Spotify finally hits the States -- thankfully

It seems like it was a few years ago that I first heard of Spotify, the streaming music service that was breathlessly taking Europe by storm at the time. The service only just arrived in the States in the last week, courtesy of labored negotiations with the four big American music labels. 

So the wait is over and Spotify is slowly handing out accounts to people who reserved spots, people willing to buy a subscription and move to the head of the line, and people who gain access through seats sponsored by major corporations. 

I've been playing with Spotify for a few days and have found it to be a joy, with a few exceptions. 

 Things I like:

• The ability to play full albums. 
• Easy ingestion of your iTunes library.
• Ability to easily create playlists, and share those lists on Twitter and Facebook.
• Deep song list. I was able to find most everything I searched for, including an alternative take of The Rolling Stones' "Out of Time," a track by Marshall Crenshaw ("Some Hearts") and Johnny & The Distractions ("Complicated Now") that I've been unable to find in digital form anywhere else. I was also able to find deep album tracks for obscure but terrific punk acts like Lagwagon and Lawrence Arms. 

Spotify's premium services actually are worth the money.Things I find lacking: 

• The player is buggy, although it's progressively improved with each day. On repeated occasions, the stream stopped without explanation. I figured it was because I was using the free version, but I didn't even get ads during my early listens. In my second day, I started to get some ads, and streams seemed more consistent. But I still had to reset the play several times to keep things playing. 
• The archive is deep but does have holes. I didn't find any songs for Utopia, Bram Tchaikovsky and Paul Collins' Beat. Both had hit singles in the late '70s and'80s, and space on hits collections of that era, so it'd not like these are unknown songs. 
• I really like Pandora's "music genome" feature that helps you discover music that's new but related. If you're a music geek like I am, Spotify is fantastic and ther's a "related artists" feature one click away. But I do enjoy how Pandora's central focus is around making new discoveries as opposed to having to take the initiative to yourself. I know, it sounds lazy but that's one thing Pandora offers that is a huge differentiator. 

 Things I don't know enough about:

• The sharing features. I know you can make your playlists public and share them via Facebook and Twitter, but I wish there were group sharing like Turntable.fm, which allows a controlled group to take turns as DJ. 
• Spotify's premium services, which sound like they're worth the money. They include a mobile component, ability to listen to songs offline, and an ad-free version.

All in all, Spotify is a service I can see taking off in the States. It's a much more useful music base than iTunes, and more powerful than stateside competitors like Last.fm, Pandora and Turntable.fm. Here's to discovering music, old and new. 

Update on Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 2:22 PM by Logan Molen

"Soundcheck" lifts the hood on Spotfiy and debates the economics of music-streaming services -- wth a focus on benefits to musicians. 

And the bad news is while Spotify may be a listener's dream, musicians may earn well less than 1 cent per song streamed. Sigh. 

I'm one of those people who actually buy music I discover while first streaming, but I'll acknowledge that Spotify is so good I have instant access to more great songs than I'll ever have time to hear.