For many of you Europeans out there, you may be familiar with the service @Spotify. It’s a no-nonsense online music streaming service. What sets this service apart from services like Last.fm and Pandora, is first, the catalog, and second, and most importantly, it’s a true on-demand music service.
Spotify is available in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain and France. It currently comes in three flavors: Free, Day Pass, and Premium. The paid services play music without ad interruptions (although I have yet to hear or see one; I assume they play in-between tracks). Their catalog is quite impressive, which seems on par with iTunes in size and scope. For you Lindy DJs out there, the entire Complete Jazz Series is available for streaming.
Unfortunately, if you’re in the States, you can’t technically sign up for the service, but there is a workaround for that until it’s official:
1. Visit http://www.azproxies.com/proxy-lists/ and find a proxy site at any of the aforementioned countries (I personally chose a French one, since I have a thing for French pop).
2. Once you’ve found an appropriate web-based proxy, enter in the site field: https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/. It will ask you some basic sign-up questions; note that you need to pick a zipcode from the country of your proxy (Google search for one).
3. Download the application for your OS, install, run and you’re all set!