Spotify is now in the Philippines

Image by Spotify (Perszone van Spotify) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Music has been innate in each of us since pre-school days. You may not be the best singer in town, but I'm sure that those set of toes must have tapped on it own along with your muted hums. As for me, my golden singing voice only comes on mornings and goes away as soon as I put back the shower head on its place haha. Anyway, I discovered a great way to experience music, all for free via Spotify.

Review of Spotify:

As I scrolled down Spotify's website, the experience reminded me of browsing for my favorite albums in our old family tower of CDs. CDs have now been replaced with digital tracks in our PCs, tablets, smart phones, and music gadgets, eliminating clutter in our rooms. 

My mom is a big fan of Teresa Teng, The Carpenters, Abba, Air Supply; all of her favorite songs were spotified! I even found my kindergarten dance song, “天下的妈妈都是一样的" (All mothers are the same). Spotify really boast of its 24 million songs and counting. So go ahead, I challenge you to ask your grandma's favorite song, even your great grandma's and search it in Spotify's song database.

When comparing Spotify to other music channels that are available in the Philippines like iTunes and Torrent:

•  iTunes is usually on a per song basis, $0.69/0.99/1.29 per song. Only 1 medium quality is available.
• Torrent, contains FLAC versions of the songs, but this is most likely illegal.

What I like about spotify is that there is NO long waiting time for all your tracks to download and then filter which versions have the best audibility. If you're a bit of an old school, then there is no more tuning needed for your favorite music channel in the radio. It's as if you're using YouTube on a radio component. I can just type my kind of music, singer, song title, or mood and listen.

Spotify also comes with a premium version which is offered at a 3rd world county rate of 129 PHP/month (about 3 USD) which is really really affordable compared to our more developed neighbors. Spotify is 48 HKD (6.19 USD) in Hong Kong, 9.9 SGD (7.93 USD) in Singapore. The version I am trying out is the free version that has a limited skipping chances - pardon my channel surfing syndrome (-_-) - I found that free Spotify version only allows me to use skip button for 6 times per hour to get to the next track. If you don't have CSS, then there's no problem. By the way, the free version is ad supported, ads will pop up after a certain number of minutes. The good news is that, the PC version of Spotify does not have the 6 skip limit. However, audio quality is limited to 192 kbps and it is also Ad supported.

If you're an audiophile, this service might not be up to your standards. Buying your own CD and ripping it to uncompressed formats like FLAC, WAV, etc. is still better. But if you're like me, who wants to have all kinds of music (including the latest ones) with freedom to personalize and find your special kind of music, then Spotify is perfect for you.

Download Spotify on your Desktop via following steps:

Go to: https://www.spotify.com/ph/

Download Spotify installer and save to a preferred pathfile

Run the installer and it will automatically run as a free version

Login and start listening

For Android and IOS users:

Go to the playstore or appstore

Download the Spotify App

Sign in using your Spotify or Facebook account and start listening

Based on the Globe website,  GoSurf Mobile Plan will have bundled access to Spotify just by subscribing to the said plans:

Prepaid Subscribers:

• GoSurf 10 -  10MB for 24 hours (unlimited spotify streaming of free version)

Postpaid Subscribers:

• GoSurf 299 - 700MB for 30 days (premium spotify access)
• GoSurf 999 - 5GB for 30 days (premium spotify access)

Note: Spotify does not consume the allotted MB of the mobile plans.

Let's wait for the official launch of these plans on April 13, 2014.

Likes:

Webpage design is revolutionary and refreshing.

Good quality of music with wide accessibility.

Unlimited music database.

Dislikes:

Randomly popping ads (free version).

Only Shuffle Play is allowed (mobile free version).

Price:

For the free version, it's for Free!!

Subscribe with the premium version for only 129.00 PHP/month

Globe users on the new GoSurf plans will have access to premium service

Visit https://www.spotify.com/ph/ for more information.

Happy Sound Tripping.

Link next Article on Spotify Updates