Image by kristoffintosh

This is something that we’ve all been raving about in the office in the last few months. For those of you who haven’t heard about it yet here’s a short summary.

Spotify is probably the largest thing that has happened to the music industry in a long time, brought to us by some intelligent Swedes, it’s a pretty big deal. Co founded by Martin Lorentzon (co founder of Tradedoubler, digital marketing agency) and Daniel Ek.

It’s basically a peer to peer music sharing service that allows almost instant listening with minimal streaming of almost any artist or album that you can think of (apart from Oasis).

It’s still in beta but is available to most people in western Europe. I think they have plans to roll it out in the US and Canada soon. It’s not possible to download the music from the service and is perfectly legal.

It’s not just another Limewire, Kazaa or Napster. It differs to these illegal peer to peer file sharing services in the fact that you can’t download dircetly from Spotify. Instead, you have a link to one of their preferred partners where you can buy the music legally.

Along with Last FM and Myspace this is another great way to find out about new music that you may want to buy, or just a good way to listen whilst on-line. The free service makes its money by from advertising serving up short 2 minutes adverts every 30minutes or so. You can purchase a premium version that is uninterrupted. It’s not too annoying though.

Another nice feature is the ability to create collaborative playlists, you can get together with your mates and put compile them. We quite often have a ‘Friday tunes’ playlists in the office that anyone can submit music to play in if they’re a friend of the user.

I heard they’re in the process of creating a Spotify application for iPhone which will also be a nice touch, similar to that of Last FM’s.

Many would argue that buying music is no longer the product of the industry, this new platform supports purchasing material more so than others, providing links to buy the music from partners whilst promoting the artists to potentially thousands in a new channel.

Download and register here

Watch it hit the mainstream and go large…

If you can’t big up your best mates band just before they release their first official single then when can ya! 

Fenech Soler made up of Ben, Dan, Ross and Andrew have are all mates of mine from back home in the shire. We went to school together in Oundle, Ben and Andy are in my year with Dan and Ross being a bit younger.

I’ve always been a fan of these guys, they’ve tested the water with several different genres but the sound they have now has been churned out and martured over the last 4 years or so of experimentation.

They’ve been picked up by the legendary french house DJ/Producer Alan Braxe, you may know him better as 1 half of Stardust. Fenech Soler are due to release their first single, The Cult of Romance, on his funky french record label Vulture at the start of May.

They’ve recently been featured as The Guardian’s  ’New band of the day’ and their forthcoming single was featured in The Times ‘track of the day’. Two good reviews. 

Realising the importance of digital and the web as a marketing channel, in being a new band, they have profiles on just about every major social site that you can think of Last FM, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Youtube and they’re own funky looking blog FenechSoler.blogspot.co.uk, which is really the best place to catch the best and more exclusive news about them. 

The boys have toured and DJ’d with loads of big names already despite being unsigned, Sam Sparro, The Presets, Does it Offend You Yeah? and The Whip. Major influences include Michael Jackson and The Whisperers, according to Myspace.  I know there’s more modern ones such as Soulwax, Justice, Digtialism and multitude of others that we’ve all had mannier messy night out listening to.

Fenech Solers first debut single is due for realese on the 11th of May…Go buy it  

Let me know what you think!