I have always been somewhat of an audiophile and have been a Spotify user for several years now. For those who are unfamiliar with Spotify, it is a commercial music streaming service allowing the user to browse or search music by artist, album, genre, mood, playlist, or record label. Besides the extensive library of music Spotify offers (over 15 million songs) and its clean interface, the thing that I love about Spotify is all of the great features it has. I am able to build playlists, read artist bio’s, browse tons of pre-made playlists, and see what other members are listening to. I have also been able to discover more music than ever through Spotify’s integration of Facebook, Twitter, and third-party apps.
Spotify offers three tiers of membership: Free, Unlimited ($4.99 per month), and Premium ($9.99 per month), however Unlimited is no longer offered to new members. I have recently upgraded to Premium which understandably offers more capabilities than the free version. With Premium, I am able to do all of the aforementioned but without the annoying advertisements that the free version is riddled with. Premium also offers a higher sound quality and the ability to download music to listen to offline which was truly the selling point for me. With the ability to download and store music via the cloud, I am able to take my music with me wherever I go. As an avid snowboarder, I love the ability to take the playlists that I have created with me to the mountain and listen without worrying about using up my data.
Another benefit of Spotify Premium is its relatively new Connect feature. This enables you to play music from Spotify’s catalog but through Wi-Fi-connected speakers, TVs, laptops and other devices as long as they are on the same wireless network. Additionally, you can use the Spotify app on your mobile device as a remote, allowing you to adjust volume and switch tracks from afar. Once again, Spotify Connect is only available with a Premium membership.
To use Spotify, you will need to install a local client. PC (Windows 7, Vista, XP) and Mac versions are available. You can install Spotify by visiting www.spotify.com.
Happy listening!