I received my invite to Spotify earlier today. There are aspects about it that I found to be impressive, and others I found to be exactly what I had expected.
The way I had perceived Spotify from all of the hype was that it was the replacement for other internet radio alternatives. In fact it's a media player very similar to another service that has been availble in the US for some time, Grooveshark. What Grooveshark doesn't have, however, is a desktop client that allows you to mix your local media with online media. But lets look at the library comparison of Grooveshark and Spotify first. I randomly picked 10 obscure artists from most listeners to least listeners on last.fm.
Spotify vs. Grooveshark
EXXASENS
534,243 plays (23,088 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: Yes (2 out of 2 albums)
Spotify: Yes (1 out of 2 albums)
Hidden Orchestra
220,291 plays (11,274 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: Yes (1 out of 1 album +1 rare track)
Spotify: Yes (1 out of 1 album)
The Carbonfools
57,492 plays (4,347 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: Yes (1 out of 3 albums: Carbonsoul)
Spotify: Yes (1 out of 3 albums: Poisoned Goulash)
félperc
63,618 plays (3,089 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: No
Spotfiy: No
Képzelt Város
46,787 plays (2,392 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: Yes (1 song out of 2 albums)
Spotify: No
Marionette ID
26,203 plays (1,857 listeners)
Grooveshark: No
Spotify: Yes (1 out of 1 albums)
Years Of Rice And Salt
15,017 plays (1,761 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: No
Spotify: Yes (1 out of 2 albums)
Matt Stevens
12,146 plays (1,685 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: Yes (1 out of 3 complete album: Ghost; 3 incomplete albums)
Spotify: Yes (3 out of 3 complete albums)
The Non
42,583 plays (1,565 listeners)
Grooveshark: Yes (2 out of 2 albums +2 misnamed tracks)
Spotify: No
//orangenoise
1,416 plays (166 listeners) (Last.fm)
Grooveshark: Yes (1 out of 2 albums: //veracious)
Spotify: No
Out of ten artists Grooveshark had more music from 5 artists while Spotify had more music from three artists. Neither had félperc and both had different albums from The Carbonfools, Grooveshark had the newest album while Spotify had an older one. While Grooveshark seems to be winning in this small poll, 10 artists isn't enough to judge two massive libraries. So I think it is safe to say that both libraries are comparable. One may have certain artists the other doesn't, and vice versa.
What Grooveshark does not have is good organization. I am extremely anal about good organization. GS is a mess. If you can't find what you want to find in an efficient and easy way then, well, that's bad. Spotify is extremely clean.
Another aspect that puts Spotify over Grooveshark is its ability to mix your local library with their online library.
Spotify vs. Last.fm radio
There is no comparison. Both are completely different services. One cannot truly replace the other. Spotify is a beefed up media player while Last.fm radio is a radio connected to an ungodly massive library. A better comparison to Last.fm radio is Pandora, which has 0 out of the 10 artist I listed for the Grooveshark/Spotify comparison. (I said better comparison, not a good comparison, hah hah.) But I digress. The way I use last.fm, I don't see Spotify being a replacement.
Spotify vs. iTunes
Well, apart from the obvious superiority of integrating a huge online library with your local library, lets look at other features of the player.
Simplicity is both a pro and con for Spotify. I love simple and efficient, however Spotify could be a little more customizable in how you organize your playlist. It doesn't need all the junk that iTunes gives you a list of (Who seriously puts BPM on their playlist?) but a genre organizer would be nice.
Facebook connect. Ooooh, I do like this feature on Spotify. You can view your friends' playlists and listen to whatever playlists they've created. (I just discovered Mammal Club from my friend's playlist, nicccccce.)
No visualizer. I'll just have to resort to iTunes for those nights I feel like sitting in a pitch dark room listening to MONO drinking a beer and seeing colourful objects shoot across the screen.
It's darker. iTunes is so... white. I like the dark gray on Spotify. For someone that stares at a computer for longer than he should, having a program that has a dark interface is nice. Hah hah, I know, that's kind of dumb... DON'T JUDGE ME, YOU DON'T KNOW ME!
iPod syncing. However, you have to erase and sync it with Spotify. I haven't done this yet. My iPod is almost full so resyncing to another program will just take a while. If anyone has done this and would like to write an addition to this review feel free to comment. I'm rather curious if it is any different than iTunes syncing.
There really isn't much else I have to say about the player itself. It's very solid. Apart from the lack of organizational customizability, I like this better than iTunes and definitely see myself replacing my iTunes usage with Spotify.
The darker side of Spotify
Just like any streaming service, artists get paid a measly amount for number of plays (approximately 20,000 plays per 1 USD). So, don't think that your streams are helping these artists financially. I'd urge to buy digital copies, CDs, vinyls and use streaming methods like Spotify as a means for discovery or temporary listening before purchasing.
But those that already plan on pirating will pirate anyway.
Conclusion
Spotify is great as a program. Does it live up to the hype? That depends on how you listen to music. For me, no, it didn't come close to what I was skeptically expecting from all the hype. For others it may be the best thing since sliced bread. But I'm definitely not disappointed. Will it replace my usage of last.fm radio? Absolutely not. 95% of the artists on this blog have been discovered through last.fm, and in that 95% about 80% of it have been discovered through last.fm radio.
Is Spotify great as a service? To its users sure. To its artists, not quite as much.
Will I replace iTunes with spotify? Yeah, I will. I don't like how spotify is ripping off the artists by giving them less than chump change. But I do like it as a normal media player, and I do like Facebook connect, a lot. If that helps me discover new artists then I'll continue to use it.
Update (July 22): Actually, after a few days I'm finding myself still using iTunes. The better organizing capabilities of iTunes ended up being a much bigger factor in my decision to use either iTunes or Spotify. iTunes' ability to share music over a network (opening my laptop's larger library to play on my MacPro) is also one feature I use a lot. You can also share music with Spotify, but the person sharing needs to turn on his/her file sharing and make the music folder public, then you need to go into Spotify's prefs and add a new local source and find this folder. THEN you have to wait for spotify to add all the files. I have a little over 2100 tracks which took approximately 10 minutes to add aliases (shortcuts) to the Local Files list. And even after that not everything was transferred over. I don't have a clue what wasn't transferred but I don't feel like sifting through 2100+ tracks to find out.
So, as much as I really like Spotify's design and especially the facebook connect, the features that I rely on a lot when listening to localized music are lacking.
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