the Crimson King!

x-post yeah all that's fine, it says "playlist not found" when the link prompts the software. Ah well.

Yeh, I tried the Pazz and Job playlist just there and got "Playlist not found", too. (And, er, yes: I think most of us posting on the Spotify thread about how we use Spotify etc have got Spotify installed ;)

Er, Jop. Obviously.

xpost Just re-checked, and there's still no King Crimson. The nearest you get is "The Court of the Crimson King" by 21st Century Schizoid Band.

Whit? Hang on ...

Try this in the Spotify search window?

spotify:user:miketd:playlist:2zYHbXxldh3YIti4SM3doz

And also this:

spotify:user:raw_patrick:playlist:5QqAXZcbQtPFL0w1ShUiem

xpost

... fuck me, yes. It's all gone. But there is still a ghost page for them -- put in King Crimson and you'll see their name comes up in the little cluster of artists at the top left. Click and you get a pic and a biog but absolutely no tracks.

That's a fucker, because there was a tonne of their stuff up the other week. I thought I'd seen some other stuff disappear, too -- can't remember what, but I just put it down to not having paid attention. But no, some bands are obviously being taken down. Wow.

Ah bollox, that wasn't the P&J playlist - try this one instead:

spotify:user:miketd:playlist:2tpQvA2ojTVgOLr6fozpFh

Hang on: Mike, are you a subscriber?

... 'cos I can't get any of these shared playlists going. It's either a subscriber thing or a Mac thing, I reckon ...

can you (mike or grimly) see
http://open.spotify.com/user/ledge/playlist/1KqRMynsECGZ0Q4JTJ0sHJ

Yes: I can, Ledge. You Mac or PC?

pc.

Yes, I can see that one, Ledge.
I'm not a subscriber - I'm on the free version.
And I'm PC.

Hmmm!

OK. Who can see this?

http://open.spotify.com/user/weesimon/playlist/78t1yokW5g0OI3yOaG9S0z

Works on my PC too.

can't see yours, grimly.

itsamystery.gif

Can someone try mine again now? I've just thought of something ...

xpost ... ah! Got it. Two seconds, Ledge ...

Right. Ledge: can you try again now?

Grimly, I get "playlist not found" on yours. Weird.

Try again now, Mike ...

nope. i mean, nope still can't see it

what did you try?

xpost

Oh, OK. That's fucking weird, and puts paid to my incredibly simplistic theory, which was: it works when the sharer has Spotify running, and not when they don't.

Hmm.

Still get "playlist not found".

I've just changed the Pazz & Jop list to "collaborative". Does that make a difference?

http://open.spotify.com/user/miketd/playlist/2tpQvA2ojTVgOLr6fozpFh

Spotify removing good stuff? Oh well fuck spotify then.

xpost

Nope: I get "playlist not found" for that link too, Mike.

Curiouser and curiouser: having deleted my own shared playlist, if I click the link, it recreates the fucking thing! This is absolutely fucked-up.

nope. i thought about that but i managed to get the freakytrigger/popular 1950s playlist which ain't collaborative. xxp.

OK. Another one. Can someone try this?

http://open.spotify.com/user/weesimon/playlist/7cz83ptHcO9jbQ9XSwoH1L

Well, it IS beta. Can everybody get the FT playlist?

http://open.spotify.com/user/freakytrigger/playlist/2u5G9BcsC34s65XnksFnea

Grimly: nope, not found.

ditto.

Can everybody get the FT playlist?

Nope. Hmmm! I wonder how this actually works (or, er, doesn't) at the Spotify end?

Ledge: I just tried yours again, which worked before, and it now says "not found". Have you deleted it, or is this further evidence for the fact it's all a bit buggered?

A friend in Amsterdam picked this one up fine yesterday:

http://open.spotify.com/user/miketd/playlist/2zYHbXxldh3YIti4SM3doz

my test one is still there. there are a couple of questions about this on the support forums, unanswered; if we 'vote' for the questions they might get some attention.

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/playlist_not_found_when_loading_someone_elses_playlist?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=widget_spotify

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/why_dont_friends_playlist_links_work?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=widget_spotify

no joy with amsterdam one. it's fucked, is my diagnosis.

Yeh, that's barking: the only one I've ever got working was your test one, Ledge, but now that doesn't work either.

Had a further Google and there seems to be a lot of this about. There's also an entire site devoted to Spotify lists (go on, have a guess at the URL), none of which I can get to work. Aye, I'll have a look at the support forums.

Right. I've done my bit to raise awareness of this terrible scourge. I'm off to do something more useful instead :)

suckify

ok waiting three hours and/or restarting got me the playlists.

hurrah!

I have been able to get all of the linked playlists

on free spotify, on a mac

Me too.

I can get them all to work too.

yes me too but ima homegrown so that s probably it

and ive listened to tons of king crimson on spotify?

I can open the playlists ok in IE7 but when I try to open them in Firefox I get 'Invalid option:spotify:user:.....', any ideas, google isn't my friend when it comes to this.

I find the most reliable method is to copy the links and paste them in the spotify search box and hit return.

can someone please send me an invite?

Are you UK? If so go here, no invite needed:

http://www.spotify.com/en/get-started

nope. Greece.

https://www.spotify.com/invitation/cJFKjAsTazyHdXWG

curses! spotify free is not available in your country. oh well. thanks anyway, guys.

spotify videogames playlist

awesome

no saria's song, no credibility

20 (of the 25) country #1's of 2008

Loving the ILX collaborative playlist...
http://troubled-diva.com/spotify-ilx-playlist.gif

This works perfectly for me now. Wonderful! Am too busy weeping (once again) at the eternal fucking shitness of Microsoft Excel to explore it much further, mind. Hurrah, though.

I added that ghost cauldron track : D

who put up the letta mbulu? was really feeling that earlier

Letta Mbulu was one of mine.

It's odd and a fucking pain how Spotify often doesn't specify that tracks are remixes in any way.

this is starting to piss me off too. on the pazz & jop playlist above for instance the gaslight anthem track is an acoustic version and pink's so what is some hi-nrg dance remix. don't think the compiler intended it that way. i keep coming across stuff in live versions (biz markie's just a friend) or sixties tracks that sound that they were rerecorded by one or more of their original members somewhere in the eighties (the bobby fuller four's i fought the law).

How can you add to it?

spotify videogames playlist

omfg

I've corrected the Pink. There's no other version of the Gaslight Anthem track, though...

This is amazing. AMAZING. Although I will now only be buying records that aren't on it, so business-model-wise maybe not the best idea.

I can see the playlists - how would one add to one if one wanted too?

If it's a collaborative playlist (like the ILX one above) just drag and drop the track onto it.

loving this. wishing it included videos and more better data tho.

would be cool if you could see who added what to playlists too, and maybe a SUGGEST BAN system...

Top of my wishlist: a recommendation engine; social networking features.

I quite like being able to add stuff anonymously to the ILX playlist. It removes the pressure to impress.

