What about??

The Goons shows, The Navy Lark, Men from the Ministry, Blaster Bates etc.??

Trying to find some of the (really) old radio shows, recordings et al from well before the internet age can be very difficult.

There MUST be a way of getting hold of them that doesn't need me to buy stacks of cassettes (and a player!), or similar stacks of CD's.

The more I think of it, the more attractive a high-quality MP3 (PYO format) collection on my LAN, backed up (or even supplied by) the interwebs and/ or my ISP sounds.

I don't mind paying for music, but I already have around 600 CD's (and more DVDs) and I'm running out of room!

ttfn

PH? - so much room there's probably an echo... echo...

My impressions

I've been kicking the tyres, so to speak, for a few weeks now and really like Spotify.

It's worth noting that it's streaming a Vorbis (aka OGG) stream so that 160kbit offers greater fidelity than a similar bitrate MP3 stream.

The catalogue is patchy in places, mainly due to the licensing mess - a whole bunch of songs were removed just before going live because they didn't have clear streaming rights. (This resulted in the removal of a load of Joe Gibbs and the Professionals albums - and just when I was in the mood for some 70s dub!)

The catalogue also gets confused. There are two bands named Heavenly; the super awesome British indie band of the early 90s and a French speed metal band. The two albums they have for Heavenly are from the UK band but the biography (and suggested similar artists) involve French metal. Makes for a surreal listening experience - like the most inept DJ's radio show ever.

Adverts are unobtrusive but not well targeted - not right now, at any rate. They can see what I've been listening to - why make me listen to an advert for Lady Gaga when I've been stuck in reggae and indie for days?

The software is excellent. Small footprint in terms of memory and CPU (far, far smaller than iTunes) and doesn't stutter and fall over when anything processor intensive is going on (like, erm, iTunes). Also obeys the media keys on my keyboard out of the box, which is nice.

Hence, a thumbs up from me.

when i get home

im going to try that !!!

let me guess all the other reg readers will be too so that the servers will be chocker !!

great

but anyway how long till somebody has a plugin that will save the streams straight to your HDD

Gets my vote

I've been usign Spotify since the turn of the year. When i cannot be bothered with downloading or my mediaplayer, Spotify is a great fallback. The ads are a bit annoying but it's a small price to pay (if you will) for the chance to listen to almost every song which pops into my head while I work.

For those with iTunes or somesuch it may not be perfect, but for the less technologically minded, it's a simple but very effective music-on-demand type service.

Pretty nifty but the interface needs work.

I have been using spotify for a while. It has a fantastic music database and is fast and reliable, but it simply lacks tools for music management that other media players have.

I would like to be able to pool my favorite albums and tracks into a generic music library, create 'views' into the music library so I can browse it however I feel and create dynamic playlists based on my own rules applied to that library. Your limited to dragging and dropping music into static playlists.

Right now, it's a good application for scouting out music - finding the bands/tracks that you heard on the radio or can't quite remember the name for. I then acquire the song in MP3 format and drop them into a proper media player.

If they introduce powerfull tools for music management and drop the price (£120 a year? yeah right!) I would pay for it, until then it will remain something I REALLY want to see do well but is stopping short.

1999 Napster still has them beat

Remember when you could type almost anything into Napster, and find plenty of people that had it, could never stump that thing.

I would have paid a tenner a month for that, easy.

But they won't let us share our own music collections, that scares them shitless as it gives us the control (illusionary, but they are dinosaurs doing the thinking), yet thats all we want.

Oh and to keep the MP3s, but thats a whole other story.

160kbps jukebox?

I'm in. I'll get the client tonight.

Fail

No penguin support? Not interested. That's where browser-based wins.

No Scrobbling?

"There's very few gimmicks: no widgets or scrobbling. "

Sorry, but there is scrobbling, it's there in the preference panel... (on the Mac client at least).

T+C

1) Non SSL account signup

2) T+C from hell

3) 160kbps

4) No freetards allowed (f*ck Wine)

5) See you later

just tried this

so simple even the mrs can use it

sound quality is fine to my ears - lots of "never heard of them" artists

If they offered a download option with the paid for service you can sign me up

I like

Kinda cool

I played with it for a while. It has a good selection of stuff I was interested in, a few albums I haven't got by some fairly obscure artists, other bits and pieces.

