Excluding the official blog, here are the five Spotify-related websites I visit most often. Each one I believe is an essential bookmark for anyone with a broad musical taste and an interest in Spotify. There are now well over 100 sites dedicated to Spotify, so it’s getting harder to keep track of them all. Hopefully this short list might guide you to where to start.
Note this Top 5 is for websites only. I’ve deliberately not included my favourite apps & tools (such as Freshspotify and Spotify Collections) or playlist sites (such as Spotifylinks).
5. Spotify Forum
I’m still just a lurker here, but Spotify Forum seems to be taking off now with over 250 subscribers. There are various sub-forums dedicated to different musical genres and different aspects of Spotify. The two busiest areas are Spotify Help and Support and Ideas / Improvements. These both complement the official support channel on getsatisfaction, providing a place for users to help each other out with issues or questions.
4. Are You Spotified
With Are You Spotified you get three blogs for the price of one: one dedicated to dance music on Spotify (called Clubified) and another more general rock & pop area. There’s also a news section which includes occasional hints and tips on how to get the best out of Spotify. I love the blog theme they’ve used here (big improvement over their last theme which I found a bit confusing) and they guys have customized the site nicely. If you fancy being part of their blogging team, let them know!
3. The (other) Spotify Blog
Cheekily titled The Spotify Blog (which I’ve had to rename in my Feedly to avoid confusion) has been gaining momentum for a couple of months now. It’s now the best independent website to go to for news on what’s happening in the world of Spotify. The site aggregates breaking news stories and adds its own commentary and opinion (which I for one appreciate; it’s so easy to just to copy-paste a story without adding any value). One wee niggle though: I always seem to have a problem viewing the comments for some reason.
2. Spotinews
joebuck’s dedication is becoming legendary: Spotinews is the most frequently-updated Spotify blog on the Internet, and there’s no sign of any slowdown yet. Every day, Spotinews is updated with details of new releases on Spotify, often before any official announcement and always accompanied with album art and links to start listening. He may have leanings towards Scandanavian indie music, but joebuck frequently posts into categories on Blues, Classical, Folk, Jazz, Electronic and others. There’s also the occasional Spotify news story too.
1. Spotify updates from Last.fm (beta)
My most-used site isn’t much to look at, and it still claims to be a beta, but Spotify Update from Last.fm is an invaluable resource to new releases on Spotify. Since all my music-listening is scrobbled to Last.fm, this site can tell me exactly what’s new in Spotify for any artist I’ve ever listened to before. Not only that, it will also make recommendations on other music I might like based on my previous listening habits. You can tune the report to, say, exclude artists you’ve only listened to once or twice then bookmark the page. You then have a great New Releases page with clickable links into Spotify. No other Last.fm + Spotify app has all these features. Developer OnDistantShores is also responsible for the Universal Scrobbler, another great Last.fm plugin.