My music habits

I love listening to music & have pretty varied tastes from Evanescense to Taylor Swift, The Who to A Fine Frenzy , Icon for Hire to Abba. This can get expensive buying albums, whether on physical media or CD, and single tracks just never get you into exploring the depth of what an artist is about, to understand the story  that the album is trying to put across - so inevitably there's a comprimise, and in the past that was inevitably to focus on a small number of artists.

Quite a few years back I digitised my modest CD collection, and added mp3/aac albums from a variety of (legal) outlets. I stored these first on a PC, but then on a home server in a way they could be accessed by a variety of devices around the house - and in fact streamed over the internet too.

I'd been a long running user of lastfm (take a look!) radio - I'd get music similar to that which I liked streamed to me, but with no control of exactly what I was listening too.

In early 2011 Google launched Google Music- in the US, but fairly easy to access in the UK with the right tools ;-). Google Music made it easy to access my own music collection - but it was really just that, making it easier.

Around this time I also started playing with spotify and we7 more, along with a few other services, more seriously. I'd used them prior to this but never seriously - yet after taking out some trial subscriptions I was getting somewhat hooked with the idea that I could listen to who I wanted when I wanted. Ok so some artist's material was withheld, but most was there.

After a few months in July 2011 I went with spotify & have stuck with my premium subscription ever since. It's one of my favourite services as it gives me access to content I love. It's uplifting, enthralling, emotional, fresh, comforting, exciting, brash, soft, gentle - anything I want it to be. As a premium subscriber (£10/month) access is unlimited and music can be streamed in amazing audio quality -- pretty much the best I've come across (vorbis v9)

During work time I frequently listen via my PC, but spotify also have a rather handy android app which shares the same playlists as on the PC, and can similarly stream via either 2G/3G/wifi or most usefully play playlists/songs that are saved offline. Since I'm not on an unlimited data plan this works out really well for me.  A single click, and a playlist gets downloaded & managed automatically.

This is how I listen in bed or when travelling -- but it gets better.

At the gym I can now easily listen to spotify via a bluebooth cordless headset - perfect for avoiding tangles, and most recently I've upgraded my car to the Nissan Leaf which supports bluetooth streaming. In fact I've never even used a CD or an SD card in this car in the 6 months I've had it. I simply leave bluetooth on, sit in the car, the phone connects and I can play my offline spotify lists

Spotify isn't perfect - but it's really very good & when combined with a flexible form of access such as through my SGS2 it can be accessed & consumed anywhere.

I love it!