7th February 1970, one hit wonders Shocking Blue went to No.1 on the US singles chart with “Venus”, making them the first Dutch act to top the US charts. The track was first released in 1969 where it was a big hit in the Netherlands, reaching No.3 in the charts. It subsequently sold 350,000 copies in Germany, reached the top 10 in the UK and topped the US chart for three weeks.

All girl group Bananarama took the song to No.8 on the UK chart in 86. Nirvana covered the Shocking Blue song “Love Buzz” as their debut single in 1988 and it also appeared on the re-release of their 1989 album Bleach. Both The Prodigy and Lil’ Kim have sampled Shocking Blue.

Playlist: Space

8th February 1990, American singer songwriter Del Shannon died of self inflicted gunshot wounds at his home in Santa Clarita, California. The singer who had been taking the anti-depressant drug Prozac had been suffering from depression. Shannon scored the 1961 UK and US No.1 single “Runaway”, as well as 12 other Top 40 singles.

Shortly before his death, he’d been working with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne and was rumored to be replacing Roy Orbison, (who had recently died), in the Traveling Wilburys supergroup. Following his death, The Traveling Wilburys honored him by recording a version of “Runaway”.

Playlist for this day.

9th February, Born on this day in 1960, Holly Johnson, singer, songwriter, artist who was a member of Liverpool based groups Big In Japan and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. FGTH took their name from a poster which had the headline “Frankie Goes to Hollywood” in a reference to singer Frank Sinatra.

With Frankie he scored the 1984 UK No.1 single “Relax” which was banned by the BBC and subsequently topped the UK chart for five consecutive weeks, and ultimately becoming the seventh best-selling UK single of all time. FGTH became only the second act in the history of the charts to reach No.1 with their first three singles; (the first being another Liverpool band - Gerry & the Pacemakers in 1964).

As a solo, artist Johnson scored the 1989 UK No.4 hit “Love Train” and the 1989 UK No.1 album Blast. Since the mid 1990s, Johnson has worked primarily as a painter. His works have been exhibited at the Tate Liverpool, and The Royal Academy.

Playlist: 10 great Liverpool groups.

February 10th, 1967, The Beatles recorded the orchestral build-up for the middle and end of “A Day in the Life” for their forthcoming album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. At the Beatles’ request, the orchestra members arrived in full evening dress along with novelty items. One violinist wore a red clown’s nose, while another a fake gorilla’s paw on his bow hand. Others were wearing funny hats and other assorted novelties.

The recording was filmed for a possible Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band television special, which was ultimately abandoned. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mike Nesmith (The Monkees) and Donovan were also all present during the session.

Playlist: Killer closing album tracks

February 11th 1963, Born on this day, Sheryl Crow, American singer, songwriter, who had the 1994 US No.2 & UK No.4 single “All I Wanna Do”, from the 1993 album Tuesday Night Music Club.

Crow toured with Michael Jackson as a backup vocalist during his Bad World Tour from 1987–1989, performing with Jackson on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” Crow has also recorded background vocals for various artists including Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Kid Rock, John Mellencamp and Don Henley.

Click here to listen to this day’s playlist.

February 12th 1967, 15 police officers raided Redlands the West Sussex home of Rolling Stone Keith Richards during a weekend party. The police who were armed with a warrant issued under the dangerous drugs act took away various substances for forensic tests.

George and Pattie Harrison had been at the house, but it was said that the police waited for them to leave before they raided the house in order not to bust the holder of an MBE.

Playlist: Cops and robbers

13th Feb, 1961, Frank Sinatra launched his own record label, Reprise Records, in order to allow more artistic freedom for his own recordings. Hence, he garnered the nickname “The Chairman of the Board.”
One of the label’s founding principles under Sinatra’s leadership was that each artist would have full creative freedom, and at some point complete ownership of their work; including publishing rights. Reprise later became the home of many influential US acts such as Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and The Beach Boys.

10 hits from the 60’s on Reprise

14th Feb, Who said romance was dead? On this day in 1984 Elton John married recording engineer Renate Blauer in Sydney, Australia. The couple divorced three years later. Other stars who married on Valentines day include: Lou Reed, Jerry Garcia, Oasis singer Liam Gallagher,

And in 1996, T.A.F.K.A.P. married Mayte Garcia in a Minneapolis church, he also composed a special song for his wife, “Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother, Wife”, which she heard for the first time when they had their first wedding dance. Garcia had appeared on the US television program That’s Incredible! at the age of 8 as the world’s youngest professional belly dancer. She came to the attention of Prince in 1990 when her mother submitted a video cassette of Mayte performing. The couple split in 1998.

