Digital music might not have the same allure as sitting down to listen to a record on your turntable, but what it lacks in atmosphere, it makes up for in convenience — especially when you aren't home with your collection.
Finding a specific album or playlist or mood on Spotify is about as enjoyable as doing taxes: The reward can be sweet, but the journey is onerous. This is a guide to using Spotify. To listen to music on the go, download Spotify from the Google Play or Apple app store. Spotify on Android with Google Play Spotify on iOS with the AppStore. To listen on other devices, a separate app may or may not be required, depending on the device. For more information, see how to play on your speakers, car, TV, or games.
It's been five years since Spotify publicly launched and shifted the music industry's focus toward streaming as a way to combat illegal downloading. While the streaming business model is far from perfect, even the most casual music fan should test out streaming while it's still growing.
See also: How Spotify Engineered the New Music Economy
If you're just dipping your toe into the stream, follow our beginner's guide and soon you'll be listening to Spotify's massive library without the worry of losing precious hard drive space. Free app store download for laptop.
Signing Up
As with most services, you can register for Spotify by connecting your Facebook account for optimal social features, or create an account with your email address.
Pick the subscription that suits your music habits. The prices are in USD, but the tiers are the same internationally: No cost will get you desktop listening interrupted by ads; $4.99 per month allows for unlimited desktop streaming; users who pay the premium $9.99 per month can listen on all desktop (via desktop app or web player) and mobile devices with offline syncing privileges on mobile (Spotify Radio is the only free mobile feature.)
Users at the premium tier can also listen to music at a higher bit rate, which is essential for anyone who has quality headphones or earbuds.
Image: Spotify
Before you start listening, check your preferences and privacy settings to make sure you are sharing as much or as little with the world as you'd like. If you connected your Spotify to Facebook but don't want to broadcast your tunes on your News Feed, uncheck the Facebook sharing option. Leave the Spotify sharing section checked to show up in your followers' feeds — this amplifies Spotify's social music discovery potential.
This page is important because you can choose whether or not to make your playlists viewable to the public as soon as you start, or make it public on your own terms. Also, you can opt-out of Spotify showing your top artists and tracks on your public profile, if you aren't one to brag about such things. Plus, you can connect your Spotify account to Last.fm so your scrobbles stay representative.
Organizing Your Music
![Spotify discography Spotify discography](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134109455/643471088.jpg)
Library and Local Files
In the left sidebar, you will find your Collection. Here, you can access local files (go to Preferences to manage the folders from which Spotify can import files) and music saved to playlists. The Library section puts all of this music in one place. By accessing the files found on your hard drive, Spotify acts as a one-stop shop for listening to all your music, meaning you don't have to open iTunes or another player.
Playlists
Playlists are Spotify's main draw. You can create your own by clicking the New Playlist button, or following and subscribing to other users' playlists. Bookmark an album by saving it as a playlist, too.
Image: Spotify
You can also set up a collaborative playlist among friends to prep for that that perfect road trip or party. Right click on a playlist to check off the collaborative option and share the playlist with your friends. This alt-menu also shows the option to change the privacy settings to 'Make Public' or 'Make Secret,' depending on your preferences.
See also: 11 Tips and Tricks for Spotify Power Users
Image: Spotify
If you want to stay up-to-date with a specific user's playlist, click the green 'Follow' button on the bottom of the top title bar, and it will save to your side bar. You'll get a notification when songs are added to the playlist.
Play Queue
This option is ideal for when you aren't listening to an album, since queuing up a song via the right-click menu will place it after the track you are currently listening to, and will interrupt a record.
When listening to a playlist or playing music in the background, the queue is great for accommodating requests and spur of the moment sing-a-longs with friends.
Sharing and Discovering Tunes
In the last year, Spotify has significantly amped up its social and music discovery features to keep up with its competitor Rdio, which prioritizes social discovery.
See also: 7 Music Discovery Tools to Find New Tunes
Following
Image: Spotify
Spotify lets you follow friends, artists and organizations (follow Mashable's account here!) to see what your network is listening to. You will get a notification when artists you follow add music to their catalogues.
The social feed lives in the right sidebar, and at the top Spotify will make recommendations to follow, including Facebook friends or artists your friends enjoy. This feed will show what your friends are listening to right now, songs they've added to playlists, new playlists they've created, tracks they've starred, and playlists, songs and albums they've shared on Spotify.
If you didn't register your Spotify account through Facebook, you can still search for friends and organizations via the search bar.
Sending and Sharing Music
Image: Spotify
You can highlight your favorite music in Spotify's social feed by sharing via the button on artist, album or playlist pages, or the right-click menu. Write a message and check your connected social networks if you want to share to Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, too.
The Send tab on the right of the box allows you to send music to individual users in a private message.
Discover
The Discover section is filled with custom recommendations based on your music history. If you are stuck picking out something new to listen to, you can get lost scrolling down this page.
