As an avid Spotify user, I have been very impressed with the type and quality and service they provide. With the access to more than 13 million songs, I have been making many play-lists lately which include a lot of foreign music More specifically, what really impressed me was how much Romanian music (rap, rock, traditional, etc.) is available. Since my recent trip, I've been craving some of its musical stylings and Spotify has helped me a great deal to find other related music - especially through the new related artists feature.
The artist radio stream is similar to the Pandora service, except you get to listen to and browse by musical genre. I'm not a premium member, mainly because momentarily I don't have a need to sync and stream music offline from my mobile, and don't have a huge preference for the higher bit rate (320kbps) especially since not all songs are available in this format. According to Wikipedia only about 30% of songs are. (That's why YouTube streaming or a simple Google search is handy if I really need to hear certain songs right now.)
One thing thought that caught my attention about Spotify Premium is access to exclusive content such as: info about albums before release, and ability to enter contests to win tickets to live shows and competitions. So, if anything, this would be the thing that wins me over the most about Spotify Premium. However, even though you can download the music and stream it wherever you are, you still don't really own it. It's not like owning a CD or mp3. So, what happens when Spotify goes out of fashion and you played for having all that music "available"?
Is Spotify Premium really worth the 9$ a month? Or should we stick to actually purchasing CD/mp3's?
