Be Excellent To Each Other

True, however I tend to discover music through others so there is something to be said for a thing that lets me hear what people who have similar tastes are listening to. But since we're talking about free services you can just use them all anyway.

Well in that case just go back to your mp3 player and downloading whatever albums you want The whole point of Spotify is the social "share with people" side of it. I mean, obviously there's the instant streaming, but it's playlists and stuff that really makes it.

I liked the old days better when you'd get a phonecall saying "Mate, you have to come over & listen to this!" (it still happens, it's just much rarer these days) & walking into a record shop to be greeted by one of the assistants who's found something they think you'll like never gets dull.

Sharing music via online shite's much less fun & despite what they say it's much less sociable.

I fear that isn't the online world so much as just getting old. I mean you tend to spend more time hanging out with friends and listening to music when you're a kid. Apart from the record shop thing, obviously.

Neither of those scenarios have ever happened to me, though.

Aye, but a large proportion of my pals are anoraks/DJs, musicians & music lovers. As I said it still happens, but due to work/relationships/kids/other it's more infrequent.

Spotify's a crap substitute, even email's a bit more personal.


@Jonarob, you've never lived

@jonarob - you've never hung about with friends?

My friends are all morons, musically. I discovered everything I like on my own using the internets, TV and the press.

I actually discovered a good proportion of the music I like through skateboard videos, still do really.

Hey Jonarob! You'll like this

That's a good point actually, Panic/Blueprint's "A Mixed Media" still has one of my favourite soundtracks. Although my favourite bit of music to ever appear in skate/bmx videos is still this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BRb7-gOsXE It even made an amazingly dull Volcom pool skating video enjoyable for a few minutes

Jesus fuck! If you mute the ads, it pauses them! Even if the mute is the whole PC! Cunts! CUNTS!

Well, isn't that fair enough? Why shouldn't you listen to them if it helps keep the service free?
Although I don't know how annoying they are, in fairness, as I pay happily pay 30p a day for the best music service on the Internet*.

*I should get commission

Well, the alternative is I just take the headphones out. Plus, they know we don't listen to the fucking things, so forcing a pause on it if you mute does fuck all - if I'm going to mute the to avoid them, I'm not the sort of person to listen to the fucking things if I have to keep the volume on. They're wasting everyone's time.

Just got the update today so I've been through and added as many of yers as it would let me -- I'm stuaa on there.

Add me, dudes! (scarysheep)

It seems to have added jonarob and Grim... via Facebook. So that's good.

I do subscribe but it's not to avoid the ads - it's so I can use it on the "go" on my phone. Best thing ever.

Hooray!

BeexMrChris, as it happens.

They're either for something totally incongruous to what you're enjoying - pop idol shite amidst Bach (which utterly fucks it) or they're the same "Hi, this is person who should never be allowed to voice an ad from Spotify to talk about something you've just started to ignore" thing every three songs for the full two hours I'm listening to tunes.

I'd welcome and pay attention to the adds as an essential part of the free service were it not for their repetitive/inappropriateness. As it stands I use the thing less as a result, which makes me less likely to subscribe. Even then, subscribing wouldn't prevent it playing the first three seconds then buffering for five minutes even when things like torrents and youtube are running fine.

Hmm. I don't hear the adds so I can't comment, but the speed at which it can play music is voodoo - even across a 3G network. I've never known it stop to buffer before.

Latest awesome use for Spotify for me, iPhone jukebox in the kitchen via the Spotify iPhone app.

I like to do a bit of cooking at the weekend and therefore spend a few hours in the kitchen, and one must have tunes whilst one cooks. We've got an old AIWA midi hi-fi system in there (twin tape, radio, 3-CD changer, you remember the type of thing), which up to now I've manually fed CDs into, which is a total fucking pain in the arse as it's sat on top of the fridge-freezer. It was bad enough with the old fridge-freezer (quite high up you see), but we got a new fridge-freezer a few weeks ago which is comfortably taller than me, so changing the CDs now is a 'stand on a chair' sort of arrangement - hence I always just end up listening to the same CDs as I can't be arsed to change them.

The hi-fi has an AUX-in via two phono sockets so I was toying with the idea of getting a netbook or cheap laptop to connect up via a 3.5mm jack to two phono plugs, to stream music either from the NAS or Spotify.

However, it then occurred to me that I already have Spotify in iPhone form, and of course the iPhone has a 3.5mm socket on it, so I dug out an old lead from a box I've never fully unpacked since we moved here over three years ago, and connected the iPhone up.

