Before we get into why Spotify is so great, it should be noted that the service is not officially available in Canada. Spotify managed to convince the four major record labels to license their content with terms that must make other music startups green with envy – but only in Europe. They are working on a Canadian launch soon, although some impatient users have taken matters into their own hands and signed up for accounts through proxies. If you are curious, and don’t have a lot of respect for international music licensing agreements, you can try it yourself; although the ad-free version does require a European credit card. Also, you’re on your own to find a working proxy – the one in the linked article has been banned.

So, what is it like to live without iTunes? Liberating. There is a search box in the top left corner that lets you make playlists on the fly, there is a biography and discography for almost every artist on the site, and there is a Pandora-esque Internet radio station for any artist they have information on. The library extends to 6 million tracks from the major labels, although independents are still unrepresented. In terms of on-the-go playlists, Spotify has iTunes beat hands down. Music always keeps playing, and it is painless to add new songs to the queue and rearrange the play order. Paid accounts stream music in 320kbps Ogg Theora audio, which should satisfy audiophiles. There is even an iPhone app for paying users that can stream any song, and will keep up to 3000 cached for airplane rides and network dead spots.

We are well on our way to having the ‘Great Jukebox In The Sky’. The music library is fated to become a relic of the past, like the phone book or rolodex. Music is going to be on-demand, unlimited, and very very easy to find. Geeks will have to go back to building ridiculous case mods to show off.

Related posts:

1. Internal Conflict & Your iTunes Library
2. It’s cheaper than iTunes, but is it better?
3. YouTube going head-to-head with iTunes