More Music for Spotify, Free Music for Virgin UK

Written by Dana Oshiro / June 15, 2009 11:03 AM / 5 Comments

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On-demand streaming music service Spotify just announced the addition of more than 90,000 releases to its catalogue. The announcement came on the heels of their recent deal with CD baby, and users will be pleased. The company published two lists sorted by artists and labels early this morning.

While Spotify is not yet available to North American audiences, legal streaming music services have certainly proved their demand with competitors like Grooveshark, Lala and Tunerec seeing steady growth.

In addition to allowing users to listen to music and share files and playlists, Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek continues to forge partnerships in his "commitment to developing the world's biggest music catalogue." Given that Lala claims that it also offers "over 6 million songs for free", this is no easy feat.

Launched in 2006 the service is available in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France and Finland. The service is already so popular that crafty audiophiles outside of the service areas have been accessing it via proxy server. Spotify is invite-only and currently offers streaming music via Mac, Windows and Linux, and device integration on the Android, iPhone and Nokia S60 series is well on its way. The service also allows users to scrobble to Last.fm and keep track of their listening through the popular music recommendation site.

On a related note, Silicon Alley Insider and Reuters reported that Virgin Media is about to launch an MP3 music download subscription service in partnership with Universal. Virgin media broadband customers will listen to streaming music and pay for tracks from Universal's catalogue. Virgin is looking to form new partnerships with UK-based labels and create a comprehensive catalogue upon launch. This play by a major media company may have dire effects on Spotify and its competitors. At this time, Spotify also offers links to downloadable tracks and a huge selection of tracks, but it will be interesting to see who consumers choose to deliver their tunes.

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You can also keep up-to-date with the frequent additions to Spotify's music library at my site http://www.freshspotify.com

freshspotify allows you to setup artist alert emails so you are notified when new music is added to the Spotify library by your favourite artists (imported from your last.fm account or added manually). The site also provides artist-based Atom feeds.

Spotify is adding lots of new music every week, and with this last update over 65% of freshspotify's 800+ registered users received alerts.

Posted by: Richard Keen | June 15, 2009 11:33 AM

Might be worth mentioning that the deal between Virgin UK and Universal is based on stricter sanctions on the part of Virgin aimed at torrent users.

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/06/all-you-can-eat-within-a-limited-menu/

Posted by: Duncan | June 15, 2009 11:52 AM

It's also worth mentioning the service is not at all invite restricted. If you're willing, you can pay up 99kr/month (around $13) for a months subscription, or a day pass for 9kr (naturally, about $1,30). The monthly subscription also gives a few more priviligies, as previews of upcoming albums and chances to win concert tickets.

Besides, the 90k song update happens about once a week, it seems, with several smaller updates to the library in between. Different labels sign agreements as the service grows more popular, and here in Sweden, they run commercials on TV and have, for instance, a deal with a major ISP so that new customers get a few months of premium service from Spotify.

It's among the greatest services I've ever used. At least it's just as useful as my internet connection itself. It's a great hit when you are at a party and you can build a playlist or look up artists that other people want to hear etc. It's simply wonderful.

Posted by: Markus | June 15, 2009 2:15 PM

Great .let me try if it 's free Music sure ..!

Posted by: led screen | June 15, 2009 11:09 PM

Might be worth mentioning that the deal between Virgin UK and Universal is based on stricter sanctions on the part of Virgin aimed at torrent users شاتات خليجية

Posted by: دردشه | July 3, 2009 6:33 AM