Et voila! Pretty much all the music in the world is just a couple of taps away, the iPhone uses the wireless in the house so response is really quick, never had any problems with stuttering or buffering - just excellent tunes aplenty as I cook. It uses all my same favourites and playlists from the desktop app (I guess all that stuff is out in the 'cloud'), sound quality is excellent (indiscernible from a CD), and no more faffing about with CDs.

It's actually easier and more convenient than streaming from the NAS would be, and I don't have to have a netbook or laptop in the kitchen either.

For the money, Spotify Premium is absolutely a total no-brainer in my book - wouldn't be without it now.

The adverts are incredibly jarring, but you're right about the speed. Even when my Internet is arsing about, Spotify is flawless. Voodoo.

When my internet is fucking about, it almost always lasts to the end of the song and then dies.

When using it on the phone, it's just very unreliable in my experience. It'll always die a couple of times on the way to work.

So I never use it any more.

I wasn't impressed with the iPhone version. Not anything to do with the program or service itself, but entirely because 3G is patchy as hell here. I'll be in the car, and it'll switch between 0-5 bars of nothing/GPRS/Edge/3G constantly.

Fair comment - even on the Isle of Man (we're not exactly a massive land mass.....) 3G is all over the place, at its best it manages pretty much 1/4 meg ADSL, at its worst it's just not there at all, wouldn't want to rely on it for listening to my music on the move.

Doesn't the iPhone app support offline mode though? (Loses the point of it all a bit though I guess.)

As silly as it sounds, despite being the ultimate 'your own anywhere in the world internet radio station', I reckon Spotify works best in your own house.

As Spotify have closed the loophole that bypassed the need for an invite, I don't suppose one of you kind paying members has a spare invite code that I can pass to a friend of mine?

It says here:

https://www.spotify.com/uk/get-spotify/overview/

That there's no need for an invite.

Oh sorry, my bad. I didn't realise Spotify Open was different to Spotify Free.

I solve the music in the kitchen problem by simply living in a small flat. That way, the kitchen is the living room with the PC and the speakers

I got a wireless audio transmitter. After a few teething problems, it now works very nicely.

Play.com were selling them for around £20 IIRC:
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/667/874/-/5180776/One-For-All-SV1740-USB-Wireless-Digital-Audio-Sender/Product.html?searchtype=genre

*flutters eyelashes*

Spotify has stand-up comedy CDs on it!

Ooh.. excellent. Any good ones you can recommend? While I've created playlists of the stuff I'm into, I'm going through them pretty often so I need something new to listen to - Spotify Radio helps a little but it has a funny idea of what classes as 'rock' and it seems to like Bryan Adams a hell of a lot.

I point you here, sir: http://comedify.com/

But I do love Robin William's set: http://open.spotify.com/album/226CWKQhUKZhUDEX1Wdvv3

Don't suppose anyone's got an invite for Spotify going spare? I think I've convinced my brother he should be using it, but he's not filling my account with his rubbish.

Shame that Spotify Unlimited (which I'm on) doesn't generate invites really or I'd be able to sort him out myself.

I have loads... but I thought you didn't have to be invited any more?

It was more the case that you could bypass the invite system. They closed that loophole a while back.

In some ways I prefer the ad infused version of Spotify now the Shockwaves ad has disappeared. I heard some music in an ad that I liked today.

It was 'Die Antwoord' with Enter the Ninja. Some breathy high pitched female euro vocals sounded quite nice. So I looked up the video on youtube

Oh dear.

Well, feel free to PM me and I'll try to work out how to send him an invite

Oh dear indeed

Duly PMed!

It's scarily well constructed and produced though.

Using Spotify on more than one PC, and get annoyed when it's local music on one PC isn't played on another, because the file isn't there?

Simply put your favorite tunes in a Dropbox* folder, and tell Spotify to look for the music there**.

*Don't have Dropbox? Use my referrer link to get you some. If you use more than one PC, you'll soon wonder how you got along without it.
**If you use different operating systems on each PC, you'll have to put it somewhere with the same address, ie. /home/dropbox/ or c:/dropbox/

Would people be up for a collaborative monthly spotify playlist?

Heres the link to one I've just set up now. Just subscribe then add as many songs as you like, just not loads of the same band.
I've added 5 to start us off.

http://open.spotify.com/user/runcle/playlist/12RFhS9SYZJuZLAk9hlYHB

Added another five in there.

Ha, I listened to one of my songs went back to put another one on and saw there was 12 new tracks.

already had this, clicked your referrel link, and got 250 mb extra due to accepting a certain gary bowman's referral, who's that?

added a song to runcle's playlist.. dancing on this nice rerggae tune with my daugter right now

What the fuck? Fuck you, Dropbox!

Is it Feel The Rush?
Best Shaggy song no-one's heard ever.

Dropbox is so fucking good.

Not at referrals, it seems