Spotify

The future of the Music Industry is one of uncertainty. The number of people going out to buy a CD is at an all time low, as more people continue to file share. Is this a bad thing? I think things need to evolve - be woken up to the future - could Spotify be the answer?

Spotify is a Music Player, it looks similar to iTunes, but the great thing about it is it lets you stream whole albums for free! Okay, what's the catch. Well, the only catch is every now and then your listening experience is interrupted by a short advert - which is where the Music Industry get there money - very clever. For £9.99 a month you can listen advert free. Plus, as the music is streamed it can't be stored as audio files, so say if you liked an album so much that you wanted to listen to it on your ipod you would have to purchase it - hence even more money to the Music Industry.

One draw back though is for this alone to save the Music Industry it would have to offer an endless library of audio, which at the moment is far from the case, and recently they had to pull a load of stuff off their system due to Country Licensing Restriction.

I've been using it for the past couple of weeks and I've generally been impressed by it but equally frustrated by the limited library. I'm not sure that this is the answer to the Music Industries problems, but it sure is a good start.

Here is an invite that allows you to open a Free Account: https://www.spotify.com/invitation/JtjmHnaXuqWLF4Bm

Enjoy... Please let me know what you think?

Playing Catch Up

It's funny how when ever I post a "Best of" list a load of good stuff appears in late December that either I've overlooked or have just discovered whilst reading another person end of year musings. This year has been no exception. So, here is a brief list of some of the albums I discovered...

Actress - Hazyville
The Alps - III
Byetone- Death Of A Typographer
Crystal Stilts - All of Night
Fire On Fire - The Orchard
The Fun Years - Baby, It's Cold Inside
Gas - Nah Und Fern LP
Koen Holtkamp - Field Rituals
Lawrence English - Kiri No Oto
Machinefabriek - Dauw
Pale Young Gentlemen - Black Forest (tra la la)
That Ghost - Young Fridays
Scott Tuma - Not For Nobody
Soccer Committee & Machinefabriek - Drawn

Have you too discovered any late 2008 gems?