Music in motion

Charles Spencer

Wednesday, 13th May 2009

My colleague Alex James (how cool to be able to describe the bassist of Blur as a colleague) briefly mentioned the online music streaming service Spotify a few weeks ago, largely as a means to confessing his tragic addiction to the music of Ray Conniff. Actually, I gave old Ray a listen as a result and, if you like light music, as I do, he’s a good bet, though I think Ted Heath’s even better.

Being a rich-as-Croesus rock star, Alex (get me, Christian names now) subscribes to the £9.99 a month service that allows you to listen without interruption by adverts. But what strikes me as wonderful about Spotify is that you can listen to almost anything you want, for as long as you like, absolutely free if you are prepared to put up with occasional adverts which are short, infrequent and not nearly as irritating as you might expect. In fact they just give you time to let the cat out, take a leak or make a cup of tea.

The record companies allow their music to appear on Spotify because at least it is able to pay them a little cash with the help of the adverts and subscriptions. When 95 per cent of musical downloads on the internet are illegal, a little has got to be better than a great big zero.

There are lacunae. No Beatles, no Pink Floyd, no Led Zeppelin (though, rather touchingly, Spotify offers cover-band versions of songs by acts who decline to appear on the site). Nor does the operation, which began in Sweden, seem totally hip to the more obscure artists especially beloved by this column. The Brian Jonestown Massacre, for instance, are woefully underrepresented. So are the McGarrigle sisters. But Gene Clark’s beautiful No Other is there in all its glory. So are Syd Barrett’s solo albums, and absolutely lashings of the Stones, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding.

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