DJ Shadow: Endtroducing cover art

When I was a kid and I started listening to the music there were only few ways to get it: listening to the radio, watching MTV, borrowing vinyls, cds or cassettes from friends, or simply heading to a record shop and buy it. I spent hours in these dusty places, looking for imported records hardly to find before the internet era, talking with shop owners about new releases, availability and dreaming to put my hands over a limited edition vinyl.

Now things are different: all the music you want is just one click away and you can instantly buy a song, an entire album or a collection of mp3s.

Spotify, a music streaming service born 2006 in Sweden, introduced a new way of listening/buying audio: based on a catalogue of over 15 million songs, it’s unbelievable how simple it is to listen instantly to music, discover new artists and share them over all your social media accounts. The free account lets you listen to all the music you want with some ads, or if you prefer, you can go premium with just 4,99€/$ a month and even better bring all your mp3 on your mobile (even without connection) for just 9,99€/$.

Buying a CD in a shop usually costs 15 to 20 euros/dollars, on itunes 9,99, on Spotify you have unlimited music. Okay, if you’re a casual listener buying a cd or mp3 once in a while is ok, but if you need more than a new album every 2 months, then this is the solution at a reasonable price.

I have a huge collection of vinyls and cds, and I personally miss “the record shops” era, but this is really awesome: all the music you want, available everywhere you are, without carrying anything else than your smartphone or laptop. It’s amazing.

There are other services like Spotify out there, but they’re not at the same level: Deezer, Grooveshark, Rdio, Mog, etc. Main differences I noticed, testing all of them, are basically two: catalogue and user interface design. Spotify has more choices when it comes to older music from indie labels, and has a dedicated app both for Mac and PC and it’s not web based like most of the other services. This means that you can have all your mp3s and Spotify music in the same place, and sync it with your smartphone or iPod.

The bad thing is that Spotify is not available worldwide yet, but there are many tutorials on how to get it outside UK or US.