Grooveshark

Search is as simple as any standard web search engine

I have written about Spotify, and discussed it a lot in 2009. Basically, the service allows users to stream almost any song, album or artist catalog online, for free. The caviat is that you get an advert every 30minutes, and to remove these ads you can pay a €10/month subscription.

Sounds great, and in reality it is great but the service is not available in Ireland. My girlfriend has been studying up in Belfast, so by having her log in up there I can access Spotify down here, but it will throw up an exception error each time saying I’m only on a travel pass that will expire after 14 days. When she returns to Dublin for good in December, I’ll have to use a proxy to login to Spotify to get my 14 day lee-way.

It is a true pain in the arse, and the record industry continues to make people bend over backwards to legitimately hear new music. I would gladly pay a small subscription to listen to unlimited amounts of music, or even hear an advert. It removes the farce that is radio in Ireland from the equation and lets me discover new music every single day as well as build up a nice community of people exposing new and interesting artists through public playlists. All legitimately. Instead, to find new music and not go broke, it’s hard to think of an alternative as easy, reliable and friendly as illegal torrent downloading. This is convenient, easy and free – but also robs money from artists, labels and the associated economic factors.

Enter Grooveshark, a relatively new service akin to Spotify, along the same lines as LastFM (which is not free in Ireland), Deezer (free, French-run service that works very well, too), Pandora (restricted outside of the US) or any other alternative.

Search results look just like iTunes

I’ve started using Gooveshark of late to compensate for the fact that I’ll probably have to jump through hoops to use Spotify.

The first issue with it is that it’s web-based, and only works through the browser. Which is a shame as a stand-alone player would be nice. The website itself is very functional and nice looking, and I’ve never been the victim to lag or crashes with the flash-10 powered engine, but it’s still nice to have a desktop app to use.

A huge advantage to the web-based interface is that it’s entirely free, legal and commercial free. There are ads on the site, but like any other site, you can choose to ignore them. Also, if you do decide to upgrade to a “VIP” account (which gets rid of ads), it only costs about €3/month, which is a lot more palatable then the cost of Spotify or similar services.

There is a social-network idea behind the system too, which is fantastic. For example, users can compile playlists to share – and just like Spotify, these playlists can be shared to other users with a simple URL, and unlike Spotify, all you need as a browser and flash, which let’s face it, everyone has.

I did notice some exceptions to their list of available songs. It’s diverse, don’t get me wrong, but unlike every other service, Gooveshark finds itself in a strange position with regard to the way-too-over-rated and up their own arse music of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Grooveshark has these artists while Spotify and others don’t, as a result, if you want to hear these for free with easy convenience & don’t use Grooveshark, you have to illegally download them. -1 to the record industry, +1 to mans ability to diversify where business men won’t. Your bands aren’t that good that they should be held on a separate mantle to other musicians. Get with the times.

The system also has automatic playlisting services, called “Radio”, which will create a playlist based on what you’ve been listening to, and it works really well.

At a recent birthday party, we had a crappy system for CDs, and a limited selection of songs. So, the resolution for in-house DJ type entertainment? Grooveshark. Leaving my Macbook Pro sitting on the table with the search bar prominent, anyone could go up, search for a track and add it to the playlist. This meant a huge variety of tracks were played as well as keeping everyone very, very happy. It worked amazingly, didn’t glitch, stutter or crash once. An absolute gem of a site.

So, Grooveshark is very comprehensive, free users get unlimited listening with banner ads and it all runs in a beautifully clean user interface that simply works. It’s a tried and tested UI formula that anyone with iTunes or similar applications for sorting music will be more then aware of.

After using Spotify and Grooveshark, I prefer Grooveshark but I wish they had a desktop application to keep me happy, and maybe an iPhone app that works over 3G. I would gladly pay a subscription for that! Of course, on that note, if you’re a Mac user, you can create a faux-desktop app with its own icon and everything thanks to Fluid, which creates desktop-based apps based on web services and sites.

Player bar is nice and neat

So, is it worth switching from another service? Absolutely, especially if you’re paying for said service. Power to the people, etc. Also, Grooveshark seems to be run by a dedicated bunch of people who aren’t out to sell their site, or screw over the users in exchange for music catalog-pimping… which often ends up being the feeling when discussing Spotify. But we will see where the future goes. The developers reckon they’ll have better facebook integration as well as desktop-based applications at some point soon. No doubt I’ll update whenever they move forward with their excellent service.

Album-art is shown as you listen to a playlist

Why not give it a go – sure it’s free! Head over to listen.grooveshark.com!