I first wrote about the brilliant Spotify here in March and in recent weeks, the legal streaming music library has pressed itself into the public consciousness here at home with many people choosing to try out the free service via a proxy loophole.
It’s a brilliant service and one which justifiably could live up to the oft-touted “iTunes killer” tag if the company can keep its revenues flowing and keep Apple onside for the upcoming Spotify iPhone app. If there was one criticism of Spotify from a user-friendly perspective, it would be that it lacks a “browse” function. So for those times when you’re not sure what to search for the following sites are here to help.
By uploading your exisiting iTunes music library file, Spotifitunes can give you a web-based links to the artists you already listen to on Spotify. More of a Last.FM user? Another site (http://short.ie/lastspot) will analyse the top 50 artists in your Last.FM charts and recommend you albums to listen to based on this and Last.FM’s recommendation system.
If you are interested in the newest albums available then, the On the Spot blog offers one of the best ways to find out. Other sites include Spotinews and Fresh Spotify which tells you when your favourite bands are added to the library.
After browse and search, playlists are the easiest way to share music. A number of community sites provide facilities to share yours with the world such as http://sharemyplaylists.com and http://listopify.com.
More interesting are the focused playlists such as Indiefy which has created playlists for John Peel’s Festive 50 from 1976 to 2000 or Topsify which creates top 40 UK and US Charts every week.
Finally, how about a virtual festival through Spotify? Invisible Festival is raising money for Cancer Research this weekend by sharing playlists on Spotify by festival artists like The Go! Team, The Invisible and Reverend and the Makers.
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