Update about Spotify

So I have now been using Spotify for about a week after sumarily deserting Rhapsody (no stickyness at all!) Here's my summary:

Pro Spotify

  • Has a nice downloadable client on Mac which I can launch from the Dock

  • I seem to be discovering some new music from non-American Jazz artists. Not sure this is a credit to Spotify or just luck

Neutral

  • Exactly the same price

  • Apparently equally large catalogs

Against Spotify

  • Relies purely on an obscure search syntax (e.g. "genre:"Piano Jazz") to search genres

  • Does not have ratings based on genres - i.e. top downloads or new this week in Classical.

  • Has a confusing relationship with iTunes. Why does it offer me to 'download' my iTunes and make it available 'offline'? iTunes already does this on iPhone

  • No way to know what 'genres' it actually knows about beyond the obvious: "Classical" and so on. Is there "Singer Songwriter"? Is there "New Orleans Jazz"? No idea.

Jury is still out for me…