Have you heard, there’s a new player in town.
Because while I’ve already told you about We7 with all its wealth of free music, I’m compelled to tell you there is an equal source for all the latest and greatest tracks and full albums.
It’s called Spotify, and despite a name like an instruction to rub butter into the pores of a pimply teenager, with millions of songs to listen to, it spreads only musical joy.
And like We7 the music is all free and legal because the Spotify business model is likewise supported by advertising. Although unlike We7 whose adverts are short but frequent, Spotify has fewer ads but they are a more typical radio stylee 30 seconds.
Mind you, if you want to go to the expense of paying a premium service of 99p a day or £9.99 for a month you can turn those adverts off, although there’s no real need to. Unless of course you’re up for a night of seduction and rather not risk an awkwardly timed condom ad interupting that ‘Luurve’ playlist you prepared.
But anyway, one main difference between the two is that while We7 is a web browser based streaming service, Spotify is a downloaded application to your computer hard drive. It is quick and simple though, only requires filling in a short registration and is a tiny 1.45MB download size.
That’s because the actual tracks are not downloaded, they just play in the Spotify interface. This is free music remember, it’s not iTunes, you do need to be connected to the internet to access them and you can’t add any to your mp3 player, even if the interface itself will remind you of iTunes.
For the clean looks and minimalist controls make searching and playing a doddle and it’s easy to create your own playlists with the drag and drop functionality.
Plus when you are searching for a popular artist or song you’ll be wide eyed with its amount of results. Spotify will return your enquiry for the artists own albums, compilation albums, soundtrack albums, the lot, everything short of their kiddy photo album.
And while I could explain more, I’ll leave those discoveries to you. I will just add that Spotify is another fantastic free music source you’d be crazy not to take advantage of, and you can download it by clicking this link
So go on, get Spotify, spotifying and spotified, and I don’t mean with a knob of Lurpak.
(*Hi again folks. It’s November 2009 and clearly Spotify isn’t the little known application I spoke of 6 months ago, it’s become the Daddy of ALL the free music sites.
It’s moved on as well, new features include the option to buy the tracks and an improved Premium service that now provides iPhone integration, access to your music off-line and apparently even better sound quality as well.
Myself, I’m still happy with the quality of the free stuff.)
Xtremis Reaction 
Glenn, when you found me on Twitter I was going to mention Spotify, but I see you’re already in the know. I tried Spotify when it first came out, and I think it’s great. They shut me down soon after though, because I was accessing it from the US, so I guess I’ll have to wait until it opens up more.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for making the return visit.
Yes, shame you can’t get it over there yet but you do make a pertinent point. I should mention that at the moment Spotify is only available in the UK, Spain, France, Sweden, Norway and Finland.
But then Swine Flu was only available in Mexico and now look.
haha – so now we’ve got
Free, as in beer
Free, as in speech
Free, as in Swine Flu
Yes, for those less enlightened than Jim, I should clarify that free beer is not a condition of the American Bailout.
Free beer is free software that seems too good to be true that it is free.
Therefore Spotify is definitely ‘free beer’.
Swine Flu however may be a virulent virus that could wipe out half of humanity, but is not yet known to affect your computer.
Attention you foreigners!
(I realize that makes me the foreigner to you but I wanted to get your attention)
It used to be that everybody who wanted Spotify needed an invitation from an existing user to get it, something that no longer applies in the UK.
However in some other countries you do still require that invite, and if you’ve travelled that far to find me, the least I can do is reward you with one of the 6 invitations to join Spotify I have left.
So if you do need one, simply leave a short comment and ask me nicely.
Could you pretty, pretty pleeeease send me an invitation? Our country does not give free spotify, and I’m lost without… 😦
Thank you sooo much!!:D You made my day!
Would you please send me one invite too? Here in Norway they won’t give us anything for free………. 😦
Procuro rocks legais para ouvir e tocar em casa.
Obrigado Brendo,
Having put your comment through Google Translate, it seems to convert from the Portuguese to ‘Seeking legal rocks to hear and play at home’
Mmm, I think perhaps it has lost something in translation but there’s no doubt that Spotify rocks in any language.