Two adverts in one album so far, and both for something called the Energy Saving Trust, so can't complain, really. I like that there is a little graphic showing you how much of the ad is left, so you could mute the ads quite easily.

Some sort of friends list where you can access all their playlists (or ones they choose to share) seems like a no-brainer for them to add. And that's just for starters.

If, like me, you tend to hop around tracks before they've finished you never hear an advert.

Love the Sir John Betjeman track someone added. Didn't even realise he recorded an album, will check out the rest later.

Looks like King Crimson were removed on request: http://www.dgmlive.com/forum.htm?entry=13308

Same goes for KC on YouTube: http://www.dgmlive.com/forum.htm

I suspect that Spotify didn't just randomly upload KC material without permission. I would guess they asked Universal or Warner's or whowever can we upload your companies back catalogue and they said sure, then individual artists got wind of it and complained.

Luddites.

Top of my wishlist: a recommendation engine; social networking features.

I quite like the fact that there aren't social networking features, but I'm sure they'll appear soon.

I wish I knew how vinyl only straight-up unauthorised re-edit stuff like this ended up on there.

There's some info here: http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/where_is_the_catalogue_on_spotify_really_sourced_from

The-Dream is listed as D:Ream *roll eyes*

Things can only get better.

yeah, def needs better data, an equalizer and a suggest ban system

suggest ban any song you hear and dislike

def. finding this is perfect music you want to listen to but don't want to clutter up a harddrive w/. whole bob dylan back catalogue, all the wu-tang my ears can eat? yes pls

i like this.
however, on villalobos : fizheuer zieheuer (part 2), there is vinyl noise.
i've never heard the cd version so could it be that the original has crackles etc ?

See link posted above - some of this stuff is being sourced from vinyl rips.

i saw that after i posted, sorry mike.
tis a great application though.
i really hope this is legit, makes people money, and doesn't get shut down.
the catalogue is bursting with stuff i enjoy.

The Pitchfork 500: #1 - 1977-1979.

Weekly updated UK Top 40 and US R&B/Rap 40 playlists here.

And to possibly save Mike some work, here's someone else's playlist for the whole Pitchfork 500

am I missing something here?

catalouge seems very bitty to me so far or maybe it's just what I'm searching for...

Is this the kind of thing where I'm better searching for other peoples playlists? or it's meant to be like last.fm with full tracks?

hmm, it's probably because I used a UK invite isn't it? No Kompakt, no Melt-Banana.. not much of anything so far to be honest so not really much use

(anyone got a US invite? :( )

oh wait shi-

I searched for kompakt the other day and it returned loads of results... today I get 2?!

five hits for superpitcher now, when there were tons (30?) the other day

All the Gescom's disappeared.

And all the Autechre! ffs.

But the one I put on a playlist still plays...

Thomas Brinkmann is gone, too.

oh well

yeah the development here isn't very promising.

Fucking hell, you're not wrong. This is moving in completely the wrong direction.

I suspect they're probably taking down loads of stuff, possibly because the original sources were private collections and now they're having to clean up their act and get proper permissions. A year ago, when the site was a tiny Sweden-only start-up, they even had Beatles stuff on there.

However, it's inconsistent. I noticed yesterday that if you follow the "Home" link and view the "most popular" lists, Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" (both the track and the album) were displayed in red, meaning "no longer available" - and if you clicked the link, a message came up saying "not available in the UK". However, you could still search for "coldplay viva la vida" and play the results just fine. (Can't check this out now, as the s/w isn't installed on this machine.)

Also, d'you suppose that they've negotiated reprint rights with AMG for the biog blurbs?

On the evidence so far, I very much doubt it.

Still, this answers the question lots of people have been asking me when I've been bunging them invites: "How does the business/rights model work?" Answer: badly.

my gut instinct is that they've taken them off the search, as a preliminary measure, before taking the tracks out of the database entirely

Judging by the recent developments I imagine open source, P2P alternative in 5…4…3…2…

Availability certainly varies by country; my friend in Amsterdam found that about 50% of my "best of 2008" playlist was unavailable in the NL.

Perhaps they've signed agreements with the majors, but haven't sorted things out with a lot of the independents?

NB - some of the Spotify service already relies on P2P protocols, and I recall reading that one of the lead developers was previously working on Torrent services.

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/why_do_songs_disapear

No Kompakt

kompakt total 6 is still there. you just can't find it with their search engine...

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/why_do_songs_disapear

lol Metallica fans

That response is from three months ago. I assume the songs disappearing this week are for different reasons.

Eh? No, I assume it's all part of the process of them updating their catalogue with "more" music and "adding" songs. Now, to me it looks suspiciously like that should be "less" and "removing", but hey! I'm not a thrusting young web 2.2b chancer, so what the fuck do I know?

The Smiths have vanished... ah, I knew it was all too good to be true!

muxtape mk. viii

Muxtape is relaunching as some kinda minimal MySpace.

Yes, and Spotify is relaunching as some kinda minimal Spotify.

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/01/28/some-important-changes-to-the-spotify-music-catalogue/

I retract my AMAZING, although it's still pretty good.

It also can't play albums as a continuous mix, which is terrible. I suppose it took itunes till version 7 or something to do that, but my CD player from 1991 has no trouble.

Aghrr Lady Gaga advert! Bring back the Energy Savings Trust.

Energy Savings Trust ad, featuring the dulcet tones of Hugh Dennis.

the whole villalobos archive has now gone :(
was my easiest/best/quickest/cheapest way to catch up on the mans history.
oh well, i'm going to listen to sinatra at the sands instead.

This is pretty cool - runs perfectly in Wine on Linux!

RIP

One page article on Spotify ion the NME today.

in

Spotify has managed to go downhill in the space of a week.

What's with all the cupcake icons on that (mostly) Metallica thread?

Real shame about the paring down of the catalogue.

Here's a source of more playlists, if you're hungry:

http://www.spotyshare.com/

In hindsight it would have been better to remove this in October when we launched publicly

Er, yes.

, we realize this now and apologize to you for not doing it sooner

<Non-committal, graceless noise>

There's actually adverts for Spotify on Spotify now!

energy saving trust issued a takedown notice

Energy Savings Trust ad, featuring the dulcet tones of Hugh Dennis.

I thought it was posh, blonde fop Julian Rhind-Tutt doing the voiceover. Ironic, bearing in mind how badly he did on 'It's Not Easy Being Green'.

The Guardian Tech article about Spotify today unluckily uses King Crimson tracks as a demonstration of what's on it.

TS: "unluckily" vs "a bit stupidly"

"we understand you are an American, and we can't service you"

first thing I see when I go to the website.

good luck spotify

http://www.geocities.com/magickal_dreamz/CryingEagle.jpg

"we understand you are an American, and we can't service you"

It's good they're so understanding.

is this open to uk folks without an invite still?

nope. invite needed. or payment.

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

(worked last time I looked)

ooooh.
i just got an invite and thought that was the only way in.
excellent news, and apologies for the mistake.

