Tech Spotlight: Spotify

Have you heard of Spotify?! This the best thing to hit the music world since Pandora. (Tell me you do know what Pandora is!) Ok, Spotify.com is a free music website/application that allows you to play over 13 million songs, as well as allowing you to upload your own library so it's available anywhere you have an internet connection. The interface is well designed, the sound is really good, and did I mention it's free!?

 

Apparently Spotify was started in Sweden and recently hit the states. I've been using it for a couple weeks now and it has been blowing my mind! Enter a band name in the search field and bam!...that band's entire catalog comes up (with a few exceptions, of course). You can pick any song or album, and Spotify allows you to play it to your heart's content. You can even make playlists! The catch for the free version is that there are short audio ads about every five or more songs. You can pay $4.99 a month to go commercial free. (Mark reminded me that you will have to wait for an email invitation from Spotify once you sign up for the free version. I think it took a day or two.)

What's been great about Spotify for me is that I've found a few albums by favorite bands I didn't even know existed. Additionally, on each band's main page there are links to other similar bands. I've already discovered a couple new bands this way. Unlike Pandora, you can listen to the whole album or specific songs.  I've created a lot of Pandora stations over the years in an attempt to demo a band. Now I can listen to the their album and decide without having to be at the whims of Pandora's choices.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Pandora. But Spotify and Pandora are now a one-two punch for me. Spotify for when you know what you want to listen to, and Pandora for when you want someone else to DJ. My music mojo has gone to a "Hole Nutha Level"!