Click here to enjoy this playlist.

In a sea of ‘hot for 2012’ artists, the music of Emeli Sandé stands clearly and confidently miles ahead of the rest. It’s not often you find artists with such versatile songwriting abilities as this young lady, let alone for it to be combined with such a stop-what-you’re-doing-and-listen voice, interesting beats and down right addictive melodies.

Check out a Spotify exclusive track-by-track album preview for a taste of what’s to come next week, when the full album is released, over here.

That’s not all we’ve got for you from Emeli. How do you fancy winning tickets to one of her April UK tour dates as well as the chance to meet the songstress herself backstage? Well just enter here to be in with a chance of winning. Good luck!

Valentine’s day is right around the corner. And single people can celebrate it as well!

Drop in the box below the URL of the track you listen to remind yourself that one’s company. We’ll publish the playlist with your submitted tracks on the 14th.

After causing waves of excitement with the release of their limited edition single ‘Under the Stars’ in November 2010, Morning Parade will release their long-awaited debut album on 5th March. But we have a special treat for Spotify users that can’t wait any longer – you can listen to the album on Spotify now!

But Spotify users can check out the self-titled album for a full month before it’s released elsewhere. And if that’s not enough, you can also check out the bands SE1 Live Session that appeared first exclusively on Spotify last year. Six quality live tracks from the album!

To enjoy this pre-release, click here.

One of the highlights of the Chiddy Bang live show is their freestyling section where Noah plays the beats while Chiddy raps out shout outs from the crowd. They currently hold the record for the world’s longest freestyle.

And here’s your chance to get involved on their next gig, which will be held at the Spotify Offices in London on Thursday the 9th.

Send us in the box below whatever you want Chiddy Bang to freestyle on. We will pick the best and they will get a chance to come to this private gig.

Watch the video and send your suggestions below.

This week M83 have teamed up with Spotify to present an exclusive album commentary on the 2011 double album ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’. Check out the man himself Anthony Gonzalez explain his influences for his 6th album and what it was like to make it in his new home of Los Angeles.

Ringo Starr has also released an exciting track-by-track commentary for his latest album ‘Ringo 2012’. Listen to him explain his inspirations for each track.

Newcomers Django Django are also offering one lucky user the chance to win 1 year of Spotify Premium. Listen and subscribe to their competition playlist to be entered into the draw. Also, don’t forget to check out the band’s exclusive playlists here.

This week we also have a new pre-release sampler from Beth Jeans Houghton. When asked what people can expect from her debut album ‘Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose’, Houghton utters one word: “Thunder”.

To celebrate the pre-release of their new album ‘Be Strong’, The 2 Bears have put together a special playlist.

Don’t forget to check out pre-releases from Sinead O’Connor and Moguai’s new album Mpire that features an exclusive track just for Spotify users.

Our friends at This Day in Music are bringing us some of the most relevant events that happened this week, along with a playlist for each day. Read along and enjoy these musical flashbacks.

1st February 1967, Pink Floyd spent the day recording parts for the Syd Barrett songs “Arnold Layne” and “Candy And A Current Bun” at Sound Techniques Studios, Chelsea, London. Floyd also turned professional on this day after signing a deal with EMI Records.

Written by Barrett, the song that sealed their pop-psychedelic reputation was inspired by a real-life underwear thief who stole women’s clothes from Cambridge washing lines. There was a girl’s college in the City, so there were constantly great lines of bras and knickers on washing lines. The mystery thief was never caught.

Playlist: Men’s names.

2nd February 2004, TV network CBS apologised for its broadcast of the American Super Bowl after Janet Jackson was left exposed when Justin Timberlake ripped her top. The pair had been performing a raunchy half-time duet when one of Jackson’s breasts was exposed as Timberlake pulled at her top. An estimated 140 million people were watching the show when at the end, pop star Justin Timberlake popped off part of Jackson’s corset. Janet explained that her red bra was supposed to remain after Justin pulled off the leather cover - her breast wasn’t supposed to show.