Heh, that's the FOURTH time that link has been posted on this thread!

"Skipping 136 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all."

so much gold hidden within i guess

Things looking up, 10,000 new albums added today according to the blog. Qucik scan through the list, good lot of stuff from ACT, ECM, Touch and Mego. New albums from M Ward, Little Joy, Anthony & the Johnsons and just for Lex, Animal Collective. My pick though is Human League's 'Golden Hour of the Future'

Doubt Beat

http://open.spotify.com/user/smarmy/playlist/33bRsp1Qk7kVL6Umf3vj82

This was a muxtape I was going to do just before it went down. There are a few things I couldn't find on Spotify, but I got most of it. All early 80s UK stuff.

That looks awesome, Jamie. Out of interest: which version of Temptation is that? Alternate 12" ... yew wot?

(I guess that might become clearer when I listen to it, but still.)

Yeah, I hadn't heard it before either. I think it was on http://www.discogs.com/New-Order-1981-1982/release/61596, which I've been trying to track down a copy of for ages.

But now we have it in all its glory!

Although that whole EP is on the bonus disc of the CD reissue of Movement, apparently.

Hang on, I've just skipped through it now. Umm: isn't it just the original 12"? (Which, yes, is the one on what I'd call Factus 8, ie the thing you linked to above.)

I think the problem with Temptation is everyone thinks the re-recorded 1987/Substance version is the original, which it just ain't. That's yet another of my problems with those remasters/collector's versions: they're pathetically short on descriptive detail. Which, when you're dealing with anally retentive Factory fucks like myself, is a bad thing.

I think the problem with Temptation is everyone thinks the re-recorded 1987/Substance version is the original, which it just ain't.

(I was one of those ignorant people till a couple of years ago.)

I did a snow-themed playlist: http://tinyurl.com/spotifysnow

(Fully road-tested, hand-sequenced and quality-controlled. I didn't JUST type "snow" into the search box, honest...)

xpost

I'm going to spend the next two hours listening to all the New Order bonus discs on Spotify.

I was one of those ignorant people till a couple of years ago

Oh, man, I was confused to fuck about that back in the day. I got Substance for Christmas when I was 13 (1988, I guess) and I think it was buying the 7" at a record fair a couple of years later that a) made me think fuck, WHAT? This is a totally different song! and b) turned me into a not-very-good Factory completist.

I probably have more versions of Temptation, scattered across vinyl/CD/compilations/bootlegs/etc than any other song, which is why I was -- for a glorious second -- incredibly excited by the notion of an as-yet-unheard one!

Listening to your mix now. It's superb. Thanks for sharing.

xpost again

That looks great, too, Mike. Should we start a separate thread for sharing and talking about playlists?

that woud be a great idea. and keep this one for bashing and other updates

please guys, send me an invite!

thanks.

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

Fifth time this link has been posted ...

(I can't see why you'd need an invitation code when everyone else using that link is getting in fine!)

Any luck, then?

I have an invite if you have no luck with that link, kaiser

What's the deal then - is everything on Spotify clean-versions?
I'm trying to listen to Juvenile and probably only 1/10 of the words are getting through

Oh, yeh: it's run by a fundamentalist Christian sect who don't believe in swearing, premarital relations or cheese. Sorry, thought everyone knew that.

fuck that noise!

Now playing: Straight Outta Communion

Has anyone else found the wrong songs playing yet? I've had one or two, the most recent being Alien Sex Fiend turning out to be the Mission
http://open.spotify.com/track/1XflNRUaUHrfYDkwMG0tIT

This album goes screwy about halfway through meaning you have to click on track 8 to hear track 7, track 9 to hear track 8, etc. and all your last.fm scrobbling is fucked up.

I can't find a feedback mechanism to correct tags.

This album, even

http://open.spotify.com/album/0LjK4Y0vtEUOKnbIzQlmi7

I wanted to listen to Wire's 154 the other day (yes despite having it on cd) but it only came up as the 3cd set, and then it would only play the songs in order - even clicking play on the first track on 154 would play Practice makes perfect, but the tags were showing correctly. Weird.

of course instead of getting the cd out I listened to something else altogether.

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/reporting_bad_meta_data

For now, the best way to get metadata changes into Spotify is to look up the album on Musicbrainz and fix the problem or add the album if it doesn't already exist. Eventually, the fixes will end up in Spotify.

Musicbrainz has that album with 15 tracks while Spotify lists 13 with tracks 7 and 15 missing.

I can't see any way to "fix" this as the Musicbrainz listing is correct - meaning the only way to get Spotify to play the correct tracks is to delete track 7 from Musicbrainz or wait until Spotify add the missing tracks.

Surprisingly I am on this now, and it is playing GO SAILOR indiepop with good sound quality, and I think it might even be scrobbling to lastfm. ... yes it is !!

idjut boys most recent 'death before distemper' mix is up there as a 67min long (advert free so far) track, impressive

on a bright morning it's playing DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN!

aargh fuck the energy saving trust, makes me want to put my heating on at full blast with all my windows open!

1) Energy Saving Trust
2) Spotify
3) Arlington Road

Any others?

directgov.org possibly the least annoying.

DEC gaza appeal

- which confused me 'cause DEC sounds a bit like BBC.

White Lies had an advert when their rec was new.

And Lady Gaga too for a second.

U2 have a banner ad up just now, slightly ominously.

There was a while near the beginning where the only advert they were running was for Madagascar. 'I Like To Move It Move It', though great, is particularly obtrusive popping up two thirds of the way through a Sibelius symphony.

Arlington Road

Revolutionary Road?

If so: nope, I've heard nothing else. This business model worries me enormously.

There was that tax returns advert, but that's over now. They could start warning people about next year's maybe.

i hate the advert with the whistling guy so much

the only way they could do worse is if they got tiny from tile it all to do one(Grimly and Onimo might understand that one)

^ Think that's before my time north of the Border?

But FUCK YES, I hate whistling Direct Gov guy. He's just been on, actually. And I winced.

grimly its been around for 10 years at least but still on. I guess you dont have parents who listen to clyde 2 and you will avoid clyde1 on a saturday as you hate football.

Got it in one. Er, two :)

i dont mind whistling, its just that whistling with the teeth thing of that advert i hate. ugh. still not getting a tenner a month tho from me. i'll just not use it if it continues haha

This site seems useful.

For now, the co-founders are putting their own money into the company.

Can't accuse The Grauniad of being first with news here, but that's an interesting little line.

The guys behind it still seem to be basing the business model on the pay-for side of things, when it seems to me the free thing is what makes it.

link doesnt work

http://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/spotify-why-it’s-been-so-successful-and-what-it-needs-to-do-next/

1. Key point not made clear by that article: Spotify allows me to listen to full-length albums with one click. Last.fm doesn't have anything remotely like as many full-length albums; also (and this might be a browser thing, but hey) it often gets pissy when a track finishes and require me to pop back to the requisite window before it starts playing the next one. Also: browser-based anything can suck dick for a whole heap of reasons.

