Spotify - anyone heard of it?

It's not splitting hairs e.g. Grooveshark. The only thing missing from that site are speedometer.gifs with little bouncing needles and a Gamesheep banner ad.

I still use it though.

I just upgraded from the basic Nook to the color HD Nook (basically so I can read illegally DL'ed comix on it) and hilariously enough the Nook 'app store' offers Grooveshark alongside Spotify, something Apple refused to do...

I realize it's splitting hairs here, but Grooveshark is a completely rogue operation while Rdio/Spotify/MOG/etc are at least throwing a pittance back at the artists whose recordings they stream.

the major label artists who are on spotify are getting fucked probably either way and likely don't have a say, unless they are like pink floyd or someone like that

but indie labels can opt in or out of spotify based on whether they think the exposure/etc is worth the low royalty rates...grooveshark does not grant them that option

Spotify has been working a lot better for me, its not freezing up or stalling and the search seems to be better too.

I've been perfectly happy the last few days with my rigged older version that prevents the update. When they work out all the kinks and maybe fix the UI, I'll upgrade again.

That's because you're using the free version.

Neither service is worth paying for, IMO

if spotify was the blue note app alone it would be worth the cost of two cups of coffee a month for a subscription, throw in everything else and it's pretty easily worth paying for unless you're destitute or something.

yeah i can't even fathom how could can say it's not worth $10 or $5 a month

_That's because you're using the free version._

Neither service is worth paying for, IMO

$10/mo is nothing. If you can't afford it, you can spend $5/mo for ad-free streaming. If you can't afford that, you're a loser.

At the moment, I'm also subscribing to MOG because I really want to ECM catalogue as well. So that's $20/mo, which is--gasp--$240/year total. Which probably equals a couple of months of what I used to spend in a pre-P2P era.

When you consider that you are getting instant access to virtually every record you ever wanted, have some principled stance against the idea of subscription services because they pay so little to artists (a fair criticism), or don't buy $120 worth of music per year, it's a no brainer, really.

Er, that's supposed to read:

UNLESS you have some principled stance...

Otm. Try to put back some of what I don't spend by going to gigs, where I may even buy a CD directly from the artist.

It's worth the money for having no annoying ads and the usage of the mobile app, which has changed my listening habits more than pretty much anything else ever, it's amazing.

it's hard to argue that the ability to download 10,000 songs of your choice to 3 mobile devices isn't worth $10 a month

wau @ the blue note app

wau

just listened to a whole album by this guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmo_Hope

Love that guy. First heard his record way back in Paris at La Paillote on Rue Monsieur-le-Prince then decades later saw his widow Bertha Hope, who latter married one of the jazz Bookers - Booker Little or Booker Ervin I can't remember, don't think Walter Booker- perform once at one of those little restaurant jazz gigs I like to go to before they finally shuts down first the jazz and then the restaurant.

Of course in the future we won't have any more of these kind of stories, it will all be more like - "I first heard that song when I finally successfully upgraded after they fixed the bug in the search engine and the scrolling unfroze."

Also, meant to type last night that I recently got a mass mailing from a friend saying he just finished recording his latest album. Yesterday I checked it out on Spotify after which I sent him an email to tell him that I liked it, upon which he immediately replied to ask where I had heard it. An hour or two later he sent out an email about his tour to support his new recording, now available at iTunes, CDBaby and streaming on Spotify. Meanwhile as I was talking to another guy about this and pointed to a third guy saying "you know he took his record off Spotify" to which the second guy replied "I told them to take mine off too" and then of course he admitted, like Damon Krukowski before him, that he used the service himself to listen to stuff. Not sure what my point is exactly, just trying to anecdotally limn the mixed-up, shook-up digital world that we live in.

That brings up back to the ownership vs. access culture regarding media. I'm fine with having access the rest of my life, because I've owned too many albums in my life and getting rid of them is a hassle and they take up space and I'd rather dedicate my time to buying other things when I can just access music new and old like I do cable television or movies on Netflix or any other monthly expense. I'm sorry the streaming model seems like a ripoff so far, but I'm prioritizing ME and my wants.

So selfish.

I'm still not really clear how an album I recorded in the 90s ended up on Spotify and who gets paid when it gets played.

You should contact them and find out. I'm sure that's a question a lot of people have.

I'd like to find out just for curiousity's sake. I like that it is available and I'm positive no one is actually profiting off of it.

my band's old stuff that's on spotify is the stuff that we sold through cdbaby, so i guess cdbaby and spotify have a connection, either directly or indirectly

if it's turning people on to elmo hope, it's doing SOME good

Ha, I just found my old band on there too.

Spotify should be paying you if you get stuck with those on a playlist.

$10/mo is nothing. If you can't afford it, you can spend $5/mo for ad-free streaming. If you can't afford that, you're a loser.

Poor people. Fuck em.

Oh no!

http://i.imgur.com/Ynor9k8.png

I feel like I'm on the bus in Speed. I can't ever turn the ignition off again!

Just added text files to that folder Johnny Fever posted (and made them read only). We'll see what happens.

Hey Spotify, how about fucking off with putting '2009 Digital Remaster' after every Kraftwerk track title. We don't need to know and it messes up my last.fm page.

I'm *glad* they do that because they often offer different masterings of the same album, and frankly that's my favorite thing about spotify considering how many fucked up remasters there are out there

They could put that stuff in the album title. It annoys me too.

working a bit better today so far

yeah i mean ethics and all aside

the blue note app for spotify is just about one of the most amazing things ever done in music IMO

Just added text files to that folder Johnny Fever posted (and made them read only). We'll see what happens.

I think I did the fix about a week ago now and I haven't had any problems with it at all.

text files with nothing in 'em except for the filename, right?

Yeah, they're just blank text files, but save them with the file extensions shown above.

They could put that stuff in the album title

Exactly.

this updated version is constantly crashing on my ubuntu machine grr

yeah, ditto. although it was never tooooo stable anyway.

This app is reversed-engineered using alien technology

"Like to install the latest version of Spotify?" Haha, Fever, you rock.

I was able to create read-only files. I am a computer genius.

I updated the client on my pc last night so I could build out a playlist based on the 70s poll results. Wow, I had some frustrating problems, especially with opening albums from the spotify URLs in the 70s thread. The client crashed or lost its connection a bunch of times. I finally gave up on using the links and just started looking up the albums in the spotify search bar and that worked a lot better.

They need a way to copy and paste a url directly into the client or better yet, have some kind of playlist url mass entry box where you can copy and paste a whole list of urls and generate a playlist from them.

Another annoying thing: when you click a spotify URL it opens up a browser window with links to your music and related music. If you click the background/border of the spotify browser tab, it opens up a really terrible generic house album. Since I was clicking back and forth between my browser and the spotify client a lot last night, I accidently clicked on the browser border about a million times, so I kept getting this same terrible house music, which really spoiled my 70s hard rock vibe.

I think I can help you there moodles from now on (thanks for doing the playlist!)

thanks, I should be able to crank through the rest of the list either tonight or tomorrow morning

cool. you just put that other link in search bar and it will take you right there (unless its not in your country so you need to search your own version)

ah, didn't realize you could plug urls into spotify search

the spotify: ones yes you can not http ones

gotcha

oh man the Blue Note app. see you in a few hours after I finish messing with the "Blue Break Beats" section.