Sky Songs has been nine months in the making, and finally launches on Monday. We’ve had an early preview, and after stuffing our ears with its sonic goods can report it’s a clear challenger to Spotify. OK, it’s not free, but it does offer several features not found in Spotify’s arsenal. Read on, and see why Sky Songs could have enough tricks up its sleeve to become the new sultan of streaming.
1. Sky Songs is web-based
Spotify is a fantastic service, but it has one fatal flaw: you need to use the Spotify application to access its musical treasure trove. That means, for most people, they’re unable to use it at work. PCs and Macs that’re locked-down by corporate IT departments can’t tap into Spotify’s streaming sounds, but because Sky Songs works through any web browser, it’s always available… unless your miserly IT team block its URL.
2. Sky Songs recommends music
Spotify’s monster music library is all well and good, but the green-hued song server doesn’t do much to guide you through it. Sure, it has its own radio stations, but there’s nothing to suggest new music you’ve never heard before, and unless you’ve got musically-minded mates it’s unlikely you’ll be sent a killer playlist any time soon.
Sky Songs does the exact opposite to Spotify: when you fire up its interface you’ll see playlists created by its team of music journos. They range from introductions to new genres to topical playlists, such as memorial collections for recently deceased celebs. Sky Songs also includes a recommendation engine, powered by Gracenote, which will react to the songs you’re hearing with a decent suggestion of other tracks you might like.
3. You can choose your favourite Sky Songs
You can build playlists in Sky Songs, but you can also mark your favourite songs with a simple heart icon. Once you’ve picked a few favourites, the service will collate them for you, putting all your favourite artists in one place, as well as your most-loved genres and albums. Think of it as an auto-playlist generator, it’s much quicker than building a list of songs by hand, and means all your favourite sounds are just a couple of clicks away.
4. Sky can build a playlist as you listen
With millions of tracks at your fingertips it’s easy to get side-tracked, listening to snippets here and there without allowing a song to finish but Sky Songs has a neat system called Live Playlist. You can add tracks to its running order as it’s playing through. It’s a bit like the Enqueue system in Winamp, letting you build a playlist as you mooch through the library, or allowing party guests to add their own choices and use Sky Songs like a virtual jukebox.
Sky Songs launch date revealed
5. Sky Songs integrates with iTunes and Windows Media Player
Sky Songs doesn’t just stream music, you can use it to buy tracks to own too. They’re downloaded as DRM-free MP3 files, and will even drop into the correct place on your computer for iTunes and Windows Media Player to find them.
When you first set up your Sky Songs account, you’ll be asked which music management software you use. From then on, all your downloads will automatically appear in your existing music library, ready to be synced to your iPod, iPhone or MP3 player.
6. It offers more, for less
This is a biggie, and will certainly be the decider for some people: Spotify is already under pressure from cheaper streaming services, and Sky Songs increases the competition even more. It’s offering unlimited streaming from £6.49 a month which also gives you one £6.49 album or 10 tracks to download and keep. Compare that to Spotify’s £9.99 price tag, with no extras included.
[...] alternatives like Sky Songs looking to steal some of that musical spotlight (and doing a good job according to Electric Pig), it won’t be long before the airwaves become more than a little crowded in the home and on [...]
Wow James, how much of a backhander did you take from Murdoch for this sensationalist rubbish? You can build a playlist and add favourites? Welcome to any music player post 2000, including Spotify. It costs 6.49 for a cheapo selection of albums per month and streaming. Plus this is sky, a company that already charges it’s customers to watch adverts that make up about 25% of its TV content. Do we really believe that the power mad wrinkley Australian one is going to make this service ad free? Dream on.
How about you balance your journalism a bit, rather than sucking up to Murdoch. Or try living by Republic’s Building Lasting Trust metric? Suffice to say if this standard continues I won’t be bothering with your groups websites again.
Hey Miniloops, thanks for the reply, but you’re a bit wide of the mark. We’ve been massive fans of Spotify since it launched (see any of the glowing articles here: http://www.electricpig.co.uk/tag/spotify) so I don’t think you can claim we’re being biased… However, Sky Songs shows that there’s still plenty of room for innovation and Spotify is a long way from having every feature licked.
If you can point out any of the above features working in Spotify today I’ll hapilly correct them. The fact is Sky’s £6.49 is cheaper than Spotify, and it has agreements with every major and most indie labels. This isn’t a “cheapo selection of albums” and there are no ads, either audible or visual, on Sky Songs. You’d know that if you’d used it. I’d suggest you check your own facts before questionning ours.
The real point is this: Streaming music services are still very new. There are a lot of new ideas being tried by a lot of new providers. It’s still too early to say whether Sky Songs or Spotify (or Napster, or We7 for that matter) is “the best” but these are six valid ways Sky’s product outperforms Spotify. Now, nobody’s going to force you to stop using Spotify, but we thought you might like to know what other options are around. Toodle pip!
Point four is available in Spotify if you right-click a track and hit “queue”. The service also partners with 7digital to offer MP3s (again, in the right-click menu), which takes out 5 (though you might argue it doesn’t do it as smoothly).
There’re some things here I really wish Spotify did. Recommending music is a massive one for me – Spotify will scrobble my songs to Last.fm, but won’t suggest anything new?! What’s up with that?
I’m with James on this. Spotify is revolutionary, but there’s more it could do. I’m also getting really pissed off with their ads. OK, they need to make money, but why the sudden increase in ads (on screen and audio)? Do they suddenly need to make more money or something? If so, maybe they should start charging for the iPhone app or something, rather than peenalising those of us who have stuck with it from the very beginning.
I hadn’t even considered the Last.fm stuff: that’s a very good point. Surely Spotify could pull suggestions in from your Last.fm account at the same time as scrobbling out to it? Now you mention it, it does seem a bit of an odd thing to miss.