2. Key point totally misunderstood by that article: mobile Spotify would rule so fucking hard that I'd shell out a goodly whack of cash for it.

yeah, if it's not a killer app already, mobile functionality would definitively make it so.

"Make it so!"

http://rodtsentrum.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/jean-luc-picard.gif

I have to say, despite my moans and gripes above, it really has been a revelation, both for old music and new. I sincerely, sincerely hope it doesn't fuck up :)

Me too. Almost seems to good to be true TBH, despite some reservations.

If I could get some of my shared playlists on the move I'd shell out too, aye. Though I'd need a 3g phone too, I guess.

Oh dear. Thought I'd have a listen to the last Spiritualized album -- which I never got round to at the time -- while I toiled over some books this evening. But Spotify ain't playing ball: it's stuttering and stopping as if ... well, as if it had just been hit up by thousands and thousands of new users and couldn't cope.

So I'm, er, using Last.fm to listen to it instead. This seems to mean pressing "play" again after every track, which sucks (perhaps I should try it in Firefox! Hmm) but at least it actually plays the songs.

I've seen this once before with Spotify ... think it was at the weekend. Again: if they're going to throw it wide open, they need the fucking bandwidth. Or do premium-account holders get streaming priority?

I bet they do. One song int the Hole "pretty on the inside "album and whistling fucker advert is on. Adverts every 4 songs now approx. bloody annoying.

it isnt worth £10 a month tho. £2 a month maybe.

xx-post That happened to me the other day, but assumed it was a problem at my end as my computer's pretty flaky at times.

(Although at other times I'll get time-outs off some website and think 'huh is my internet broken? has my router died' and spend ages desperately hoping nothing's actually broken and all the time I'll have Spotify running perfectly, signifying there is clearly nothing wrong with 'my internet' as such.)

I've not had that many adverts recently.

Thought I'd have a listen to the last Spiritualized album

This might have been a mistake, too.

Its a good album

I'm unconvinced so far.

It needs a month to sink in I found.

Hang on, why the FUCK is it not scrobbling properly? I'm listening to it FROM THE FUCKING LAST.FM PLAYER!

It's obviously one of those nights.

I had loads of Spotify time-outs last week, particularly around 6pm to 7pm. Late evenings were always OK. This week has been pretty much back to normal, though.

About the removal of tracks mentioned in the Grauniad article linked above: it should be unbelievable that the dinosaurs are still acting like dinosaurs, but it's sadly predictable. Even with meteorites hurtling towards them they will not change their ways.

The majors should have learned from Napster a decade ago and everything that's happened to them since and adapt to the new world. Instead they try to un-invent the wheel in a pitiful, Canute-like attempt to cling to their rusting old world.

The 1950s retail approach is dead and buried.

They all deserve to go bust.

Indeed. They're intent on protecting something that's past protection.

They don't seem to get that the Spotify guy (gonna take you high!) is OTM when he says their competition isn't the retailers but the pirates.

I still think the Spotify model is flawed as there isn't enough incentive to subscribe beyond avoiding the annoying whistling advert - but if it was portable I could see it being a huge success.

Marcello, the majors are all fully on board with Spotify. Interestingly, it's the artists themselves who have requested specific exclusion (the usual handful of suspects, basically), which suggests a more complex balance of power than I would have imagined. The rest of the deletions concern independent label releases where permissions hadn't been verified in the first place - the Spotify people were quite trigger-happy with their uploads when the service was still in private beta, and they see the situation as of their own making, and have apologised for it.

In the Guardian piece - or rather the headlines that accompany it -undue stress has been placed on the removals. Finger in the air estimate: the service has gone from 90% to 80% track availability at most, although this depends on how mainstream one's tastes are - last time I checked, all but two or three of the current UK Top 40 singles were available, for instance.

They're adding quite a bit of stuff at the moment too, just after the cull the track count was just over 2 million and a quick look shows they've added another 40,000 or so this week alone.

I'm on the free plan at the moment but I'd be tempted to subscribe just to make sure it doesn't go belly up. Tenner a month doesn't seem much really for unlimited music, cost of a cd I'd listen to a handful of times then stick on a shelf and forget.

I wonder if last.fm will respond in some way soon. It's got a much higher profile than Spotify but other than scrobbling, which I guess Spotify will implement sometime, there's little reason for using it now.

Spotify already scrobbles to last.fm - you can switch it on in the settings. It works perfectly - you even get a little Spotify logo on your last.fm profile page to tell you where the music's coming from.

last.fm is still your best place for recommendations and unexpected surprises - whereas Spotify has replaced most of my iTunes listening (and it's much less bloaty, of course).

Now all we need is someone to crack it and remove the thing that triggers the ads in the free version...

(shame)

xpost

I knew that Spotify scrobbles to last.fm, my point was that now I'm only using last.fm to check my listening stats (sad bastard that I am). The social networking aspects of last.fm haven't really mattered to me (antisocial bastard that I am), so I don't spend much time on there now. I'm happy to find stuff via playlists and random searches, I enjoyed a lot of your best of 2008 for example and can now find stuff in a much easier way than before, the Paarvoharju album for example.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned -

http://www.gustavsoderstrom.com/?p=45

^ former Yahoo Director of Business Development now heading up Spotify Mobile.

fucks sake an advert every 3 songs now

argh whistling bastard advert

going to get board of spotify quickly unless they get some less mainstream label stuff up. its good for mainstream music but if they need obscurer stuff.

-if

still atm I'm listening to CCR albums and all is well.

findanyfilm.comadvert fuck off every 3songs

And now 2 ads in succession. Anyone else getting this or is it just an anomaly?

In better news, some Spotify sites:
http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/02/19/spotified-cd-collection-and-some-other-community-sites/

From the spotify updates alert thing. I thought my playing artists I already own cds by was pointless enough, but no:

This morning a user posted his Spotified CD Collection on the blog which I thought was amazing and really creative. What he’s done is he’s taken a digital picture of his CD shelf and then linked each jewel case to that artists in Spotify. So now he can sit and look at his CD collection online and decide what to listed to but instead of sticking the actual CD into a player you launched the album on Spotify, so cool.

Also:

Some other fun sites that have appeared recently include: Spotinews, which highlights new additions to our catalogue, Spotify Search which is an addon for Firefox to lets you find music from any web page in Spotify and a web page that finds new albums recently added to Spotify that match the top 50 artists from your Last.fm profile.

We love stuff like this so if you’ve done something creative with Spotify please let us know, we’d like to see it and share it with everyone.

The last.fm thing seems to work quite well. It's told me that a load of old Animal Collective and Disco Inferno are up.

yeah, what Neil said.

Ooh DI Go Pop is on there, I've been wanting to hear that for ages!

It's great! I've been wanting to hear it without fetching the cd for ages too, so everyone's happy.

http://twitter.com/TheWordMagazine/status/1230055579

There is fun to be had here.