I was also pleased that, even though there's no linux version, the page allowed me to download the windows version and suggested I try wine.

I hadn't realised it had audio ads though. That's a deal breaker for me. I know, I know, how else were they going to support themselves? But still, guess I won't be using it much because of this.

no interesting music

Signed up, tried it, there's nothing there I want to listen to. Bye.

Thanks for this

Just tried it and found it better than similar services I have previously tried so thumbs up!

Good Lord!

Their 9.99 price works out at ~£100pa

Personally I think that's a very fair price to pay for:

A) Music unencumbered with DRM. Once I've bought it, it's mine and I'll do what I want with it, thank you very much.

B) High quality rips. 128kbps wont do, 192kbps wont do, it's 320+ or bust.

C) Huge library. This is beyond important. Never mind missing the greats (Beatles, Led Zep) as we all probably have these somewhere anyway, whats more important is having a big enough selection that I can justify it as my ONLY source of music. There's no point in paying 100 a month if I still find myself doing illegals to get what I need. This is easier said than done, but will make or break the service.

D) Longevity. To succeed this can't be another fly-by-night services, it has to last. Otherwise people'll see no value in switching from a technology that will survive to one that might not.

If it can fill these criteria, then just show me where to put me digits.

For the *nix users

I've been running it quite happily under Wine for a week or two. No complaints.

Well maybe YOU don't dance to techno any more...

Liking the Alabama 3 reference! :)

@Paul Murphy

You should try Radio 7, a lot of old/good stuff pops up on there.

No penguin support ?

The Windows client runs fine on Wine. I use it without any problem when I boot into Ubuntu.

My kids rang me at work today (school holidays) to find out how they could log in to my account. I wasn't going to give them my password, so I'll have to set up new user accounts for them tonight. They're about as addicted to Spotify as I am. I just hope the business model holds out - I'd hate to lose it now that I'm so used to it being there.

@Paul Murphy

The Goons shows, The Navy Lark, Men from the Ministry, and lots more can be found on BBC Radio 7.

Uses P2p

It's worth noting that Spotify is a P2P app, ie. whilst you're listening to music it's busy sending that music from your PC to other Spotify users.

If you're sharing your connection with others then they may notice a slowdown as Spotify continually sends data. And if you're on a traffic limited package with your ISP then you may want to avoid it.

you don't dance to techno anymore

too busy bein a loverman and a deejay

Warning: Pandora fanboy posting

Just launched it, let it load, then clicked the button for next song... Didn't even manage a "1 mississippi" to cover the sound gap. Maybe it's only fast in the US though... For me, Pandora is the greatest thing to happen to the net since google... and I hate to contradict (well not really) but I bought a subscription because I like it *that much* (tho the ads were very unobtrusive imo)

I will say I've not used spotify... but it seems like it falls into a weird category of "I know exactly what song I want to hear but don't like it well enough to buy a copy"

I will end by saying I am listening to the "beatles" station I just created on pandora. "spotify really blows them away" psh not if you like the beatles i guess :p

"not available in your country yet"

You know what, the next newfangled-whatever-delivery-bull that discriminates me for not being located in a place it likes can suck my salty ass.

— I realize Spotify is invite only. Nevertheless, I see this too often by now. They can all go fuck themselves and come back crying when me, you and everyone's grandma has adopted 100% anonymous surfing habits —

No invite necessary

I googled them and, though the preview excerpt was the "you need an invite business", I was given the chance to sign up for free straight away. Maybe they want more Linux users? You get a nice friendly page if you click the download button under Linux ...

It now works perfectly under wine, and I am very impressed.

Not multi-soundcard aware

I have two soundcards. I use the one on the motherboard for Lo-Fi PC speaker playback of Youtube type crud and a high quality one with SPDIF output to a decent amp.

I want the music to go to the amp but it has no option to set the output device. It uses whatever the default audio device is. So in order to get it to output to the preferred soundcard I would have to change the default Windows device everytime.

I have sent a request for this feature but seriously this kind of thing should be included by default. Most media players give some option to choose your output device these days.

