Spotify is one of the more popular streaming music services. It offers two tiers of paid services (either $ 4.99 or $ 9.99 per month), both of which are free of any advertising, as well as a free option. One of its main drawbacks, at least for users from the United States, was that because of licensing issues, it was unavailable. That issue has since been ironed out, and there are now the three plans mentioned.
Spotify can be accessed via a desktop client (available for Windows or Mac OS X), as well as on mobile phones. It offers offline playback as well as playlists, and a huge database of artists and albums, all for a small (or non-existent) fee. One platform not fully supported is Linux. There is a beta version of the desktop client available, but if you use the Clementine music player (a popular music jukebox designed to follow the Amarok 1.4 series), and you are a subscriber to Spotify Premium, then you can use Clementine to search and stream music from Spotify.
Here's how it works.
First, this assumes you already have Clementine installed and are a Spotify Premium subscriber. If not, you can download Clementine from this page and sign up for your Spotify account here.
Once that's all taken care of, start up Clementine, then click on the Internet tab. You'll see Spotify listed at the bottom of the available web-based music sources.
Now, right-click on Spotify and choose the Configure Spotify option.
A new preferences pane will load, where you can enter in your account info, as well as select between other options, such as the bitrate of the music you stream.
One key, as mentioned, is that you must be a subscriber to Spotify Premium. If you are a free user, or even if you subscribe to the Spotify Unlimited plan, you'll see this notification.
If this is the case, you can always sign up for a free 30-day Premium account trial.
Once this is all taken care of, you can return to Spotify, where you'll be asked to install the Spotify plugin.
Go ahead and click to install the plugin, which will allow you to search and stream music.
Once the plugin is installed, you can go ahead and search for an artist album or song that interests you. Here we've searched for Phish.
You can create playlists with the Clementine plugin, and – if you also use Spotify on a different computer or mobile device – your playlists are synchronized with your account. So if you create a playlist in one place, it will show up everywhere. Playlists aren't set in stone, of course; simply drag and drop to reorder them.
And thanks to Clementine, you'll receive a nice notification on track change.
There are a couple things missing from the Clementine plugin. First is all the social integration. So if you're someone who loves telling your friends what you're listening to, sharing songs and so forth, then this may not be for you.
Also, the Clementine plugin is missing the ability to download songs for offline playback, which the official clients (even the Linux client in beta), fully support. So again, if you use Clementine on a computer which isn't always connected to the Internet, the official client might be a better fit for your needs.
Still, it's nice that even though the Linux client hasn't made an official appearance – yet – that this is a solid option for Linux users. Clementine was already a nice player, and for Spotify users this only helps to make it better.
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