Spotify (for Windows Phone)

• Pros

  Huge music catalog. Good-looking interface. Fine sound quality.

• Cons Can't specify songs to play in free version. No artist bios. Song queue isn't editable.
• Bottom Line

  Spotify for Windows Phone offers a decent interface, a large music catalog with good discovery tools, excellent sound quality, and free shuffle play, but several functionality gaps hold it back.

By Michael Muchmore

Spotify made a big splash a few years ago as an European music service that everyone in the U.S. couldn't wait to get. Why? Because unlike the U.S. leader, Pandora, Spotify lets you play the exact song you specified, rather than just songs with similar "music DNA." Unfortunately, the mobile versions of Spotify don't let you play tunes on demand without a $9.99-per-month subscription, but the Spotify Windows Phone app (free) is well-designed and well-stocked with music.

Starting Up
You get the Spotify app as a free download from the Windows Phone Store. A Spotify Premium subscription ($9.99 per month) not only lets you specify exactly which songs and albums you want to play, but also removes skip limits and advertisements. That's the same price as an Xbox Music pass and Rdio's mobile subscription. The price winner in the space is Slacker, which offers offline listening and no-limit track skipping for just $3.99 per month (on-demand streaming costs $9.99 per month, the same as the others).

The Spotify app is a reasonable 9MB installation, is available in 26 languages, and requires the usual permissions. You can easily sign in with your Facebook account, or fill out a form with email and other details. I tested the app on a Nokia Lumia Icon.

Interface
Spotify has a decent-looking interface. Screen-filling tiles elegantly take you into the sounds you enjoy, and when you pin the app tile to the start screen, it shows the album art and the name of the track that's playing. Spotify doesn't, however, have an option to show those on the lock screen as Rdio and Slacker do. The hamburger menu button offers Search & Browse, Discover, Radio, Playlists, Inbox, Friends, and Settings. Search & Browse sports a search box at top, but also photo tiles below offering 18 genre categories.

Ads are annoying in unpaid accounts, and seem more frequent than most streaming music services. In one listening session, I heard a 30-second ad right after the first song—something I've never encountered in another streaming service. As with most free streaming music services, you get just six skips per hour if you're not thrilled with the song currently playing; you can't go back and play the previous track without a paid account.

Another shortcoming is a complete lack of artist bio, background information, and similar music suggestions. Rdio, Xbox Music, and particularly Slacker, are all stronger in this respect.

Finding Music
The main way to find music is through the Search & Browse menu option, which presents top playlists, new releases, and a wealth of genre and mood options. Drilling down into Spotify's browse categories yields a hearty selection of playlists in every sub-genre you're likely to want. A Mood section lets you choose your music based on whether you're running, driving or snoozing. There's even a PMS Playlist!

There are two primary ways to listen to music on the Spotify Windows Phone app: You can listen to a playlist or streaming Internet radio. You can browse artists and their albums as well, and add the latter as a playlist. If you're a subscriber, you simply tap on any song title to play it. If you're not a subscriber, you can play any artist, or even a particular album, but only in shuffle mode. Starring a song in curated playlists adds the tracks to your own Starred playlist. Adding an album as a playlist is also a snap, but unlike Xbox Music or eMusic, you can't actually buy the music for your permanent collection.

Another way to listen is with the Queue feature, which I found perplexing: You tap a list icon while browsing a song to add it to the queue, but there's no way to edit your queue in the app. I often found myself tapping this extra times, only to be subjected to the same music over and over.

The Catalog
Spotify wouldn't have gained the huge user base it has without a deep music catalog. Indeed, I was hard pressed to find significant holes in its musical offerings—from high-profile names like Coldplay, Led Zeppelin, and Michael Jackson to obscurities such as the Clerkes of Oxenford and Boyz Nite Out. I did run into one instance of a "This song is not available in your area." A note of caution about content: I found no setting for explicit content in the app, and indeed I did hear the F-word in a hip-hop number!

As for music quality, I was initially listening at Normal, which sounded quite good to me. I didn't hear that squeaky mp3 compression you often hear, especially on strings and in large symphonic works. But you can up that to High and Extreme quality, for both streaming and downloading. Music quality is not a problem in Spotify.

Internet Radio
You can start an Internet radio station from any song that's playing in a playlist. The Radio main menu choice also offers recommended stations and a list of 31 genres, from Alternative to Trance. The display changes while you're listening to a station rather than a playlist: You'll see thumbs up and down buttons, and, as is the custom with music apps, these refine your station to your taste.

The app did a good job of finding relevant tuneage. For example, when I started a station based on the outstanding choral group Stile Antico, I heard other renaissance choral tracks, whereas the same attempt in Slacker brought me—gasp—folk music!

Social
Not only can you share playlists you create with other users via the standard Facebook and Twitter channels (something also possible in Xbox Music and Rdio), but you can follow other Spotify users within the app (and garner followers for your own playlists). Users, in this case, includes performers, radio stations, record labels, and even companies such as McDonalds.

I only wish it were easier to add favorite performers as follows through their albums and by searching. The app does suggest follows, however, and you can easily follow Facebook friends if you've connected that social network. Your Inbox shows what's new among those you follow, but Rdio does a better job in this area. It shows not only the contact's playlist, but also their recent activity and top albums.

As is often the case with Windows Phone apps compared with the larger-market-share platforms, this version of Spotify lacks some features: There's no equalizer, or cross-fade/gapless playback option. But those are really niceties: You get the bulk of what Spotify is about.

Spot On Sounds?
If Spotify is your preferred purveyor of music, this app can certainly satisfy your needs. It offers a huge catalog, fine audio quality, music suggestions, Internet radio options, and offline listening. Paying subscribers can even specify particular songs and albums to play. That's all pretty much identical to what you get in Rdio, Slacker, and Xbox Music. But there's no permanent (DRM-free) music purchasing or artist information like you get with Xbox music.