[Tech] SPOTIFY Review (vs. Melon)

The #1 music app Spotify himself finally arrived in Korea, officially starting their first service on February. I was actually looking forward to its arrival since the music app "Melon" which I have been using for quite a long time wasn't really fulfilling my expectations for a music platform.

One of the major flaws the app had was lack of song variety. I tried to look up for rare songs on Melon, but they weren't there. Another one was that it required additional installation to be able to listen to my playlist on my labtop or some random computers. This was a real pain in the ass for me who really wanted to listen to music anywhere, any time even I did not have my phone with me. The last thing that disappointed me was the song recommendation. I am that kind of a person who wants to listen to new songs of a similar genre. I crave for new songs every day but Melon failed to provide that experience that I eagered.

After sincere consideration, I decided to jump to the brand new, world widely used music platform, Spotify. I have used the app for a while, and I have been getting along with it pretty well. Actually, I think I am liking the app more than the one I previously used! I believe that this will be the music app that I will be using even after the 3-month free trial ends , and now I am going to give out a few reasons for my big decision.

#1 PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATION
The first and foremost reason I began liking this platform. Spotify gives me a sense that this app is really personalized for me. Spotify makes a playlist based on my listening history. "Discover" section in the search section leads us to a personalized page where playlists made exclusively made for me are introduced, and albums by other artists that I have never listened to before are displayed. I never thought that the recommendation function would be this good, but that thought of mine completely reversed after having a taste of Spotify's.

I think its recommendation system cannot be matched by any other in the industry, after experiencing the system myself. Well there are also other music platforms that offer recommendations of songs to us, just like Melon. But that songs reallt didn't match my preferences and weren't good enough to please me. They just weren't my type. But the musics that Spotify cater were truely genuine. They matched my taste of music perfectly, and I loved the playlist they made for me. I didn't really have to switch to the next music because the songs were not good, nor I had to turn off the music to listen to other things such as a podcast or a radio.
I also loved the feeling of "exclusiveness" because this gave me a sense that I was being cared of by the app itself.

#2 MORE SAMPLES
This is also about recommendation, but a bit different. Although Melon dominates the Korean Music Industry, unmatched by all the other music platforms, Spotify is a app used throughout the whole world, unlike Melon or many applications in the Korea music app industry.

This is a strong proof that there are significant amount of more samples in the Spotify database compared to Melon when talking about foreign songs. It doesn't quite matter if you are a K-pop fan, because the mojority of the samples that listen to K-pop will exist in the Melon database. But, if your preferences are in the foreign music field, there are definetely more people listening to them in apps other than Melon.
Strong database means better recommendation, and that consequently means more delightful and exciting music listening experience! As a foreign music type of person, I believe that I will be using Spotify for a more pleasant music time.

#3 COOL ANIMATION
I am not sure whether this should be considered as a strength for Spotify, but in my perspective, it was. The experience that one goes through is really important when providing a service just as a music app becayse I believe that decides whether the user will come back for another experience or leave for another one, disappointed by the poor quality of service.
There is not much that an app could do while users stream a music. Higher 4k music quality, displaying the lyrics are all important and good moves to attract users, but it's what all the others do, and that really makes no difference to stand out of the crowd. But the animation feature that Spotify provides is quite an eye-catching one.

I was listening to "Headshots" by Isaiah Rashad, and the album cover displayed on the background had an animation feature applyed to it, and it was on loop, showing us the same short animation clip over and over again for rest of the song. Although it was nothing fancy and breath-taking, I thought that this cool feature might be a point to attract users, giving them good impressions about the listening experience. I personally liked the one from the Migos "Culture III" Album released a few days ago, where a bird in the album cover flies and the 3 members of the Migos is shown in a popping up style. (I don't know if my terms are right. I wish I could have added a video. Check it out yourself if you are curious about it)

Maybe I will have to use this app for a longer time to be used to it and have a truely deep taste of it, but so far so fine! I love what I have seen, and also pretty sure that my remaining experience with this app will be just the same too.

a tech analysis by taeyounkim