Spotify touches an Alcopop heart or two…
January 24, 2009
Ah social media – always providing the work-shy muso types, with a penchant for new stuff, with the opportunity to spend hours messing about with new platforms, and declaring themselves firmly in electronic love. We all set up our MySpace pages in starry eyed wonder a few years ago, soon declaring them shit when we moved to facebook – and lo – you aint no thing these days unless you’re twittering like an angry widow at the supermarket, flickring like a candle in the breeze and scrobbling like a unnecessarily obscure term.
Well – the latest one to dazzle all at team Alcopop, and ensure time set aside for mail orders, to do lists and general record label tasks has been superseded by listening to Longpigs, Blur, Dylan, Bluetones, Pixies and Trail of Dead albums I haven’t heard for ages – is Spotify! And I love it…
It’s like having iTunes, but already packed with a magnificent catalogue of music (you can learn more about the ins and outs of it from this potting shed) – and although it’s fairly short of a lot of my favourite indie labels (although I’d rather buy those records than listen to them free anyway), it’s a great way to listen to old favourites, take a lot of new albums in – and keep the stream of new music to your ears fresh.
Whether it’s going to be another shot to the kneecaps of the majors (and I rather think it’s not going to help them keep on top of the casual consumer) – there are a few people who are worrying for the future of commercial radio. I’m not so sure that’s going to be a massive problem though in truth, ‘cos you just can’t beat that ‘human element’ of tuning in can you? We’ll see – only know that you keep your eye on the music coming through the underground.
What I would suggest though, is that you give Spotify a bash – and I guarantee that with a little thought you’ll soon discover a forgotten classic or 7, and no doubt discover a new album that you love heartily. At the moment it’s beta invitation only (unless you pay), but if you want an invitation I got a few left so just email us at info@ilovealcopop.co.uk, or leave a comment below and I’ll send you one… Marvellous!
courtesy of rajeshvj om flickr.com
Entry Filed under: All and Sundry. Tags: beta, Free, invite, invites, Link, loophole, needed, no invite, nusic, rajeshvj, spotification, spotify, where can i get.
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1.
marcus warner | January 24, 2009 at 11:18 am
Beat me to it!
Will be singing its praises and its impact today.
2.
coxy | January 25, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Good blog post.
“Whether it’s going to be another shot to the kneecaps of the majors (and I rather think it’s not going to help them keep on top of the casual consumer)”
This probably won’t be the case – it’ll probably have the adverse effect for major labels. Currently, labels like Universal, Sony BMG, EMI, Warner Music, etc are all signed up to Spotify and are the ones feeding music their way.
Spotify is ad-supported and therefore can afford to pay royalties to these companies when listeners stream tracks; this means that advertisers are essentially paying labels directly for the tracks that music fans are receiving for free.
What’s more, I foresee the ability to buy tracks and albums in future – meaning more money is set to head in the direction of the labels too. Spotify will essentially act as a retailer, much like the iTunes Music Store – but you can stream any album on demand, for free, instead of listen to 30sec previews. And even when you do this, the labels are getting paid.
A model like this is exactly what the labels need to jump on instead of moaning that piracy is killing the industry. Why would I want to illegally download any of the albums on Spotify when I can just listen to them on demand anyway? And then, if I wanted to permanently own those tracks, or to load it onto my MP3 player, the buy button is already under my nose.
I’m not saying that a model like this is going to kill piracy, but if Apple (who already have a massive user-base compared to Spotify) were to implement ad-supported full track streaming in the iTunes Music Store, illegal downloads figures would take a hit.