Apps, Mobile & SMS

Why Complain? Spotify And Playmysong Gave Everybody Free Jukeboxes!


Ck-louisBy Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

Comedian Louis CK made a great point that’s worth revisiting (transcript), even if you’ve seen it before: that “everything is amazing and nobody is happy.” The disruptive funnyman was referring to the way we complain about the world we live in, even as we enjoy unprecedented abilities and conveniences thanks to the preposterous degree of technological advancement over the past few decades.

People love to complain about flying, for example, and they are people who are sitting in chairs in the sky checking their Facebooks on WiFi. In the sky — and complaining about it, when just a few generations ago, traveling that same distance took years or occasionally lives.


"Everything is amazing and nobody is happy" by Meowbay

This brings us to the point: Playmysong launched a Spotify app this morning (Spotify link) that can turn any computer into a jukebox containing most of the music in the world, for free. You and all of your friends can control it with your smartphones at parties, in offices, dorms, or wherever else. We just gained another amazing thing to complain about!

Please consider that just a few years ago, a jukebox capable of anything remotely similar to that would have been accessible only to the very richest people on the planet — and even then, their jukeboxes would contain a limited selection of music that would start going out of date right away. And the remote controls, which would have to be custom-made for tens of thousands of dollars, would have been super clunky and lame, probably without touchscreens, let alone the ability to let you complain about them on Facebook.

As of today, even an earnest Luddite who thoroughly enjoys being terrible at technology can set up a Playmysong/Spotify jukebox in minutes that anyone with a smartphone can control, all using equipment that most people reading this already have, meaning that for all intents and purposes, this magic is completely free — and not only that, but Spotify pays artists, labels, songwriters, and publishers for the music you play (some people say not enough, but that’s a different story).

We’re not overstating this. It really is enough for even people who claim they hate technology to do this.

First, the person in charge of the computer turns on Spotify, and installs the Playmysong Spotify app there. This takes about a minute. Then, they simply drag a playlist into the app’s “scroller” section, or choose one of the preconfigured stations (Rock, Pop, etc.). The music kicks in immediately. Then, it’s time to define your location on the map, so that phones in the area will be able to find your jukebox. Do you know the name of the town or city where you are right now? Great — you’re almost done.

Here’s what your new free wireless jukebox with access to customized playlists or most of the music in the world looks like in Spotify:

Jukebox1

And here’s what remote controlling that jukebox looks like (with slight variations) in the free iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone app:

Jukebox2

That’s all there is to it. Your free jukebox with access to everything is now online, and anyone in the area with the Playmysong app (free on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) can remote control your Spotify playlist by requesting a song from it to add to the queue — or, you can let them choose from anything on Spotify. They can be nearby, or not, depending on the settings in the Playmysong Spotify app:

Jukebox3

If you’re one of the people making requests, you only get to add one song to the queue, unless you sign in to the app, which is most easily done with Facebook, granting Playmysong access to some of your personal information, like your hometown. That takes about a minute too. So please, join us in our attempt to stop complaining for five seconds and acknowledge that we live in an amazing world where we can do magical things that would have cost a fortune while being worse, just a few years ago.

 

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2 Comments

  1. The difference between the jukeboxes of old and these “wonderful because they’re free” jukeboxes is this: people would happily drop a coin into the jukebox to hear a song, and eventually a percentage of those coins would make their way to the artists. Now, very, very little – if any – money goes to the artists. So that why one should complain: if you like an artist enough to want to hear their music, you should also help support them financially, and Spotify & their ilk are free because they screw the musicians. I happily pay my car mechanic, my plumber, my lawyer, and many others. And I buy my music.

  2. Are they getting screwed? Unless this article is false, Spotify has stated that artists ARE getting something:
    https://www.spotify.com/us/about-us/artists/get-paid-from-spotify/
    That’s good that you buy your music. I’m not sure that by using Spotify that automatically means people are not supporting them financially, especially when it’s a good way to listen to songs before buying. And for the artists who think they are getting shortchanged, they can opt not to be included in the Spotify library.
    http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/spotify-doesnt-sound-so-great-to-some-artists-01052012.html
    Artists may complain they are making less, but on the flipside, all of these digital advancements are allowing them to reach audiences they could never reach before, which means more potential sources of income, not just from end listeners, but record companies, people who want to use their music for commercials, etc. And again, they can opt in or out if they think it’s not a good choice for them to be associated with certain services.
    I agree that we have much more in this day and age but are overall a lot less happy.

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