Ah, one of my favourite topics. Music. I could go on all day about music – its importance, the huge variety of stuff out there to sample and discover – and given that this post is all about using mobile internet providers to get more of what you want when you want it, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Let’s start by extolling the virtues of free play sites like Spotify.
By simply sitting through a few ads every now and then (I mute them, personally), I can listen to any music I can think to search for, streamed live and uninterrupted to my mobile device. All I need is a connection strong enough to handle the quantity of data coming down – and these days, that’s pretty easy to find. Most mobile internet providers are making 4G connections available (where, of course, the 4G signal is strong enough to pick up) – and you have to remember, as well, that if you get satellite internet to your home you can jump onto that signal with multiple wireless devices as long as you are in range.
Sites like Spotify have done away with the need for a music collection and even an MP3 player. A mobile device connected to a database of pretty much all the recorded music in the world (which is essentially what an online music player is) is heaps better than a device that contains a finite amount of music, even if that music is a lot.
For someone like me, who believes there’s a song and an album for every variation of every mood under the sun – but that I will never have the precise song or album I need to hand – online music sites are sent from the god of great entertainment. Let’s say I’m in the mood to hear Sleep’s epic hour-long single track album “Jerusalem” (it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen!) – an experience akin to having mountains driven into your ears by a bunch of lunatics playing their guitars much, much too loud. I’ve never found the album for a price I’m willing to pay for it – but online, all I have to do is press play and listen to it, on those rare occasions I’m in the mood for an aural assault of this nature.
Freedom of choice, that’s what mobile internet providers are always going on about – and for the music lover there is nothing more important. Even if I had the 10,000 songs, or whatever it is, that my MP3 player can hold, I still wouldn’t have gotten around to buying Jerusalem – and yet here I am wanting to listen to it.
As for finding new music – I listened t Pete Townshend the other day, extolling the virtues of internet music searches in the first ever John Peel lecture. For the continual searcher after new music there’s nothing better. You start with a track you know and love, and then follow the “other people have been listening to” suggestions to start yourself off on a magical mystery tour of found sounds.
Listening to music with mobile broadband internet is exactly the same, quality wise, as using an MP3 player – only with unlimited tracks and hundreds of co-users, all wanting to point you in the direction of the next big thing. Ideal.