Spotify Review

The other day I suddenly received an invitation to sign up for Spotify.  I did it right away, because I was curious to see what all the fuss was about.  Coming in, my main question was: How is this going to be different from iTunes?  Why are people so excited about Spotify when they already have iTunes, Grooveshark, and YouTube?

Well, after playing around with Spotify for an hour or so, I can confidently say that none of these questions were satisfactorily answered.  In fact, I now have more questions than I came in with. 

I will say this: head-to-head against the other three music sources I just mentioned, Spotify is the best service.  You don't have to pay a cent to hear unlimited music (with a few commercials here and there) whenever you have internet access and you can import your iTunes library and have access to that even when you don't have Internet (because Spotify is an application and not a website).

However, Spotify's layout and design is irritating.  One thing I love about iTunes is all the links to various types of new music (or new-to-you music) they provide for you.  On Spotify, if you want to hear new music, you have to search for it (meaning you have to know what you're looking for, which is a rarity).  Spotify also doesn't categorize music into genres like iTunes does.  In short, Spotify is not nearly as detailed or intuitive as iTunes.  In fact, basically the only thing better about Spotify is that you can listen to whole songs for free and put them into playlists, instead of settling for 90-second previews like you do on iTunes.

Which brings me to the crux of my argument.  Why are people so excited about Spotify, when you can already find new releases on iTunes, then listen to them in full on YouTube or Grooveshark, and download them for free from Mediafire or Video2mp3?  Don't get me wrong, Spotify is pretty cool, and definitely better than the other music-service options out there right now.  But it's not exactly an Earth-shattering development.  And most importantly, I don't think it's going to get me to change my habits for finding/obtaining new music.  And I have trouble seeing how it will change other people's habits either.

Do you agree with me?  Or do you think Spotify is the second coming?  Leave a comment!