"Morning, Spotifiers. In what we believe is a first in rock and roll media, we're handing over the virtual decks on the WORD office to you, the reader. All day today (Friday 20th Feb) we're going to play the music you choose.

There's a collaborative Spotify playlist linked below, which you can add to and help build up. We'll play it all day and listen to whatever you select (and we'll choose our favourites for another, Best Of You Are The DJ list). And we'll be playing it on shuffle, so no need to worry if you get started late. Your track has just as much chance of being played as an early addition.

The Spotify list is here – click and it'll launch (as long as you've got Spotify). If you need to download Spotify, it's available here.

And of course, you can play the list via your own computer and assess the musical taste of the WORD Hive Mind yourself.

THE RULES
1] Post one track at a time. No complete albums or huge runs of a single artist – we'll delete them.
2] There are no other rules.

We'll be tweeting our reactions here so you can see what we think of the tracks as they play. And you can monitor exactly what we're playing right now via the miracle of our Last.fm page, which will be scrobbling the tracks live.

Comments welcomed below, of course, or sign up to Twitter and stick your oar in live and direct. The Spotify list is live NOW so let the uploading of Blackout Crew and New Riders of the Purple Sage rareities commence!"

Just added "Come With Me" by Special D.

Hope they have Metal Machine Music!

Sadly the full 60 minute version of Dopesmoker by Sleep is unavailable.

I think when Word Magazine's Spotify playlist be all up in your face you gotta be like YAHHH TRICK YAHHH

Word's last.fm profile: possibly the indie-schmindiest of all time: http://www.last.fm/user/TheWordMagazine

They're about to get injected with a poison...

TheWordMagazine

Recently Listened Tracks

Listening now using Spotify
Praga Khan – Injected With a Poison full track

Your musical compatibility with TheWordMagazine is Very High

Music you have in common includes New Order, The Shortwave Set, The Orb, John Martyn and Vangelis.

;_;

They appear to have stopped Twittering.

http://lutt.se/lastfm+spotify+new/lastfm.php?user=trailofgybe

http://lutt.se/lastfm+spotify+new/rec.php?user=trailofgybe

Your musical compatibility with TheWordMagazine is VERY HIGH
Music you have in common includes The Fall, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Magazine and Kraftwerk

It's hardly a schmindie profile: just a very predictable one. You'd have to be a bit of an iconoclast to go "lol Bowie and Kraftwerk", no?

Anyway. Hamburger Lady by Throbbing Gristle is on Spotify, and thus should be an essential feature of any collaborative playlist.

Yeah fair enough, predictable rather than lol indie I guess.

This is fun, but Spotify can't cope with mixes very well.

Have just noticed that when I mute ads, they pause--this wasn't always like that, right?

1. Spotify iPhone application in action. Allegedly:

2. Anyone else finding Spotify won't scrobble to Last.fm today? It just tells me "can't connect to Last.fm server". Other Last.fm-related shit working absolutely fine.

That's cool. I might even go buy an iPhone for this.

(actually, I won't but it is cool.)

Reasons it might not be cool:

1. Apple won't allow the app in its store.
2. They will allow it but it will be a bit rubbish because it will drain the battery really fast
3. It won't drain the battery too fast but it will be annoying because it won't let you listen to music while doing other things on your iPhone because background processes aren't allowed.

Yeh, assuming the thing ever sees the light of day on non-jailbroken devices, #3 there is the real clincher :(

Battery's going to be bad, aye, though mine is already shot to ribbons by Google Sync. Background processes are a-coming, it seems, so that's alright.

Except then your battery life will get worse again, and it will all start crashing more.

I don't know why I am being so negative today.

the last FM app works plenty lovely, and can't see apple objecting to spotify app if last FM is ok

They have all the Helmet stuff inc the born annoying single. And I listened to Quicksand albums yesterday. Was pleased to find this stuff. Next I'm gonna search for Unsane, Butthole Surfers, GVSB and Prong. (even though I have all these on my ipod I do like the idea of these guys getting paid.

How much do you think a fair price to pay for a subscription is? £10 a month is too much for me. If it was £3 id definitely pay. How about £15 for 6 months access? £15 every 6 months is more than they would be getting now from most people.

£15 for 4 months even would be ok. £45 a year compared to zero as well.

I really do rather like this app... they've got everything right - the ads are infrequent enough to let you enjoy a few albums without interruption, but annoying enough to have you momentarily reach for your wallet. A great selection of stuff too and brilliant for satisfying idle curiosity.

However, looking at the page for interested artists and labels it's quite obvious that by using Spotify you are providing lots of valuable marketing information to the labels involved and indicates the future directions that the service will take: "Your own artist area allows you to build a direct relationship with fans, old and new, across the world. Develop revenue streams through the sale of downloads, merchandising, concert tickets and more, as well as earning a share of the revenues we create through our advertising and premium businesses. Powerful, granular, in-depth reporting is available to participating labels and artists."

I guess most people have implicitly accepted that signing up for Spotify means their listening habits will be open to the scrutiny of major labels. However, this might not actually be a bad thing... if your tasts are as varied as most here then hopefully they'll just throw their hands up at the notion of targetted marketing and the like and just concentrate on putting out QUALITY music that consumers might actually want. Alternatively they'll manufacture some kind of crazy Kraftwerk-meets-Porter Waggoner-and-Sugar Hill Gang combo.

p.s. everyone in the UK should listen to the Leon Rosselson and Roy Bailey album on there. In the absence of anything by Crass it's a good alternative... I think this recession business is 80s nostalgia gone too far.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7913959.stm

OMG, it's Roberta-from-Spotify!

Ooh, she's lovely. I always thought that was an actress reading the lines.

Hmm. This thing is becoming a bugger for not connecting to Last.fm (although I'm sure that's Last.fm fault rather than Spotify's). At the moment it's got tracks queued, apparently. Be interesting to see if/when/how it connects ...

The anti-music industry opinions expressed in this thread are... disheartening. Three years ago it might've been fun to laugh at Metallica and fuck the man. But instead we've got distros closing, indie labels cutting back their release schedule.

Anyway, I'm curious as to how Spotify is gonna pay the artists who's music they're exploiting for their own advert sales and subscriptions. (Not implying they don't, but there's nothing written online about it).

i'm with you, worried about the overfishing of the entire industry just because their product is now so easily copied and distributed. (is odd here in the uk because we all grew up with listenable radio stations and are used to tuning in and hearing good stuff. is easy to forget it's paid for by tv license.)

but spotify do seem to have major label support and i doubt they'd have that if the labels weren't being paid.

Don't you think the recession might have something to do with labels cutting back? afaik it's never been conclusively shown that pirating has significantly harmed the industry.

but shops were closing well before last year.

When I've chatted with managers and artists and labels about album sales, the numbers in 2009 are far less than they were for similar releases five years ago, including digital sales. (On the bright side: t-shirt sales are way up.)

