This evening, I installed Spotify on my wife’s computer. For those who have missed it, Spotify is the latest music streaming fad. You can select songs from just about any genre and stream them on your computer. They have a Freemium model. With a free account, you can listen to songs on the computer, with the occasional interruption of advertisements. With the paid, premium account, you don’t have the ads, and you can also listen on your cellphone.

Currently, you need to get an invitation to it. I use Klout, a website that ranks influence on different social media websites. Klout has a new program called ‘perks’. For people who are influential enough, they give you freebies. The first freebie I got was a year’s supply of Secret Deodorant. That will go to Kim. The second one I got was an invitation to Spotify, so I started using it yesterday. If you want to get an invite to Spotify, sign up for Klout at this address, and if you’re in time you’ll get an invite. (I think I only have two remaining invites. Also, if two more people sign up, I get an upgrade to premium).

Anyway, while I wanted to listen to music, Fiona wanted to play Apples to Apples. This is a card game where you get seven red cards which typically contains nouns or phrases. Taking turns, each person turns over a green card, which typically has an adjective, and the other players chose from their red cards a card that they think the person whose turn it is will most closely associate with the green card. (There are several variations on this as well).

So, as we played, one of the red cards was ‘Crazy Horse’, so I selected Rust Never Sleeps on Spotify. We spent a bit of time listening to that album, until Rocky Mountain came up. Then, I cued up John Denver, doing Rocky Mountain High. Another red card had “YMCA”. I cued up the Village People, and the other Red Card that got played at the same time was Construction Worker. We explained to Fiona that one of the Village People was a construction worker.

It brought a new dimension to the game, and also made Spotify more fun to play with. So, do you have any interesting Spotify mashups?