Whole lotta love: Led Zeppelin's music comes to Spotify

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By Chris Welch on December 11, 2013 10:22 am

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Led Zeppelin's music is now available on Spotify. The band appeared on the streaming service shortly before CEO Daniel Ek announced the major deal on stage at today's press event. "I can't wait to get the Led out," he said. Led Zeppelin I and Led Zeppelin II are available now, and the rest of Zeppelin's discography will become available throughout the remainder of the week. Spotify says this is the first time Zeppelin's iconic catalog can be streamed on demand.

The legendary @LedZeppelin is here! Stream the albums as they're released this week, #OnlyOnSpotify http://t.co/XLCptyaeSr #StreamZeppelin

— Spotify (@Spotify) December 11, 2013

The band's songs can already be purchased from iTunes, Google Music, and Amazon, but the group has proven hesitant in adopting the streaming model until now. Curiously, Eddy Cue used Led Zeppelin as an example when he demonstrated iTunes Radio back at WWDC, but the band's catalog cannot be streamed using Apple's free radio service. Nor is it available via Google Play Music All Access. Pandora stands as the lone exception; Zeppelin's music is already part of the radio service's broad catalog.

According to The New York Times, Zeppelin's management has been negotiating with various streaming services since January. Clearly Spotify has emerged the winner, netting itself a huge exclusive as it looks to ward off existing competition and future music-focused offerings from YouTube and Beats.

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Spotify expands free streaming music service to tablets

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By Adi Robertson on December 11, 2013 10:21 am @thedextriarchy

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As rumored earlier this month, Spotify is expanding its core free mobile streaming service, creating a tablet version of its app that offers the same features as the desktop version. So far, mobile users in the free, ad-supported tier could access a streaming radio service with the option of skipping a handful of tracks, a service that was launched in mid-2012. Only $9.99 premium users could search and play songs on demand. But putting up a chart of declining PC sales, Spotify's Daniel Ek said that it no longer made sense to distinguish between traditional computers and tablets.

This was only one part of the news for Spotify's mobile business today. Ek also announced the arrival of a free streaming service for iPhone and Android phones, allowing users to listen to any of their playlists or favorite artists' catalogs on shuffle with interstitial ads, though offline playback and real on-demand listening will remain limited to paying users on phones. The new tablet service, like this shuffle-only service and Led Zeppelin's catalog, will go live today.

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Spotify announces free streaming on Android and iPhone, but only in Shuffle mode

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At an event in New York today, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced a free streaming product on Android and iOS smartphones, and also on tablets. "We don't want to make another radio-type service," Ek said. "We want to make something that's really great — that really fits into people's lives," said Ek. Thus, the focus for Spotify Free on mobile is a Shuffle feature that lets you pick an artist or playlist and hear a stream of shuffled tracks. In other words, the service isn't straightforward ad-supported streaming on-demand, but is instead more random, like Spotify's current Radio feature on mobile for free users.

You can pick an artist or playlist to listen to, but you can't pick which songs you're going to hear, or in what order you'll hear them. And there will be ads every few songs, like in Spotify's free service on web, "which is a lot less than commercial radio," Ek says.

"We're giving people the best free music experience in the history of the smartphone," Ek said. "Spotify for mobile is no longer just for people who subscribe to Premium... and the more you play, the more likely you are to play." Spotify's new mobile apps, available now, look much the same, save for a green "Shuffle" button that appears inside artist pages and playlists for free users.

"The more you play, the more likely you are to play."

Before today's event, Spotify had spent much of 2013 making good on the products it announced at a similar media event last December and focusing efforts on international growth and raising money. Those features include Discover, a news feed of recommendations and songs friends like, the Follow button for friends and artists, Connect, cloud-syncing across devices for your song progress, Browse, a catalog of playlists to listen to, Windows and Windows Phone 8 apps, streaming in Ford vehicles, and the continued rollout of its web-based music app.

Spotify appears to be in the lead globally in terms of paid subscribers and revenues, with 24 million users and 6 million paid subscribers, but the company's losses have grown as it invests in the future. Google, on the other hand, debuted its Google Play Music Unlimited service this year, which put pressure on Spotify. Rdio, once considered Spotify's chief rival, has struggled as it searches for a new CEO and expands its marketing campaigns.

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