Spotify!

I'm considering this a public service announcement about something awesome. If you're nice enough to read my blog (one comment in total, and this makes sixteen posts, so I'm assuming there aren't too many of you), you deserve something awesome that you might not find out about otherwise.

And that something is Spotify. It's a music service that's popular in Scandinavia, and technically not available in the US, and invitation-only everywhere that it is available, with the exception of the UK. But, I'm about to tell you how to get around that, after I rave about its awesomeness a little more.

Spotify is a downloadable program that functions a little like iTunes, except the music isn't downloaded, but streamed to your computer. You can make playlists, share them with people, and just listen to music, and almost everything I searched for was available. I'm using it as my main way to listen to music right now. It's ad-supported, with audio ads every few songs, but they're generally short (and British! which is exciting.), and there's an ad banner at the bottom of the screen (but since I'm assuming you don't stare at your music player while you listen, you probably won't notice that). You can pay for a premium version, if you want, which, among other features, is ad-free.

Anyway, if you're interested, you're now wondering how you, as an American or Canadian or Colombian or Indonesian or whatever you are, can get this awesome application now, instead of waiting for it to be available in your country (which they say it will be soon, for Americans, but you don't want to wait that long).

Well, first you have to sign up for an account. Since you probably don't have an invitation, you should pretend to be British for the sign-up procedure. You'll have to go through a UK proxy, and you can find a long list of proxies by country here. Go to one of the UK sites, and visit this URL: https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/. Sign up for an account. You'll need a UK postcode; just use W1T 1BQ. Which is located on Tottenham Court Road in London, in case you care. Anyway, once you've got an account, close the proxy, and from your normal web browser address bar, visit this link and download the desktop application. You'll have to provide your login information when you open and install it. 


And then, voila! You're connected! 


Since you'll be logging on from a country other than the one in your profile, you may have to log in to the Spotify website from a UK proxy every two weeks, but it's a small hassle to keep your account. I'd say it's worth it, for all that free music! 


Enjoy. 


Information gathered from lots of internet research, including the Royal Mail website, TechCrunch, and Spotify itself.