Image: Spotify
In addition to suggestions of new artists deemed algorithmically similar to ones you already love, Spotify will remind you of albums and songs you haven't listened to in a while. Sometimes the recommendations don't feel right, but the algorithm can only improve the more you use it. Unfortunately, there is no option to reject or modify suggestions at this time.
If you are unsure you might like one of Spotify's suggestions, hover over the album art until a play button appears. Then click it and hold down to preview the song.
This will interrupt whatever you are currently listening to, but once you let go of the play button, your song will resume. It is not the smoothest listening feature, but it can come in handy, especially when browsing to make a playlist.
Apps
Spotify's unique apps can also help you find music when you aren't feeling inspired, or you'd like a change of scenery. Some apps will tell you the lyrics of the song you're listening to, others will provide you with a review, and a few will show you what is trending on the charts, web and social media.
We recommended the following apps: Pitchfork, This Is My Jam, Domino, Twitter #Music (formerly We Are Hunted), Any Decent Music?, Blue Note, TuneWiki and Billboard.
Radio
Spotify Radio functions like a typical Internet radio service. You can create stations by artist, song, album and genre, and upvote or downvote songs you love or hate. Spotify Radio is free to use on the mobile app, even if you aren't a Spotify Premium user.
Mobile
Image: Spotify
Spotify's mobile app is a pared-down version of the web player (tablet apps more closely resemble the web player), from which you can select playlists to download for offline listening, to save your data usage. This is only available for Premium users.
Another feature exclusive to the mobile app is Browse. This saves you the trouble of coming up with a playlist yourself, which is helpful when you're out and about while using Spotify on your smartphone.
Spotify mobile wont download playlist. Now that you've completed your crash course on Spotify, get streaming!
Mashable composite image: iStockphoto, akindo
Though Apple Music has beaten Spotify in winning more subscribers in the US, there are some loyal Spotify users, who do not want to switch to Apple Music. It was a long-standing demand of Spotify users to integrate Siri with this music streaming app. Apple has listened to your prayers as the tech giant has rolled out Shortcuts app in iOS 12 and users can control Spotify with Siri shortcuts.
For Spotify users, a list of Siri shortcuts to select an album, artist, or song, will be a great help. However, as anybody can expect, Siri’s control over Spotify won’t be as smooth as that of Apple Music.
How to Add Spotify Siri Shortcut to Play Music from Spotify on iPhone or iPad
Step #1. First off, download Spotify Siri shortcut on your iOS device.
Step #2. Next, tap on Get Shortcut to save it in the Shortcuts app on iPhone/iPad.
Step #3. Now launch Shortcuts app on your iOS device and tap on three dots on Spotify Siri shortcut. This will open the Settings of that specific Siri shortcut, and you can edit that shortcut as per your choice.
Step #4. Tap on Settings icon from the top right corner.
Step #5. Then, tap “Add to Siri” and record a phrase to activate the shortcut.
For example, you can record “Play Spotify.”
Step #6. Tap on “Done” to save this phrase.
You need to tap Done button twice to complete the process.
It is time to invoke Siri; use Hey Siri and speak “Play Spotify” command.
There you go! Siri runs your command and you will be prompted to ask the name of artists, titles, or albums you want to play on Spotify using Siri shortcut. Note that your music will be opened in Spotify app on your device.
You may also check out other shortcuts for this music app.
Best Spotify Siri Shortcuts for iPhone
Spotify App Discography Music
Play Spotify Album
You can speak a name of an album and the Spotify will play songs from that particular album on your device. When you speak this command, Spotify automatically begins to play the selected album on your iPhone or iPad. In case there is more than one album with the same name, you can speak the year in which the album is released. Download spotify songs iphone jailbreak.
Play Spotify Track
Want to play a track of an artist or from an album? You can say ‘Play Spotify (name of the track),’ and the app will play that song for you. Just pronounce the name of artists or albums precisely and enjoy the song. Like the album, Spotify will automatically play the track you have spoken.
Search Spotify Playlist
If you have created some playlists on Spotify, you can search one of those playlists on your iPhone or iPad. Since this is a search query, the music app will not play songs directly. When Spotify presents you with results, you can either speak the track name or select a song by tapping on the screen manually.
Search Spotify Artist
Like a playlist, you can search your favorite artist from the Spotify app. Again, this will not play any song of that artist. Spotify will show you albums or songs created by the artist. From the list, you can either select an album or song composed/sung by that artist.
That’s all friends!
Signing off…
More shortcuts are coming your way. Apple will keep improving its intelligent voice assistant to make your life more comfortable. This Siri integration in Spotify also explains the music app’s popularity in the United States.
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What other shortcuts would you like to see in the Siri Shortcuts for Spotify? Share your feedback with us in the comment below.
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The founder of iGeeksBlog, Dhvanesh, is an Apple aficionado, who cannot stand even a slight innuendo about Apple products. He dons the cap of editor-in-chief to make sure that articles match the quality standard before they are published.
Spotify Discography
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