Get Spotify in the U.S. Without an Invite ~ Bauer-Power Media

Jul 28, 2011

Get Spotify in the U.S. Without an Invite

1:00 AM

Paul B

For the last few weeks I have seen Twitter and Facebook full of people talking about how they got their Spotify invites, and blah blah blah, they are so special. In the mean time, I'm sitting here with my junk in my hands wishing I too could enjoy this mystical new music experience. Alas, I was not privileged enough to get an invite.

What is Spotify you ask? According to Wikipedia, "Spotify is a Swedish DRM-based music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, andUniversal. Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB, the service had approximately ten million users as of 15 September 2010; about 1,000,000 of whom were paying members.The service is, as of July 2011, only available in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The system is currently accessible using Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Telia Digital-tv, and mobile devices running iOS (iPod/iPhone/iPad), Android, Windows Mobile, S60 (Symbian), webOS, andSonos.

Music can be browsed by artist, album, record label, genre or playlist as well as by direct searches. On desktop clients, a link allows the listener to purchase selected material via partner retailers.

Users can register either for free accounts supported by visual and radio-style advertising or for paid subscriptions without ads and with a range of extra features such as higher bitrate streams and offline access to music. A paid "Premium" subscription is required to use Spotify on mobile devices.Subscriptions are restricted to people with credit/debit cards or PayPal accounts registered in certain countries."

Well screw that! If there is a way to get around something like a silly invite, I'm going to try to find it! Well it turns out there is a way, and Lifehacker found it! Here is how:

You need to start with a UK account. To do that, you'll need to be in the UK—or, at least, appear to be. To do that, visitDaveProxy (or another free, UK-based proxy service) and go to spotify.com. (Note: if you're using DaveProxy, be prepared to contend with a lot of pop-up ads. Just close them as they come up. They're harmless.)
Sign up for an account on the UK site. You'll need a UK zip code, but just search for McDonald's in London and you'll find one without issue.
Once you have an account, sign out and go to spotify.com like you normally would in the US. You won't see a place to log in because that's hidden behind the signup page. Pretend you're signing up for a premium account and you'll see a message asking you already have an account and want to log in. You do, so click the associated link and log in.
Go back to spotify.com and you'll now see a black box up at the top of the site. It'll read "continue to spotify.com." Click on it.
You're in, but your account is still UK-based. You'll see your username displayed up on the top right. Click it and choose "Edit Profile."
In the "Country" menu, change "United Kingdom" to "United States" and set your zip code to whatever it actually is. Save your profile when you're done.
Download the Spotify app and log in.