Spotify, Rdio, MOG, etc.

[The Rick]

Any one use any of these music subscription services?

I've been playing around with both Spotify and Rdio recently and both look interesting. Interesting enough that I'm considering moving away from the old purchase/download method.

The $10/month for desktop + mobile access seems like a good deal. Listen to any song you want, anywhere you are. Basically, your music in the cloud.

I'm trying to decide which one to choose. Spotify supposedly has a larger catalog. Rdio seems to have a slicker UI, both on the desktop and mobile apps. Spotify seems to be more technically sound (heard they use P2P for better streaming experience, for example). Spotify also seems to be more popular, even though it's only been available in the US for a couple of months.

The one thing I don't like about Spotify, that I do like about Rdio, is that Spotify seems to be largely based on playlists. With Rdio, you have playlists, but you also have your "collection". On Spotify, if there's a particular song I want to listen to, I have to find it or search for it in a playlist somewhere. With Rdio, I can just go to my collection, then navigate to the artist, then the album, then the song.

Anyone else use these services?

[DaFace]

I signed up for Spotify Premium a couple months ago. I looked into MOG quite a bit, and was aware of Rdio, but didn't really consider it seriously due to the relatively collection size.

In my brief time looking at MOG, the thing that I liked was that it is more album-oriented than Spotify, which fits a little better with my music listening habits. For example, you can add a favorite artist, album, or song in MOG, where in Spotify, you can only add a "star" for your favorite tracks. I'd rather have the former, personally.

The thing that made me decide to go with Spotify was the apps. MOG's Android app was pretty clunky, and there's no way to even try it without paying for it (where Spotify will at least let you play with the interface and play local files without paying). Also, I like that Spotify runs out of a local app on the computer rather than a web interface, so my play and pause buttons on my media center remote work.

Finally, Spotify has a lot of nice social features, were MOG's are pretty basic. I'm not talking about posting what you're listening to on your wall - I disabled that. But it's nice to be able to send my friends an album to listen to and that kind of thing.

Frankly, I was pretty torn between the two, but ultimately decided on Spotify for 1) the collection size, 2) the mobile apps, 3) the ability to use a full desktop app, and 4) the ability to send tracks to friends.

[The Rick]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I signed up for Spotify Premium a couple months ago. I looked into MOG quite a bit, and was aware of Rdio, but didn't really consider it seriously due to the relatively collection size.

In my brief time looking at MOG, the thing that I liked was that it is more album-oriented than Spotify, which fits a little better with my music listening habits. For example, you can add a favorite artist, album, or song in MOG, where in Spotify, you can only add a "star" for your favorite tracks. I'd rather have the former, personally.

The thing that made me decide to go with Spotify was the apps. MOG's Android app was pretty clunky, and there's no way to even try it without paying for it (where Spotify will at least let you play with the interface and play local files without paying). Also, I like that Spotify runs out of a local app on the computer rather than a web interface, so my play and pause buttons on my media center remote work.

Finally, Spotify has a lot of nice social features, were MOG's are pretty basic. I'm not talking about posting what you're listening to on your wall - I disabled that. But it's nice to be able to send my friends an album to listen to and that kind of thing.

Frankly, I was pretty torn between the two, but ultimately decided on Spotify for 1) the collection size, 2) the mobile apps, 3) the ability to use a full desktop app, and 4) the ability to send tracks to friends.

Cool...thanks for the info.

I'm leaning towards Spotify. Guess I'll just hope that they eventually come up with a way to make it a little more album-friendly. Some people suggest simply creating playlists for each album, but that seems a little kludgy to me.

I have noticed that in the desktop app, they do have a "Library" view, which lets you sort by song, artist, album, etc. Sort of like iTunes. Any song you "star" or add to a playlist automatically shows up there. If they could just include that Library view in the mobile app, that would make a huge difference in my opinion.

[DaFace]

Yeah, you can also toggle "album list view" for any playlist under the view menu, so that gets a little closer to what I'm looking for. I'd really prefer they allow you to have a real, live list of all of the artists in your library line-by-line, and the same with albums.

The search function is also pretty lacking. You can do advanced searches like "track:XXX artist:XXX," but you wouldn't think it would take much to actually add an advanced search dialog of some sort.

My hope is just that, now that they've grown a ton from launching in the U.S., they'll have some extra resources to improve the UI a bit.

[DaFace]

One thing I'll mention that's a little odd about having a subscription music service is that it has an impact on HOW you listen to music. In other words, when I purchase an album, I listen to it front-to-back over and over again for a while after I buy it since it's the only thing "new" that I have to listen to.

With Spotify, I can listen to literally anything I want. So, while I have a much wider variety of music to listen to, I find it harder in a way to REALLY get into an album. It's kind of an odd side-effect.

[Taco John]

I'm on Spotify Premium and the apps are what did it for me. To have it on my two phones and on my desktop. Perfect. I've had a couple issues with it. I am very disappointed that Def Leppard's catalogue of albums isn't in there. I don't know why, but I've been in a Def Leppard mood lately, and they only have the live album. Oh well.

I have to say, overall I'm very happy with it and will continue to pay for premium indefinitely. I wish it was more "collection" oriented as well, but I suspect the service will evolve based on customer feedback, so I'll be patient.

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by DaFace

One thing I'll mention that's a little odd about having a subscription music service is that it has an impact on HOW you listen to music. In other words, when I purchase an album, I listen to it front-to-back over and over again for a while after I buy it since it's the only thing "new" that I have to listen to.

With Spotify, I can listen to literally anything I want. So, while I have a much wider variety of music to listen to, I find it harder in a way to REALLY get into an album. It's kind of an odd side-effect.

I think it depends on personal habits. I listen to music mostly when I'm playing SC2, and so I'll find an album I want to listen to and put it on repeat while I play.