The second best thing to happen to music ...

... since the drummer ;-)

OK, I Shlogged a while back about how Spotify changed my music listening (and spending!) habits almost overnight.  I stand by that.  I believe Spotify was, and is, the poster boy for how we consume music in the 21st century.

But it's not perfect.

I know nothing is, but I'll point out the flaws in case you haven't picked-up on them yourself.

Your existing music collection is null and void.

I'm not talking about your 300 or so vinyl albums, quietly warping and demagnetising in your parents attic (oops, that's me!).  No, what I'm saying is your existing CD, mp3, iTunes, Amazon, etc. music collection is not compatible with Spotify.  Spotify doesn't want it, doesn't want to know about it, and couldn't care less what digital rights you've already invested in (there is an exception, but I'll come to that later).

You can share, but you can't Share ...

You can share playlists, songs, whatever via the usual social media channels.  One of your buddies clicks on it and it with either fire-up in Spotify or, if they don't have it, it should open up in the free Spotify web client.
All well and good.  But if you want to share your account with, say, your other half.  Spotify gets a little piqued about it.  Some would say that's fair enough, but I'm not talking about all 20 of your buddies using the same account, I'm talking about two people who are occupying the same space, household, car, speakers sharing an account for the convenience of my other half using her phone, rather than mine - which is navigating us in the car, to play some music via bluetooth over the car stereo .... or some similar scenario I'm sure you can think of.

The big guys from Sweden are clamping down on this.  If you have more than three devices logging-on to the same account, the last ones to login will find their playlists unsynchronised and deleted.  Harsh.  And if you don't log-in for 20 days, you will find your playlists unsynchronised and deleted.  Harsh.

Updates and New Features are slow to come

Spotify has come a long way, with a fairly low budget for a big part of it's life.  It has led the field, but despite those years of spearheading and the (almost) unlimited cash they have now - it feels like they are running out of steam. 

I watch other, similar, services get more and more features, faster and faster than poor old Spotify can keep up with.  Can you believe you can't re-order a playlist on the mobile device, or repeat a song?  Just some of the features that other services take for granted, but are sadly missing.  The whole market is accelerating along with smartphone and tablet growth, but Spotify seem to be stuck on a timeline they developed four years ago and haven't updates since.  Shame.


Anyway, this niggling feeling that the pioneer of streaming music may be losing it's sheen, has prompted me to check-out one of their main competitors.

Google Play Music All Access

Google Play Music All Access is a stupidly long title for a service.  A clear indication that Google is a company of engineers, not marketeers!  But let's hope they fix that minor detail soon ;-)

In use, there really isn't too much to say about the service.  That doesn't mean it isn't good, rather than that it just works!  

I kinda had the jump really, because all of my MP3 collection was already uploaded, I had just never used it much.  ANYONE can upload up to 20,000 songs to Google Play Music completely free of charge.  You have access to them via the various clients or web browsers.  You can sync them and play even if you don't have an Internet connection, or you can stream them in real time.  You are also free to buy any songs you like from Google Play and they don't even count toward your 20,000 song limit.

What the 'All Access' bit gives you in addition, is essentially Spotify.
In addition to all the above (free) shizzle, you get to rent Google's vast library alongside your own.  Like Spotify, all the time you pay your tenner a month, you get to keep their music, on and offline, streaming, and interactive radio stations.

In practice, if you search for a song and add it to a playlist, if you have it in the songs you already own, it comes from there.  If it only exists in Google's library, it will come from there instead.  If you want to 'own' a track permanently, you can buy it and it just gets added to your personal library.

I suspect in the background there's an immense de-duplication engine that ensures only one copy of a given song is stored on Google's servers at one time, but we don't need to know about that.  My songs belong to me and I can rent Google's songs indefinitely for £10 a month.

The phone and tablet clients are very good and I can't find any features missing.  The webclient is ... much like any other of Google's web clients.  Simple, functional, intuitive.  I like the fact that my fairly extensive music library is finally getting used, and that Google store and stream it to me whenever I like, free of charge.  I can also shop on Amazon (or anywhere) for MP3s and when I download them to my PC's music folder, Google notices and adds it to my Play Music collection.  Nice.
The music selection seems a little better too.  I guess Google have a bit more muscle when it comes to contract negotiation, because I have found some (not ridiculously obscure) artists on Google Music that I never did find on Spotify.

I'll continue running the two side-by-side for a while (there is a 30-day free trial of Google Play Music All Access running at the moment.  But whilst there isn't a massive difference between Spotify and Google Play, the 'open format' of Google's may just give it the edge for me ....