I’ll never give Murdoch my money (and I’m not sold on live playlists) but seconded: Spotify’s ads suck and it seems lots of other people can do the same service for less than a tenner.
Napster say they’d have to charge around £10 a month for mobile streaming, and that’s because there’s a premium placed upon it by the labels. That’s food for thought. They reckon it’s too much, which is why they’re sticking with the desktop version and delaying iPhone streaming etc until the prices come down enough to make it a mass market product: http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2009/10/08/napster-iphone-app-confirmed/
Spotify’s radio/randomizer feature is a major weakpoint in an otherwise quality service. It’s slowly pushing playlist sharing features on ads, but it’s still not making a song and dance about them so Sky could have the edge here. I’ve yet to try Sky Songs, but I suspect I won’t be using it so much simply because it’s web based (I have Spotify running with pop ups on Growl on Mac OS X) and I’m lucky enough to be able to install Spotify on my work computer. But the more competition the better for innovation, I say.
RE Spotify ads: I don’t really begrudge them that. They have to pay the bills. But I wish people would stop making such annoying ads. I heard one for 50 Cent’s self-help motivational audio book the other day. And one with Zane Lowe, so that’s an automatic fail.
[...] Sky Songs: Six ways it gives Spotify a spanking It’s partnered with Holy Moly and Popjustice to provide music news, features and themed playlists. They serve as a gentle hand-holding into the world of unlimited music, but it doesn’t stop there. Sky Songs has a recommendation engine, something sadly lacking from Spotify, so it’ll serve up music you’re more likely to enjoy based on what you already listen to. [...]
I have to say as much as I love Spotify, the ads are getting way too invasive. Two at a time and often advertising albums for shonky artists, they’re a million miles from the old “Hi, I’m Roberta from Spotify” efforts.
I do like Napster’s idea of getting tracks to keep. I’ve just done some work around the future of the industry and the chaps at Music Ally reckon this model will be the way forward. I think the editorial angle on Sky Songs is a cute move too. Music fans love reading about music. I know I do. Chuck in some well written reviews and you’re laughing.
I just like that it’s a gentle guide into finding more music. It’s not rammed down your throat, but it’s there if and when you want it. I always end up listening to the same stuff on Spotify, not because there’s no choice, but because I get tired of aimlessly searching for artists I’ve vaguely heard of in the hope of finding something new.
I know that feeling. Same old stuff because I don’t know where to start!
I agree there can be a feeling of paralysis through too much choice. I suggest you look for a book like 1001 albums you should hear before you die and work your way through that or go to metacritic.com and look at their end of year lists etc.
Ah, but what about new music? The stuff that’s come out since the book was published, or since Metacritic’s lists? I really don’t want to have to research this stuff – the providers should make it simple for me to stumble into new music.
Yup. Or just look at Sky Songs website and use its recommendations on Spotify!
1) Spotify Premium is available on both the iPhone and Android. So you are not completely tethered. If Sky Songs is streaming then I suspect more corporate IT depts will block it anyway.
2) Agreed. Spotify needs recommendations and it could probably integrate with Last.fm to provide this. It also needs better playlist management and a playlist search feature -why let external sites like sharemyplaylists do that?
3) So what? I can put my favourite songs in a playlist if I want to.
4) I must be missing something but I can build playlists whilst playing any songs on Spotify.
5) You can buy songs from both iTunes & 7Digital on Spotify.
6) Since I started using Spotify premium I have barely felt the need to download songs so it isn’t a big incentive to me. I suspect Spotify will have to react to the pricing on both Napster and Sky. If we are looking for more for less where do you stand on services like deezer.com & we7.com which both offer free streaming through the browser?
I use the recommendations from http://www.discovermymuse.com and then use eMusic for downloading the DRM free tracks I want (15 bucks for 35 tracks a month). EMusic’s own recommendations are just okay, not that good (supplied by MediaUnbound) — I’ve tried them all and will gladly use any service to introduce me music I want (ambient/cliqhouse/IDM/jazz, etc.)
The way Discover My Muse works is that it finds “mavens” within 1.2 million Amazon reviewers (muses) for each user to deliver recommendations from 650,000 Amazon MP3 albums. The concept works. I should know – I’m the CEO of Discover My Network (www.discovermy.net), the recommender system provider behind DMM (we’re just coming out) I’ll let you know what I think of SKY’s recommendations, although it sounds like purely a “similarity” engine and not true “discovery”. Cheers… Gary
[...] just upped its game ahead of Sky Songs‘ launch on Monday, making it simpler and quicker to buy tracks you like from within the app [...]
Spotify rocks!!
Sky Songs is glorious gift from Murdoch to…
Muppets!
Step 1 – BSB launches a satellite TV service (Step 1 – Spotify launches a music service)
Step 2 – Murdoch’s Sky TV fails to attract advertisers so buys into BSB. They eventually merge but with Murdoch the major shareholder.
Step 3 – Murdoch charges a small sub for viewers to watch football (which the BBC previously showed for free).
Step 4 – Subs for football go up to (is it £45 per month), Test match cricket is swallowed up too (which the BBC also showed for free). Six Nations rugger goes the same way.
So how long will it be before Spotify is dead and buried, Murdoch buys into iTunes and we’re left paying £30 a month for music?
The difference is this time the number of contenders (and free ones too) like Napster, Rhapsody, Pandora (in the US), Spotify and We7. Bring on the competition!
[...] the subscription charge Sky Songs asks for, or the constant audio interruptions you face on free Spotify or We7. Microsoft says there are no plans to take the service mobile, but even without, we [...]
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Tut Tut… Hope you’re masking that IP address then…