The complete lack of any overseas catalogue and indies also makes this a pile of crap. Could not find UK dance musos Hybrid on there. Nor any Jpop idols.

It does feel responsive though and the quality seemd good. Better than iTunes by far. I just hope they can do better.

OP knows nothing about the sound quality

>Sound quality is so-so: at around 160kbps it's got that "standing outside the room" feel to it.

Utter rubbish. 160kbs is above normal MP3 quality and very good. If you think it sounds like you are hearing it through a wall/door I suggest you sort your stereo out. Its more than fine and as good - or better than copies you get off P2P.

Re: Invites.

No need for invites!

Registration can be had for free at https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

wooo

I like it

Fast responsive

had mebbe 4 tracks out of 300 that would play.

want floyd on there

@Ac badly placed ads !!

Well thats your own bloody fault you shouldnt of opted out of Phorm :P

Quality wise Well i use 2x 125 studio monitors and for a streamed service its one of the best i have heard

better than winamp radio for 1

Hot keys work only when program on desktop which is a pity (but could be my setup)

will happily recommend to friends and family

Nice!

Only one irritation: When I double click a song in search results, I only want to add that one song, NOT THAT AND EVERY SINGLE RESULT THAT CAME OUT BELOW IT

No option to keep?

/me looks wondering at krecord red button...

@Len Goddard - No free access

I signed up yesterday evening for a free account with no problem - may be worth trying again?

Linux/wine

Support for linux would be better, however it was nice to see them supply easy to follow instructions for setting up with Wine. It worked very smoothly for me with Ubuntu 8.04LTS and Wine v1.

Not that impressed

The sound quality isn't great, I don't want to be pestered with adverts, and it's not as good as Last.fm for finding cool new stuff.

excellent for free

i have it playing off a macbook into a Stanton mixer and Samson servo amp final lick out of a cheap pear of Eltac speakers from Richer Sounds. The quality is fine for a free online jukebox. There is also a lot more than 'pop' - I've just been playing Can and some Digital Hardcore from Atari Teenage Riot. Compared to Last.fm the catalogue isn't yet as deep. People need to ralise its just come out of beta and launched. I think the criticisms on this board are unfounded.

Sigh. Support for Linux...

If you make a product that works perfectly under WINE, and you include very clear instructions of how to get WINE, then you don't *need* native Linux support IME.

Liking this, works well, sounds OK through my 2.1 system, can't complain given it's for nowt!

Steven R

Spotify & Last.fm can work together.

Spotify has got a Scrobbling client to send the tracks to Last.fm. I've been using this for a month and it works great on both Windows and Ubuntu with Wine.

I'm yet to find someone who has actually used Spotify and said it is rubbish. Most people don't like the idea of it, until they start searching the Music catalogue.

Very good

Spotify seems like a winner to me. There's plenty of good music and the interface is very clean and simple.

Chances of me upgrading to the paid for service = 0% (although I might be tempted if they did a Windows mobile client for use at work).

PS. Definitely no invite needed for the free service as of 200802140830.

krecord red button...

Yup, if you can be arsed going that route, there's nothing to stop you.

However, I think the record industry got it right - 100% right - this time. They're giving you the chance to 'try before you buy' the entire track/album in a very convenient and let's face it - trusting manner. It would be bad show on our part not to seek out a paid-for permanent copy for use on players, whether that's on a CD or through a legitimate download site.

Exploiting the 'analog hole' with Spotify to get free-as-in-beer music would confirm everything the industry says about file sharers - the very things that file sharers deny so loudly on forums everywhere (inc. El Reg).

Jolly Roger, cos I didn't use the 'P' word.

big puzzle

The big puzzle is why the traditional recording industry thinks it has a right to survive in the 1920s form that it has perpetuated for so long.

Entertainment changes all the time.

Where are the sheet-music stores that used to be on every high street, in every department store?

Where are the variety shows, at the end of the pier or on TV?

What happened to Top of the Pops or the 6:5 special or Juke box Jury?

When did you last go to a dance in a village hall?

where are the music halls?

Where are the Town Waits, combining music with guarding the walls?

I think that the 'record labels' may well go the same way. I don't think they will be missed.

Paris, cos she can normally spot when things have finished