Finally, Spotify has come to Manila. Tuesday, we received a note on our inbox happily informing us that the digital music service is finally in the Philippines, shortly after it launched in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia last year, and some six years—six years!—after it launched in Sweden in 2008.
Several weeks ago, Coca-Cola was given special priviledges to it. As in, you had to write the soda giants to be given access to the super popular streaming service. Thankfully, yesterday, that was no longer the case.
It’s available for free download on both desktop and mobile, though if you ask us, the mobile version has the better and easier-to-use interface. There are over 20 million songs to choose from—both international and OPM, mind—by way of artist, album, genre, and playlist. Similar to most social media sites, you can follow accounts and playlists. Of course you can create and share your own, too.
If like us, you’re also new to Spotify and feel kinda old and kinda strange like an old dog who can’t seem to learn new tricks, here are three simple ways to get started:
1. Get browsing. On Browse, Spotify informs you of the top lists and new releases, as well as list down playlists according to genres and moods. It can go as general as “pop,” “rock,” and “classical,” and as specific as “Songs for Sunsets” and “Life Sucks.” You can sample these Spotify-created playlists, and should you like what you hear, click Follow, and the playlist should automatically be stored in the playlist section.
2. Abre los ojos. In which Spotify will tell you what’s popular where you are, what’s popular in the whole universe of Spotify, the most popular album and what’s trending. Here, you will learn that what’s popular isn’t always what’s new (90s alt-rock band Nickelback is what’s currently popular where we are) or that it isn’t over till it’s ovah (Remember KT Tunstall?). Let Spotify open your eyes, or your ears, to what’s going on in the global music landscape.
3. Listen to the radio. If you’re from the generation that doesn’t know the magic of radio, or OPM for that matter, Spotify is a good place to start discovering these things. OPM is the first of 31 radio stations listed on Spotify. As soon as we clicked that, Freddie Aguilar’s “Problema” came on. Puwede, di ba? Purists will find joy when they see that Spotify had gotten very specific: There are stations dedicated to “Black Metal,” which is different from “Death Metal” and “Heavy Metal.” There is a separate station for “Club/House” and “Electronic” and “Trance.”
