Dienstag, 18. Nov 2008, 20:18

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Spotify is a lovely little thing. Set and ready to go before you can say "by your leave". Registration is brainless. There's even a widget if you're a Windows user - http://code.google.com/p/scrobblify/ - so you can scrobble your Spotilicious tunes. I hardly engaged a single brain cell and I was good to go.

There's no need for this as Spotify now scrobbles to Last.fm. See here for more.

I like the design. Very intuitive and requires hardly any thought. Which is exactly what you need because you don't want to be distracted from browsing as you follow your nose and hunches. You do have to do a bit of drilling to find stuff, and unless you know what you're looking for or you have a good memory, there aren't many prompts or reminders.

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Of the eight albums on the Home page, undoubtedly the best was Anna Ternheim's Leaving on a Mayday. Is it in Last.fm? Not half. Not only is it here, but there are deluxe versions with bonus tracks too. +1 to Her Ladyship Last.fm.

I remembered there was an album I wanted a while back that wasn't here, The Imagined Village - The Imagined Village (although maybe I couldn't find it because of bad tagging. grrr). I checked Spotify first. A few tracks, all well and good. I checked Last.fm and nearly jumped out of my skin. Not only was the whole album here, but also full tracks. I don't know yet if they're 3 x full play then back to preview, or if they're the old gold on-demand, I'll find out the hard way I expect. Doesn't matter, it's here, that's what counts. Another +1 to Last.fm.

I checked a few more and pretty much found if it wasn't in Last.fm, it wasn't in Spotify either. For example, Monkey: Journey To The West, Kate Rusby, Dehli9. Admittedly, Anna Ternheim's album in Last.fm is preview only, which is where Spotify picks up where Last.fm is forced to leave because Spotify has full tracks. It is very sad that Last.fm can't do what her lesser competitors can, but by using them together, you can achieve a happy medium. So it was, I was able to listen to Anna Ternheim's new album whilst doing something else without having to rush back and click on the next track. I still had that anxiety of listening out for the end but hopefully, I should be able to relax again soon.

So there's the chink in the armour. The threat to Her Ladyship's title. On-demand continuous play. Something Last.fm used to have but was cruelly taken away by idiots trying to control us.

However, Spotify's library is limited and falls completely flat when it comes to obscure unknowns, eg Repi Multimedia. That's the kind of fun madness you'd only find in Last.fm.

Creating playlists couldn't be simpler. The whole thing is a copycat iTunes so if you know what you're doing there, you won't be required to tackle any learning curves in Spotify.

I didn't like Spotify's radios. I'm just really fussy about things like that.

Click on a big name artist, eg Bjork or George Michael and you are given a brief artist biography below which are the top five songs. Below that, in chronological order, are their (incomplete) discographies. Everything is organised for you and couldn't be simpler.

I remember when Bjork was fully streamable in Last.fm. Not any more, sadly. Good old George has been very generous and pretty much given Last.fm everything, but then he would, wouldn't he? One word: Sony. Or should I say Fony. I rated him for that. But I digress…

Coldplay, Radiohead and Last.fm is leagues ahead still. May as well stop there.

As an adjunct to Last.fm, I can see myself using Spotify, which is saying something because I haven't bothered with other copycats or ladies in waiting. I do listen to new releases in MySpace but I'd prefer to scrobble those plays to my Last.fm Profile if possible, and I can now, if those new releases appear in Spotify. Although, I must add, my Last.fm Client kept crashing.

I saw a blog somewhere today, can't find it again now, which said internet downloading has decreased dramatically since the appearance of sites such as Spotify. If bloggers are already noting it, Nielsen's will no doubt do us some stats and tables and make it official some time soon. I was lucky enough to have been given an invitation to Spotify (thank you akrde). I wouldn't have paid the £10 otherwise and I don't recommend that anyone else does either, not just yet anyway, whilst their library is so understocked. I must say, I've been watching Pirate Bay and I notice there are fewer and fewer new releases appearing on there now. It used to be jam-packed with music, now it's mainly rubbish and people complaining they're fakes. I find this about-turn extremely interesting. Spotify, like Last.fm and MySpace, is completely legal. Last.fm were right from the start: free the music.

CBS take note. Stop faffing about creating rivals within your own media portfolio and sort this out. You're meant to keep me here, not drive me away.

Pics from this over-positive blog.

Babs My Gang

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