Spotify for iPhone: the verdict

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

I’ve had my week reviewing Spotify’s Premium account and the iPhone app, I’ve listened to an uneclectic mix of playlists that mostly consisted of the song Africa by Toto, and I’ve used it in central London and out in Kent, with all the public transport in between.

And the verdict? I almost, nearly, don’t quite want to pay for it.

It’s not that it’s not brilliant. It is. (more…)

Spotify for iPhone: first look

Monday, September 7th, 2009

The eagerly awaited music-streaming service Spotify has today arrived on both the iPhone App Store and on Android’s Marketplace, and I’ve been granted a seven-day guest pass to see if it’s really worth that £10-a-month premium account.

Over the course of a year that does seem like a lot of money – particularly as most users will already have huge music collections of their own – but the promise of millions of tracks available on the move is certainly tempting.

Starting up

Once logged in, you’ll be delighted to see all of your desktop playlists seamlessly synced with Spotify on your phone, and if that’s what you’re after you can just dive straight in. (more…)

The PC Pro Spotify playlist: the results

Friday, May 15th, 2009

You know it’s Friday afternoon when a hastily-written blog post asking for inspiration for PC Pro’s Spotify account gets nearly 20 responses before four in the afternoon. The result is a barkingly-mad list of music which takes in artists from The Beastie Boys to Tina Turner, and from Styx to Korn.

A quick reminder of the rules: all the songs had to have some connection to computers and they had to be found in the Spotify library. 

The winners are:

(more…)

Spotify: free, legal music (honest)

Friday, January 16th, 2009

The PC Pro office is agog this afternoon. We’ve stumbled across Spotify – a genuinely free, legal music service that gives you unlimited streams of pretty much any track or album you can think of from the big four music labels and we’re all left wondering: what’s the catch?

All you have to do is register with the site (use this link, don’t go through the homepage, or else your name will simply be added to the waiting list) and download the desktop software, which is a mere 1.5MB.

Once installed, you’ll be presented with a piece of software that looks so similar to iTunes, I’d be amazed if Apple’s lawyers aren’t already ordering Havana cigars in anticipation. Pop the name of any band, track or album into the search box, and you’ll be presented with an impressive list of matching tracks, any of which can be played almost instantaneously with a double-click. Others can be added to the queue with a right-click. 

(more…)

Hallelujah! The music industry’s finally lost control

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

If you wanted any further proof that the music industry has lost control of the charts, look no further than this year’s Christmas Top 40. 

Yes, I’m well aware that the number one is the product of a talent show that’s produced and part-judged by a record company executive.

But sitting at number two is a record that wasn’t even officially re-released, that’s sung by a man who died 11 years ago. And the reason it’s sitting pretty during the busiest chart week of the year is that a Facebook Group was so worried that the X-Factor winner was going to murder Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, that they urged everyone to download the peerless Jeff Buckley version instead. Even Cohen’s own version of the song is sitting at number 36.  

Meanwhile, a further glance down the chart reveals The Pogues and Kirsty Maccoll’s Fairytale of New York at number 12, Mariah Carey’s pitiful All I want For Christmas at 17, Wham’s Last Christmas at 27,  and Wizzard at 33.  

I’m going home and digging out the luminous socks – it’s like 1985 again! 

Songbird: the open source media player

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

If, like me, you despise iTunes with a passion, this could be the player for you. It’s called Songbird, and it’s an open source alternative to the big, bloated media players that dominate the market. Powered by Mozilla, it’s could soon be the Firefox of media software.

It works with iPods and your existing iTunes library, and integrates with YouTube, ShoutCast, Last.fm and other media-related apps. It links to concert tickets for artists in your library, supports FairPlay tracks, works on Windows or Macs and even has an integrated web browser.

All sorts of extra features are in beta, as the Songbird website details, and you can also download add-ons in the same way as you currently do with Firefox – so the possibilities for expansion are immense.

Version 1.0.0 was officially launched yesterday, and I’ve downloaded it to see how it puts up with my terrible music taste, so look out for a full review soon.

UPDATE: Read the full review of songbird 1.0 here.

How to steal music without even trying

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Amazon’s new MP3 store has finally been launched without DRM, with decent 256kbps tracks and some initial prices that certainly catch the eye (although not Tim’s). All good stuff, if a bit late to the party – but one mischievously timed little add-on could have a much greater impact on the industry.

It’s a Firefox plug-in that’s freely available if you know where to look (I won’t be telling you), that essentially turns the official Amazon.com retail site into a candy shop for freeloaders. (more…)

What price an MP3?

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Now for the rest of this blog I’m going to come across like a curmudgeonly old grump who only likes listening to Radio 4 and restricts his TV viewing to Newsnight. But I’m not, honest. I listen to Radio 6 Music each morning on my way into work, and have on very special occasions been known to throw a few shapes on the dancefloor. People soon ask me to stop, but we’ll gloss over that.

The fact is, I haven’t bought a CD or downloaded a track on iTunes for over a year. My MP3 player is, right now, gathering dust in a draw, and it’s full of tracks I transcoded from my rapidly ageing CD collection. And while I used to get a thrill out of firing up the various components of my hi-fi and losing myself in the expensive Sennheiser headphones I bought a decade ago, I’m now far more likely to be inserting the latest In The Night Garden CD at the behest of my young children. (more…)

Playlists killed the classic album

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

As someone whose musical tastes are so reluctant to be dragged into today that I spent last Saturday night at a gig featuring Carter USM and EMF, this week has been both beautiful and troubling.

On the one hand, Chinese Democracy, Axl Rose’s 15-year tortuous journey towards the Guns N’ Roses album he always felt he had in his brilliantly destructive brain, was released. On the other hand, a music software company came to our offices and showed us some software that analyses all the music on your hard drive, clusters it into a big cloud of tempos, styles, and other gubbins, then lets you choose your playlists visually by picking the clusters that interest you.

The two couldn’t have been further apart in what they represent. (more…)

Amazon takes shopping next-gen

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

If anyone’s going to change the way we shop online it’s Amazon. It sells pretty much everything you could ever wish to buy on a high street, usually at lower prices, with fast, often free delivery and (in my experience) excellent customer service.

But the one problem online retailers have is capturing the browsing shopper. With only a home page to compete with the highly visible displays in most shop windows, it’s not easy to simply wander around an online store and spot something you may not have been looking for.

Step forward Amazon WindowShop. (more…)