Experimenting with Spotify

I’ve been using Spotify Premium and nothing else to play music on my phone for the last three weeks.  It’s great having unlimited access to such a comprehensive catalogue of music, but there’s something psychologically meaningful about actually purchasing music that I miss.  It puts a stake in the ground that reminds you and anyone else that this band or this album means something to you.  I felt the same way when iTunes replaced physical albums; the act of buying music felt less meaningful with mp3s than it did with CDs.

With Spotify, part of the problem lies in the UI/UX of the mobile app: if it functioned less like a buggy music search engine and more like a slick music player, I’d probably feel more connected to the music catalogue I had created.  Hopefully the next version of the app addresses this; if it doesn’t, I’ll gladly be the lame dude who switches back to the old-fashioned iPod app.