When I first heard about Spotify I though it was just another competitor to Last.fm, but soon discovered it offers a totally new way to enjoy your favorite artists and discover new bands online.
While comparisons to Last.fm are inevitable, Spotify has its own characteristics that make it a different beast entirely. To begin with, Spotify doesn't have that many social network features. You won't find friends lists, or an events calendar, or buttons to mark songs as "banned" or "loved". That means that you don't have a "user profile" with lists of songs you've recently played or tagged. Also, Spotify's radio works in a different way: instead of searching for a specific artist or tag, you select a decade (between the 50s and today) and a music style, and the program plays the correspondent music.
There are several functions in Spotify that I've found especially useful. First of all, you can search for your favorite artist in the program's built-in search tool and load all their available tracks on a play queue. This queue lets you check what you're currently listening to and what's coming next, and also works when you listen to the program's radio.
Second, Spotify lets you build personal playlists, with no limitations. These playlists can be made of the individual songs you listen to on Spotify's radio, or from the songs you have on your play queue. What's more, you can make "collaborative playlists", that is, share a playlist with a friend so that both of you can listen to it and add new tracks. The sharing though must be done via email or IM.
Finally, Spotify's features a real built-in player: unlike the play/skip buttons in Last.fm, here you can go back to the previous track, jump to the next one and of course, pause a song whenever you want. The only thing missing in Spotify to be perfect, in my opinion, is the ability to control it from another app with global hotkeys.
Generally speaking, I think Spotify offers a better, easier and more optimized way to enjoy your favorite music online than other services like the aforementioned Last.fm. This program is the true online alternative to having to take your massive collection of music everywhere with you. Spotify lets you listen to the music you want to, not the music you're supposed to like because it's similar to the artist you've selected. Still at a beta stage with invite-only access, Spotify is a truly promising music app with which I'm sure thousands of people will fall in love at first sight.
Spotify lets you browse, play and share streaming music for free, including not only your lifelong favorite bands but also new styles and artist.
Download Spotify 0.3.9 in Softonic
