The audio streaming platform that the world loves – Spotify – is now in India. The ‘freemium’ service (free but with a paid premium option) is very popular because it offers access to over 40 million tracks instantly and lets you create and share playlists. One could say Yay! Or one could say, ho-hum, yet another music streaming service.
Spotify gives artistes a platform to showcase their music and pays royalties based on the number of streams. Many Indian musicians are happy about Spotify entering India
Listeners loyal to specific artists or just music lovers, in general, are happy that the Swedish based music streaming service is now in India. Where earlier, Indians were known to use pirated versions of the app, they can now legally use Spotify in India.
Some, pathetically so! Spotify has a dedicated bunch of fans and followers because it gives access to a lot of music. My nephew who is a Spotify aficionado tells me that the great thing about Spotify is how the app creates lists curated to one's musical preferences; and how this enhances the experience for music lovers.
So apparently it is the Spotify algorithm that tailors music to your requirements which people love.
Those who have been using Spotify are delighted and feel it is a whole lot better than homegrown streaming apps such as JioSaavn, Gaana and so on.
Some users reported problems with ‘greyed out’ songs that weren’t playing. The songs may be listed but aren’t available for listening.
My daughter is delighted with Spotify; it gave her instant access to all the music she was looking for. Not so for me. I looked for the album Padosan – found all sorts of other ‘padosan’ songs except the songs from the Kishore Kumar film. I looked for Kagaz ke Phool and found one song. I looked for Jethro Tull's music and it was lean pickings. When I looked for Billy Joel I found many albums; all that I needed. Ditto for the Beatles.
There were also some problems with getting the premium paid version say some users. More than one user reported this problem.
There are also some licencing issues that Spotify is currently trying to sort out in India; it is likely that there are teething issues being sorted out as we speak.
This is in in a nutshell. Those who love Spotify probably love the international version. The Indian version is still limited and glitchy by all accounts.
As for me, I have rather wide-ranging music tastes: right now I’m listening to Pooriya Kalyan by Pt Bhimsen Joshi, this evening I will probably want Sting to accompany me on my evening walk, later at night I may want to listen to some Strauss waltzes and maybe tomorrow I want to listen to Kishore Kumar, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Imagine Dragons. Wynk, Gaana and Amazon Music collectively cater to all my needs very well, right now I will give Spotify time to impress me; else its uninstall for me.
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
