Spotify on steroids?

I hate it that I have to use Win Media Player or iTunes to play the tracks that are not available on Spotify but that I have on my hard disc. Couldn't Spotify change the player so it could access the local music library as well. I would do it so that when you search for something to listen to it would first check the local library and if it's not there only then use their library. As a user experience this would be great, one stop shop for all the music. Still they could provide the editorial content ie. the biography of the bands/artists they don't have in their catalogues.

This way it wouldn't cost them that much to provide the service as currently people are using Spotify also to listen to tracks they already have on their hard discs. Avoiding the cost associated would make sense.

But then again, from the user experience point of view this is not needed if Spotify someday plans to have pretty much all the music in the world in their catalogue. :)

Roberta from Spotify

I've been using Spotify now for quite some time and I like it more now than when I first wrote about it. Perhaps 70% of my music listening is now on Spotify. If I don't take into account music I listen to from the radio in car, then the percentage probably is close to 90%.
I even use it to listen to music that I have already on the hard drive. But why is it like that, why do I use it so much? It's the user experience, the UI is very nice, there is no lag, and the editorial content is vey good. When you add to that the huge music collection, there you have it, an offer you can't turn down.

But I still must bitch about the scrobbling. It just won't work on all the computers I'm using and I really want to have my music listening history on Last.fm. And where's the S60 client that they demoed already some weeks ago?

I read earlier today that Spotify is facing serious financial challenges and that within a year they would need to shut down. This is unless they manage to lure more paying premium customers as the ad based model doesn't bring in enough money. This would be fortunate but still I won't pay for the premium account as I can live with the ads and can even live without Spotify. Besides I want to hear the lovely voice of "Roberta from Spotify" every now and then.
So Spotify, if you want to get more premium users you should get a less nice voice with less likeable face behind it to read your premium account ads. :-)

Qstock...I can hardly wait for it

Allright, it's time for the local Qstock festival again next weekend. It'll be fantastic to go there to see great gigs from great bands on Friday and Saturday. There's an excellent set of bands on the menu this year, go check it out yourself if you don't take it from me: http://www.qstock.org/2008/index.php?sivu=bandit.
On Friday I'm especially looking forward to see Mokoma, Poets Of the Fall and Manic Street Preachers. It'll be also interesting to catch Sahara Hotnights.
Saturday's setting on the main stage is at least as interesting as Friday's. I just love PMMP live. I've seen the 3 times so far. Kotiteollisuus is also one of my big favorites although I haven't seen them live before. And the main act on Saturday, Within Temptation will be interesting as well although I havent' really listened to their music much. Stam1na will be on "Rantalava" stage and that's definetly a must see. I'll also try to catch part of Jippu's gig.

Keep Rockin'!!!

Going to Concerts in the Bay Area

In past few weeks I saw two big tours in Mountain View Shoreline Amphitheater. The place itself is quite nice for concerts. And what I love about US is that you can have your beer wherever you go in the concert area (the same goes with sports events). In Finland there are dedicated areas for drinking in both music and sports events.

The two concerts I saw were Ozzfest and Projekt Revolution Tour. I had lawn tickets for both of those concerts as I was late in getting the tickets, better seats were already gone. I must say that in the future I have to consider twice before going to concert to the Amphitheater if I don't get a good seat. The lawn is so far away from the stage that it's difficult to see much anything, especially as the lawn is not steep enough to see over other people. And the volume of the music up there is also quite low.

In comparing these two events I have to say Ozzfest was better. Although I preferred the bands in Proj Rev Tour over the one's in Ozzfest, the atmosphere was far better in Ozzfest...people were more involved. I think this was partly due to the fact that in Ozzfest the volume of the music was at least a bit louder up in the lawn. But then comparing these two events to any major Rock festival in Finland I was amazed on how small video screens these guys had. I mean they were the size of a stamp! There would've been room for screens at least three times the size of the one's used.

I shot some video from the concerts. Here are the best shots of the main acts and organizers of those two tours.
Linkin Park:


Ozzy Osbourne: