The Love of My Life; Spotify.

"May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung. And may you stay forever young."
- Bob Dylan

Perhaps I haven't mentioned it yet, but I love Spotify.

A tragic thing happened to me last semester where 50% of my iTunes songs went missing. They were still listed in my library, but when I attempted to play them, I would get a little "!" along with a message that said the file couldn't be found. I think these were mostly songs that I had uploaded to my library without backing up with a file on hard drive somewhere...so of course, the fault is all mine. It was around this time that Spotify surfaced. And because I wanted free music that I could organize into playlists, I jumped on board. While I don't own any of these songs (so I can't burn them to CDs) I can listen to them from any computer that has Spotify (like at work) and an internet connection.

What I came to find in Spotify was the perfect music discovery platform. So, I hear a song on the radio that I love and I think: I gotta look that up. I search: "Blue on Black" and get a list of results. The first listed song is the one I want so I listen and drag the song to the appropriate playlist: "Get Yo' Craft On" and "Cruise". Then I look to the artist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd. I don't know him, but I like this sound. So I click his name, which is a link to his artist profile. Here I see is discography, with the most popular songs listed seperately at the top. I click the next most popular song and scan his Biography as I listen. Once, I've read, I decide I don't like this song as much and click on the next popular song as I scan the related artists. I can click on some related artists and explore from there, or I can "Start Artist Radio" and continue my work while I listen. Simple as that, I'm finding new artists and songs that I would have never found otherwise.

Individual songs are one thing. I very rarely find an artist that I just love everything they do (Matchbox 20, Frightened Rabbit, Miranda Lambert, Mumford & Sons, Tom Petty), but songs, I love at least one from almost everyone I hear. These are the artists though, that I found or were fed via Spotify and actually like a gaggle of their works:

Agnes Obel
Audra Mae
Birdy
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Bobby Long
The Bonfire Band
Dan Auerbach
The Devil Makes Three
Donovan
Ed Harcourt
Good Old War
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Ha Ha Tonka
James Blake
Joe Pug
Johnny Flynn
Kenny Rogers (no, really)
King Charles
Langhorne Slim
The Lumineers
Manchester Orchestra
Mick Flannery
The Mountain Goats
Pearl and the Beard
Pistol Annies
Ryan Adams
The Steeldrivers
Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers
Talking Heads
Trampled By Turtles
Turnpike Troubadours
Van Morrison
The Wailin' Jennys
The White Buffalo

I recognize that these aren't like obsure, cool, unknown, hipster artists. But the point is, you have to fine new (to you) music somewhere and these I found on Spotify.

With the offering of Apps, Spotify conslidates all kinds of music programs to suggestion new recommendation, organize playlists, keep you up-to-date on new releases, etc. I haven't quite mastered the use of Apps, but I am trying. I use Filtr, Last.fm, Top 10 and We Are Hunted. But I don't use them very well.

There are some downsides to Spotify, besides the inability to burn or transfer the songs to an iPod. While it advertises itself as being a "social network", it is not set up very well for this kind of interaction. There is a feed of what your friends are listening to, but these "friends" include all of your Facebook friends. And sorry, but I'm not interested in your Wiz Khalifa playlists. Furthermore, you can't comment, or like anyone's activity within the actual program (you can on Facebook). This is such a disappointment, because that's where I get most of my musical inspiration. I love to creep the playlists of (the three) people (who's music I actually like) and find new artists. But Spotify does not make it easy.

Another downside is the pathetic search result. First of all, I'm a god awful speller. And the Spotify search engine has the reading level of a second grader. Where Google knows what I meant to type, Spotify won't give me any results for "Miranda Lamberty"...and I think it's pretty clear what I'm looking for.

Like Pandora, there are the occasional advertisements; a little more occasional than Pandora, probably. They run in doubles and are very repetitive. I'm not entirely opposed to advertisements, but play me something I want to hear and don't play it on repeat. Furthermore, the advertisements are very general. I have a very specific musical taste, that I should be able to help advertisers target me directly...play music I like in the background, create a profile according to musical taste, reference artists I listen to. I KNOW interactive advertising is advanced far beyond what Spotify is doing and if they really want to make their ads effective, they'll get up-to-date.