Finally I got my hands on Spotify and I am praying dearly for it to be finally released here in the US. Don’t ask me how I got to try it out, just know that I did. IT IS AMAZING…that is the simple way of putting it. I could see where they were coming from trying to reduce the number of piracy, and illegal downloads happening *cough* *cough*. However, with it being only limited and as of now a price tag of £9.99 or $16.00 USD is really not very appealing as I pay only 3.00 per month for last.fm. The question on the table is will people be willing to pay $16.00 a month just to run an app like Spotify or will Spotify reduce the amount that people will have to pay in order to access the service.

Here are some of the things I loved about Spotify:

Search:

The ease of searching for a song and finding a whole CD or even a few of the artist’s songs is really what should I say, impressive? I searched for Buju Banton and had the pleasure of finding some old hits, and even some songs that were practically stuck in my head for days. The good thing is you could play the whole list from the search results. Which brings me to the next  pointer:

 Offline Play:

With each search result, you could right click and add that song to a personalized playlist. Mine for example is called just for play. The offline mode allows you to virtually add the song to your playlist without buying it and so you could play it at will on that device whenever you want. Disadvantage to that is you will have to buy the song if you want it to play on other devices. I have no need however to add my songs to another device, and so I am quite comfortable with my playlist.

  Home:

The home tab shows you all of the latest and most popular songs that are available and those that are being played by other users. Plus they give you access to new releases which is actually a great opportunity to hear an album before purchasing it .

 Desktop Application: 

The desktop app once signed in gives you the same access as it would on the phone. Your playlist is available and you could also search for songs and add them to your playlist. Please note that your playlist would be updated on the phone almost immediately and vice versa.

Spotify is a work in progress however, and I do hope they reconsider their pricing as no one would want to pay such a high price just to listen to music that cannot be transferred. A great application that could possibly curb  your appetite for illegal downloads and an excellent choice if you want to listen to an artist’s hit songs without buying the cd. So far I am loving my run with Spotify, it sure gives itunes a run for its money. Hopefully you can try it too when it is released hopefully in 2010.

Disclaimer: I am using a fully paid and active version of Spotify Premium.

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