Maybe people are more interested in watching dvds than listening to music nowadays? In my experience with people in general that is the case. Diehard music fans are a minority.

And yes, Spotify does make payments to labels and artists. What the scale is, I don't know. If Youtube is any indication, it means that Cake guy from the Portal game will (rightly?) make more dough from Spotify than any bands making albums-as-statements.

Someone speculated earlier it would be the same as last.fm pays: $0.0005 per play - meaning a million plays are required to get the artist $500.

@ Tourtiere (Owen Pallett) - I personally don't see many anti-music industry opinions here, and hope you didn't mean my post which was a little tongue in cheek.

It's pretty much taken as read by all consumers that (SLSK users & blog cruisers excepted) you don't get something for nothing. For majors to offer their catalogues in this way there has to be some idea that it makes financial sense. In context of a global financial crisis in which "£50 man" might the same way as Zavvi et al, so Spotify brings us the first step toward the rebranding of music not as an art, but as a utility like gas or electricity.

As an artist one can't help feel a more than little affronted by the notion that notion of music as an 'art' will finally disappear from the mainstream. Not that this is actually anything new. Obviously music has always been "product" to many labels, and indeed even up to the 19th century and its "heroic" composers much music served a utilitarian role (soundtrack to a coronation, mass, birthday celebration of a prince etc.). IMO the idea of music as an unquestionable high art is a 19th century pretension that probably deserves to die no matter how much my conditioned personality rails against this "debasement" of the art; it after all only in the late medieval times that composers even began to put attributions on their work, and they still kick the arse of most modern stuff!

The wheel is once again coming full circle.

online listening is killing piracy

gunships are killing pirates

@ Rombald. No, no, it's not an affront... I'm 100% "for" music as a utility.

The issue is strictly economical. Recording, mastering, rehearsing... all these things cost money. I mean, I love MPC-based records, Garageband-based records, Panasonic RX-FT500 records, records entirely made in-the-box for next-to-nothing.

But these new economic models will eventually render recording-with-a-budget impossible. You can tell me that "a budget don't make a good record" and I'd agree. But the bestest records of the last few months (Portishead, Animal Collective, Lindstrom, those Aeroplane remixes y'all love) all took gear and compressors and microphones and mixing consoles and nice mastering jobs. Erykah Badu, dude. That record was expensive.

One of the reasons why I think Bradford Cox is gonna be around far longer than any of us other bozos is that he's developed a method of record-making that is time-efficient and cost-efficient. Atlas Sound is the gorgeous sound of a record that cost nothing to make.

(I'm still waiting to hear about Spotify's business model.)

Entirety of Domino catalogue added today!

@ Owen:
Completely agree - it's just my own and others gut reactions to "utilification" are gonna die hard! ;o) I'd already resolved myself to and the idea that working from home studios is indeed going to be the future for most musicians whether they like it or not. I certainly do, and have recorded with a setup that cost no more than, oohh, £400 for the last 10 years (- that includes all instruments too!).

Shame that more conventional lavish recording sessions with orchestras/session pros/cocaine might be doomed under the new financial model, but on the plus side I think Spotify could well save the "album experience", which is definitely a great thing!

Please stop using the "@" symbol to show you're addressing someone, thanks.

Yes. I'm looking forward to trawling Spotify for Julian's Treatment or whatever.

@ Captain:

@.

Check out all the jazz on spotify. Plenty of Blue Note RVG editions

Did anyone else get the "oops someone stole all our password hashes" email?

I can't get into the Spotify website to change my password - there's probably a rush on.

Yes got it too.

no

Dear Spotify user,

Last week we were alerted to a group that managed to compromise
our protocols. After investigating we concluded that this group
had gained access to information that could allow testing of a
very large number of passwords, possibly finding the right one.
The information was exposed due to a bug that we discovered and
fixed on December 19th, 2008. Until last week we were unaware
that anyone had had access to our protocols to exploit it.

Along with passwords, registration information such as your email
address,birth date, gender, postal code and billing receipt
details were potentially exposed. Credit card numbers are not
stored by us and were not at risk. All payment data is handled
by a secure 3rd party provider.

If you have an account that was created on or before December 19th 2008,
we strongly suggest that you change your password and strongly
encourage you to change your passwords for any other services
where you use the same password.

When choosing your password we provide you with an indicator of
the password strength to help you choose a good one. To change
your password please visit your profile page on our website.

https://www.spotify.com/en/account/profile/

For the technically minded amongst you, the information that may
have been exposed when our protocols were compromised is the
password hashes. As stated, we never store passwords, and they
have never been sent over the Internet unencrypted, but the
combination of the bug and the group's reverse-engineering of
our encrypted streaming protocol may have given outsiders access
to individual hashes.

The hashes are salted, making attacks using rainbow tables unfeasible.
Short or otherwise bad passwords could still be vulnerable to
offline targeted brute-force or dictionary attacks on individual
users, but you could not run attacks in parallel. Also, there
has been no known breach of our internal systems. A complete user
database has not been leaked, but until December 19th, 2008 it was
possible to access the password hashes of individual users had
you reverse-engineered the Spotify protocol and knew the
username.

We are really sorry about this and hope you accept our apologies.
We're doubling our efforts to keep the systems secure in order
to prevent anything like this from happening again.

Regards,
The Spotify Team

I went in and changed my password anyway

Sometimes there are benefits to being a slightly late adopter, I guess.

I would hereby like to register a hearty "fuck you" to The Script, and their corporate shill Jo Wiley.

Until they fix the Mac-client-not-scrobbling bug -- which has been discussed at length on the Get Satisfaction forums; apparently it'll be sorted in the next upgrade, whenever that'll be -- I'm not using Spotify. Missing out on the adverts cheers me slightly, at least.

oh are there no ads on the mac version? I haven't encountered any yet although I keep thinking after every song I listen to that I'm going to be hit with an ad for the new Kings of Leon album or something totally unrelated to whatever I'm listening to.

I think Grimly means he's not using it as a result of scrobbling probs, so he's not subjected to the ads.

^ Er, yes, exactly.

I'm refusing to listen to music played in shops or on builder's radios until they sort out the scrobbling problems.

A principled stand.

sorry, yeah, I just got my first ever ad (kings of leon as predicted), but it took about 20 songs for it to happen.

xxpost

Well, in fairness: "Oh, yeh, this is fixed now ... er, sorry, we can't be arsed rolling the thing out yet, though" (which is effectively what they're saying) is a bit of a cunty attitude -- especially from a company who force updates on their users whether they want them or not.

Aye they should say "Oh, yeh, this is fixed now ... er, sorry, we can't be arsed rolling the thing out yet, though, to be fair, free fucking music all day every day grimly wtf do you want for nothing eh eh?"

Pretty good bargaining tho: Give us some money or we'll keep hitting you with Script, Glasvegas and KoL adverts.

