i just downloaded "spotify", a new music listening thing for the internet.

i have to say that it is pretty neat.

lots of songs, on demand, whenever you want them.

it will be great for school when kids are working.

Been hearing good things about this service. I'll have to try it soon. Sign of the future of music in homes, portable devices and autos.

OK, who are you and what have you done with Renny????

I've been using Spotify for the past couple of weeks... very pleased so far with the depth of artists and albums.

seriously jim, you have to try it. it is NOT a download site. i have found a couple of very unique and odd one-offs that i had no idea about.

you just simply listen and you listen to whatever you want!

Think of all the room you'd save in the house by just having a service like Spotify. Just click and the song plays, no need to look around for the CD anymore.

http://www.spotify.com/us/hello-america/fb_comb/ and its free!

But even if you pay the $5 a month premium service, think of all the money you could have saved if this available back in 1985 instead of the CD. We all spend well over $5 a month to buy music that sits on a shelf. Here you have all that music at your fingertips for a fraction of the price of actually purchasing all those CDs. And none of the clutter.

Not for ICEers obviously (since we have the collector disease) but you have to say if this was available way back then.....I would have saved a ton of $$$ over these years.
I'd still buy my core collection but alot of the fluff could have been eliminated.

For instance I'm listening to Britney singing "I Wanna Go" on Spotify for free. Now I wouldn't buy this CD but to listen on my computer for free? what the hell (it is a catchy tune).

They have all of the current pop music that I will never own but its nice to hear whats out there.

Truth to that BUT I rather spend my time listening to stuff I already have.

Rick A.

Just put Porcupine Tree into its search engine and it found all of their current releases. Listening to "Octane Twisted" from their brilliant album The Incident. Now this is neat. Hope they get an app for this!

Now I have on Marillion's Misplaced Childhood and the opening track.....wow. this is fun!

You'd have to be nuts not to love this service.

A friend of mine can't stop raving about Spotify. I'm curious, but I already have a stack of CDs I haven't listened to. Why couldn't this have existed when I was a teenager, and all I had was time?

i dig it!

beats the shit out of pandora!

This will cost me anyway because I suddenly feel the need to get better speakers for my computer.

What's the sound quality like on Spotify? Streaming music usually sounds terrible, but I can't imagine so many people being into this if it didn't sound good.

The sound quality is iffy but so is everything on my computer due to my current speakers. However, it is supposed to have better sound quality if you opt for the $9.95 per month service.

What is the difference between this and Rhapsody? I have a Rhapsody account for the magazine I write for and it's good. What's the difference if there is one?

Far from audiophile, but then again you get what you pay for... so far, I'm using it about 50/50 between sampling new stuff and playing stuff I'm just too lazy to pull off the shelf.

And like Glenn, I haven't tried it with a good speaker setup, either. Maybe this weekend I'll get around to trying it out via my main system.

So far I'm impressed with the selection. Just playing with it off and on today I ran across the deluxe editions of Kind of Blue and Breakfast In America, as well as that recent Rolling Stones singles box (no, I didn't have time to actually listen to all of them!) And so far the ads on the free version are just quick plugs for other artists or upgrading the service, nothing too obnoxious.

Can anyone still tell me what the difference is between Rhapsody and Spotify? I'd like to know!

IP,

never heard or tried rhapsody, sorry.

renny

Rhapsody is very similar. You pay a fee and have unlimited access to albums that play over a server using a remote. My neighbor uses it and he loves it. He combines the service with a Sonos speaker system.

Not sure if Spotify can be used the same way.