Playing with Spotify

I know I have compared Spotify and Pandora in the past and so I don't need to do that again. I am currently doing a project at work that ties in data from Spotify. Any time I look at data, I try to use the tool that generated it so I am more familiar with where it comes from. While normally I like to listen to Pandora, I have spent the last week and a half listening to Spotify.

Ultimately we are all prefer using tools we know. As I have more experience with Pandora, that is pretty much what I have stuck to. I felt like Spotify was way more complicated and felt like it took way too long to get configured correctly. Part of that is because I didn't understand how playlists are created. With Pandora, I could pick my favorite band and similar music from other artists automatically appears on the channel. With Spotify, only that group's music is on the channel. What I ended up doing was listening to one group for a while, selecting my favorite songs, and having them added to my "favorites" channel. Then I would do the same thing with another group. Once I felt like I had enough music, I could listen to just my "favorites" playlist.

While that is one way to create your own playlist on Spotify, it isn't the only way. Yesterday I discovered that I could just search for my favorite songs and add them without having to wait for them to appear. Now I can just think of a song I like and instantly add it to my favorites. That is a big win for me as I don't like every single song from my favorite groups. Let's be honest, some songs do not illustrate the best talent of certain bands. I watched an interview with Eddie Van Halen once and he admitted that he hated playing "Dance the Night Away" and just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible every time it came up at a concert. So I guess I am not alone in this area.

There is a problem with only listening to your favorite songs: your list never grows because you never hear anything new. I guess the solution is to try other playlists every so often. While I generally only listen to artist-specific lists, they do have general categories as well. I'm not a fan of popular music and so I will avoid those.

After a week and a half of listening to Spotify, I have it set up with the right songs currently. Unfortunately I ran into a technical issue this morning during my daily bike ride. I rode indoors because of the rain and like to listen to music when I am not outside. I started Spotify only to have it freeze on me. I restarted the application only to have the same problem. I tried a number of fixes but ultimately went back to Pandora for my morning ride. The sad thing is I prefer Spotify now as my playlist is perfectly dialed in. Oh well.