"Oh, yeh, this is fixed now ... er, sorry, we can't be arsed rolling the thing out yet, though, to be fair, free fucking music all day every day grimly wtf do you want for nothing eh eh?"

Umm. Sorry, but "it's free" != "excuse for shit customer service". Many, many services work on a similar "free" model these days (which probably won't last); when you've got 100-odd people saying, politely: "This isn't working properly, can you fix it?" and you're basically told: "Aye, it's fixed, but fuck off, you're not important enough for us to bother rolling it out" ... well, you might think that's reasonable, but I'm not so sure.

Also: if I was paying for it, I'd be in the same boat. <- Shittest argument ever, but hey :)

boycott spotify!

Do you not use it then?

i do but im getting bored of it. It's fine for well known music on major labels but if they dont expand to get more obscure stuff im gonna end up never using it.

Yeah I can see that. At the moment there's more than enough major label stuff to keep me happy though!

The huge selection of Blue Note Jazz is what's keeping me on it. Hopefully they will license stuff from some of the independent labels i like (southern lord,hydrahead etc)

Recommend some of said jazz. As you say, the dearth of alternative labels is bad, although recent additions of Domino and Warp are a step in the right direction.

wel the usual suspects of miles davis, john coltrane, sun ra, charles mingus are all up there along with Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders,sonny rollins, alice coltrane, lonnie liston smith etc

plus pretty much all the Blue Note roster. Grant green, lee morgan, lou donaldson,wayne shorter , donald byrd, joe henderson, hank mobley, babyface willete to name a few.

Spotify really needs a browse by genre and artists by alphabetical order list

also browse by labels

Nice one, thanks Herman, will start digging!

i expect you to keep us up-to-date with your jazz listening on the last fm thread!

Get on Spotify and play this
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre300/e349/e349382wo3n.jpg
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jxfoxqygldde

Now!

;)

hehe neil jumps to it

"Root Down and Get It" is great, and familiar from the Beastie Boys track of the similar name.

i knew someone would say that

So predictable!

can i ask somebody to mailme an invite? ta.

Do they not play adverts during the weekend then? I played three full albums and some assorted tracks on Spotify this w/end and never once had an ad inturrupting.

xpost. I didn't think you needed an invite anymore. If you need one, I'll mail one to you.

tried quickly to get on last night, seemed to need one. appreciate it.

Mail me your address and I'll get it sorted then.

Done!

cheers.

xpost - Yes, VERY few ads over the weekend. 'Twas bliss.

New ILM Spring collabo playlist.

wtf is this zarif pish?

I saw Zarif supporting Chris Brown in January. Perhaps the least effective arena support I've ever seen. Cheered to the rafters when she announced "And this is my last number"...

Good to see the 2020 label on Spotify, especially the superb Greg Wilson label comp from last year - highly recommended:

http://open.spotify.com/album/70IMqk0XAaeYWnyHcrhB63

26 Klaus Schulze and 16 Popol Vuh albums added today, any recommendations on which ones to try first?

i've been waiting for Popol Vuh. great news!

lol i just d/l some schulze tonight, wish you had told me an hour ago

serive is currently down ;_;

oh well it was early albums i got and theyre not there

Moondawn id say to start with that for Klaus Schulze

Popul Vuh > In Den Garten Pharaos, Hosianna Mantra,Aguirre, Affenstunde.

Is it broken for everyone else?

Oh, it's working again!

great, looking forward to all that Krautrock. The Fever Ray record which is getting some discussion elsewhere is also on there.

y'all, please keep the playlists coming, i love the ILX feb collab one especially, a bunch of great tunes on there.

top 5 most wanted features:

1. TAGS (so as to find similar material more easily)
2. more meta data displayed and searchable esp. original year of release, label, nation, genres
3. thumbs up/down tracks (maybe only interesting for low-audience playlists), or maybe 1-10 rating system
4. better home page - itunes-style portal (inc. more 'new this month' type listings), customisable
5. videos (ok maybe next year)

oh and playlists to be searchable (if public) too definitely

M.I.A. seems to be getting paid (if anyone is) for MIA.'s music.

Still no Melt-Banana or Boredoms :(

Hopefully they will license stuff from some of the independent labels i like (southern lord,hydrahead etc)

There's a list of the labels they have deals with here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=psnjFY3R2itudXATC9GQVUg

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/02/27/spotify-missing-your-favorite-artists-you-can-help/

have a look at the labels we have signed, if the artist is covered by one of the deals then it’s likely they’ll get added to our catalogue in the near future. We’re currently adding about 10,000 tracks a day from our current deals.

If they’re not a part of one of our current deals then the way you can help us is to contact the label or artists and let them know you want to hear their music on Spotify. We’re ready and willing to sign any label and they can contact our content team by emailing cont✧✧✧@spot✧✧✧.c✧✧.

well i posted on the comments thread a list of labels i'd like added. So maybe if some people second it and ask for other stuff you like they might take notice.

can't access this service from ireland? can that be right?

At last, Velvet Underground Loaded fully loaded edition is on spotify. I have the banana box set but i cant be arsed ripping it.

rofl Sweet Jane is unavailable
"the artist/label has chosen to make this track unavailable"

Couple of weeks ago I brought my laptop with me when I was going to the Netherlands and even though in the Netherlands only the paid-for version is available I could play my in England installed (free) version of Spotify without any problem and, that's the best bit, without any ads either.

They let you use it for two weeks when travelling. After that, you have to register in whatever country you're in.

rofl Sweet Jane is unavailable
"the artist/label has chosen to make this track unavailable"

And yet they let you listen to the long version on the same album!

Popul Vuh > In Den Garten Pharaos, Hosianna Mantra,Aguirre, Affenstunde.

"Sei Still, wisse ich bin"; "Bruders des Schattens"; "Herz aus Glas"; "Letzte Tage"

Still no Melt-Banana or Boredoms :(

― the innermost wee guy (onimo), Thursday, 19 March 2009

Just added!

Melt-Banana

"Mxbx 1998 - 13,000 Miles At Light Velocity" (album)
http://open.spotify.com/album/1xTRltVBoDXKYj1WBUYD4S

I could live with the BBC Gaza appeal and Robertafromspotify... but everytime I hear that Zarif ad I momentarily reach for my wallet!

Curse you, Spotify! Zarif is the ace up your sleeve!

but everytime I hear that Zarif ad I momentarily reach for my wallet revolver!

Loads of Skinny Puppy added this week, if that floats yer boat.

Is there anywhere that has the full catalogue for viewing? I look at the updates blog and I get artist notifications from http://freshspotify.com/ but I get the feeling there's loads of stuff I'll never see or know about because of the limitations of the search. Say you want to hear some old blues stuff but don't know the exact names of albums. Searching "blues" gets you 1329 albums, of which 12 are listed then it says "and 1317 more.." but the 1317 more bit isn't a link so there's no way to find out what "more" might include.

they really need a list of their catalogue and also have a browse by genre/labels feature

you can get alerts based on your last fm top artists. quite handy http://www.freshspotify.com/alerts/importlastfm

Type "year:0-2100" in the spotify search bar and it gives you a total of what's available in your area. I have just under a quarter of a million albums available. Better get listening :)

Thanks for the tip.

shame it doesnt have a list of them all :(

hahaha you can listen to Krokus albums on it

lots of Saxon to make you feel like a teenager again onimo

someone should start a playlist for this thread and just add every album on it ;)

Saxon is a band that has been around forever and has completely passed me by so I don't think they'll bring the teenage nostalgia.