CBS quickly cut away from the scene (which lasted nine-sixteenths of a second), but was still flooded with calls from angry viewers about the half-time entertainment, produced by MTV. Timberlake insisted it had been an accident saying “I am sorry that anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the half-time performance of the Super Bowl.”

Playlist for the day.

3rd February 1959, 22 year old Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, aged 17, died in a crash shortly after take-off from Clear Lake, Iowa, the pilot of the single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza plane was also killed.

Holly had hired the plane after heating problems developed on his tour bus, (with a faulty heating system in 25 °F (−32 °C) temperatures). All three were traveling to Fargo, North Dakota, for the next show on their Winter Dance Party Tour which Holly had set - covering 24 cities in three weeks, to make money after the break-up of his band, The Crickets, last year.

This day’s playlist.

4th February 1983, singer and drummer, Karen Carpenter died aged 32 of a cardiac arrest at her parent’s house in Downey, California; the coroner’s report gave the cause of death of imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa. Carpenter’s death brought lasting media attention to anorexia nervosa, which was a little-known illness at the time.

The Carpenters 1970 album Close To You, featured two hit singles: “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun.” They peaked at No.1 and No.2, on the US chart. In 1975 - In Playboy’s annual opinion poll; readers voted Karen Carpenter the ‘Best Rock Drummer of the year’.

Playlist for the 4th of February.

5th February, 1929, Born on this day, Hal Blaine, American drummer and session musician. He is best known for his work with the ‘Wrecking Crew’ in California. (The ‘Wrecking Crew’ were a group of session musicians who earned wide acclaim in the 1960s who were one of the most successful “groups” of studio musicians in music history).

Blaine played on numerous hits by Elvis Presley, The Byrds, The Ronettes, Simon & Garfunkel, The Carpenters, The Beach Boys, Frank and Nancy Sinatra, The Monkees, Petula Clarke and The 5th Dimension. Blaine played on over 35 US No.1 hits.

Playlist: No.1’s that feature Blaine.

6th February 1998, American singer and guitarist Carl Wilson from The Beach Boys died aged 51 after a long battle with lung cancer. Wilson was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer in early 1997. A founding member of the Beach Boys he sang lead vocals on “God Only Knows”, “Good Vibrations,” and “I Can Hear Music.”

After his elder brother Brian’s retirement from the stage in 1965, Carl became the de facto leader of the band onstage as well as the band’s in-studio leader, producing the bulk of the albums 20/20, Sunflower, Surf’s Up, and Holland.

Wilson who made headlines in 1967 as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, also sang backing vocals on Elton John’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.”

Playlist: Beach Boys songs

As part of an ongoing celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of The Door’s final album ‘L.A. Woman’, Rhino have released a special edition of the album, which includes the previously undiscovered track ‘She Smells So Nice’.

In addition to this new material, the album contains an exclusive track only on Spotify: ‘The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) [Instrumental]’.

Bruce Botnick reveals: “Way back in 1971 when we were recording the L.A. Woman album, we came to a point in the road where we needed another song. Ray and Jim, in looking through Jim’s poetry book, came upon Texas Radio and the Big Beat.”

“We welcome this opportunity to bring you the backing track so that you can experience the creative magic as it happened in the studio.“

Check out the playlists here

If you’ve recently noticed the odd track re-syncing in your offline playlists, there’s no need to worry. We’re currently working on some exciting improvements to make Spotify even better.

This means that you may need to re-sync a small number of tracks as we update our catalogue.

Please bear with us for a short time while we work to improve Spotify. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen a number of great uses of the Spotify Platform that have enabled wonderful new musical experiences. In-client experiences such as Songkick’s integration and Last.fm’s discovery engine. Third party mobile apps like SpotOn and Soundrop. And now we have another great project to let you know about.

One of our Mac OS X engineers has released a libspotify-based desktop client for OS X Lion, Viva, that he’s built to test libspotify and CocoaLibSpotify and as an interesting ‘side project’.

While this isn’t an official Spotify client it is another example of just how powerful and easy it is to build upon the Spotify Platform. If you’re running OS X Lion feel free to check it out, it’s a little rough around the edges but still great to use.

If you’re a developer and want to learn how to build something yourself using the Spotify Platform check out our developer site now.