I am currently rediscovering dodgy 80s industrialists The Cassandra Complex.

I think I'll undiscover them again if this Frankie Teardrop cover is anything to go by. Bloody awful.

Utterly weird set of most popular tracks by year, obtained by searching on year:yyyy

2009: Crack A Bottle - Eminem
2008: Human - The Killers
2007: Kids - MGMT
2006: In The End - Linkin Park
2005: Fix You - Coldplay
2004: Numb/Encore - Jay-Z/Linkin Park
2003: Basket Case - Green Day
2002: Clocks - Coldplay
2001: Chop Suey! - System Of A Down
2000: Yellow - Coldplay
1999: Fear of the Dark - Iron Maiden
1998: The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring
1997: Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) - Green Day
1996: Fire Water Burn - Bloodhound Gang
1995: 1979 - Smashing Pumpkins
1994: The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
1993: What Is Love - Haddaway
1992: Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers
1991: I Want To Break Free - Queen
1990: Cliffs Of Dover - Eric Johnson
1989: Like A Prayer - Madonna
1988: Mother - Danzig
1987: Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson
1986: Raining Blood - Slayer
1985: Your Love - The Outfield
1984: Dancing In The Dark - Bruce Springsteen
1983: Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
1982: Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden
1981: Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
1980: Another One Bites The Dust - Queen
1979: My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - Neil Young
1978: Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
1977: The Passenger - Iggy Pop
1976: Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder
1975: Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe - Barry White
1974: Strutter - Kiss
1973: I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You - Tom Waits
1972: Heart of Gold - Neil Young
1971: Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
1970: Your Song - Elton John
1969: Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
1968: Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
1967: Sunday Morning - Velvet Underground
1966: Under My Thumb - Rolling Stones
1965: Desolation Row - Bob Dylan
1964: The Times They Are A-Changin' - Bob Dylan
1963: Bob Dylan's Dream - Bob Dylan
1962: Green Onions - Booker T and the MG's
1961: At Last - Etta James
1960: C'mon Everybody - Eddie Cochran
1959: Let The Good Times Roll - Ray Charles
1958: Splish Splash - Bobby Darin
1957: I Got A Woman - Ray Charles
1956: Love Me - Elvis Presley
1955: Blues for Basie - Oscar Peterson
1954: In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning - Frank Sinatra
1953: There Will Never Be Another You - Chet Baker
1952: Dear Old Stockholm - Miles Davis
1951: Ahmad's Blues - Ahmad Jamal
1950: Autumn Leaves - Cannonball Adderley

Search by genre: http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/03/24/spotify-genres-the-full-listing/

Don't forget the quote marks around multi-word genres.

Comment by ilovehada
2009-03-25 09:35

None of the metal genres work on the searches. Why?
Comment by degis
2009-03-25 09:37

Wow! That was not useful at all! I tried to find some Black Metal and used Death Metal/Black Metal. Got Hammerfall, Soilwork etc. The closest to any Black Metal at all was Dimmu Borgir. Not really what I would call Black Metal…

Why not make a real Black Metal genre with real Black Metal?

lol

The Middle by Jimmy Eat World is NOT from 1994?!

Genre tags come from AMG. I blame Ned Raggett tbh.

Searching for "grindcore" throws up some pretty interesting results, if by "interesting" one means "wrong".

genre:"Happy Hardcore" - 0 artist, 0 songs

shame!

genre:"ragga jungle" - 0 as well...

I don't think I know what spotify playlists are. Where are they on spotify?

here's one:
http://open.spotify.com/user/stigoftdump/playlist/0FSVLPzC0gMszrS7AtaCwC

Click on the link and the playlist will appear! You can also create your own by dragging and dropping tracks and albums.

Thank you. Can one seek playlists from within Spotify?

sadly not. really hope they implement such a feature soon.

new today
Ulver

* Blood Inside (album)
* Lyckantropen Themes (album)
* Peredition City (album)
* Svidd Neger (album)
* Teachings In Silence (album)

which one to start with?

well, Louis reckons blood inside is the album of the decade. But its not a black metal album, so it depends what youre looking for.

Well if it's good enough for Louis it's good enough for me too!

Never heard this, giving it a go now.

Mute Records Cabaret Voltaire Live At The YMCA 27.10.79. album spotify:album:27doRJOJqOOqZZjLHzjbxH

spotify:album:6U4FYnA6MejEBdrcdg1fOl

New Mono album "Hymn to the Immortal Wind"

im still waiting on my mono vinyl arriving. pre-ordered it months ago.

Another vote of "fuck you", this time to the Norah Jones-lite Daily Mail jazz stylings of Melodie Gardot.

If you subscribe you get

VIP

With a monthly subscription you get extra Spotify invites to share with family & friends.

No ads

Search

Find and browse by artist, title, album, genre, year.

Radio

Specify your own radio channel based on genre, year and artist.

Share

Create, share and collaborate on play lists and share links to music.

Is it worth paying just to get any of that?

I'm not convinced, and at the moment I'm not using it enough to get annoyed with the ads.

I have noticed that when a cd has a hidden track at the beginning, Spotify plays it at the beginning of track 1 (eg on SFA's Guerrilla and Out Spaced), which is a bit weird, but probably easier than going through tracks individually and cutting them out and giving them names and worrying where you'd fit it in an album playlist.

invite? im not UK

Sent, don't know if it'll work though. Good luck

does it have any good techno? like mixes or comps or anything? that's what I'm missing

I'm listening to a Tiefschwarz mix of acid house right now!

What should I look for?

Gah, I'm supposed to be working! Close Spotify. Close ILX.

Search for "phuture", the only two tracks by them are on that mix.

And here's a link to the entire Rekids catalogue:

http://open.spotify.com/user/smarmy/playlist/1tfLQYNse3QqpjJHegUxZ5

thanks jona!

All those "VIP" features are already available to free users, with the exception of ad-free.

I wonder if that means that they won't be (available to free users) for long.

All those "VIP" features are already available to free users, with the exception of ad-free.

Search by genre works for free users, as I already posted.

Spotify - anyone heard of it?

but you only can see a few results

does it have any good techno? like mixes or comps or anything? that's what I'm missing

― Local Garda, Saturday, 28 March 2009 17:24 (4 hours ago)

Sub Club Anniversary mix is great but mostly old stuff

yeah old stuff all good. I just want a few house mixes to play when I'm cooking or something. This Tiefschwarz one is great btw.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7971784.stm