This week we start off with a great competition offering you the chance to win a trip to New York City.

Discover the enchanting world of Andrea Bocelli with our fantastic selection of tracks from his formidable catalogue. Subscribe to the playlist for your chance to win a trip to New York City to see Andrea Bocelli live in Central Park on 15th September.

See the competition terms and conditions here.

We also have another great Mercury Music award nominee to highlight today. English electropop stars Metronomy have created their own Spotify profile so you can check our their entire catalogue.

Who wants to meet the hottest DJ and producer in the world?

Superstar DJ, David Guetta, released his latest album, Nothing But The Beat, yesterday. This fantastic album includes the smash hit, Little Bad Girl.

To celebrate, we’re offering you and a friend the chance to win a VIP trip to meet David as he performs his final Ibiza show on September 15th. Like the sound of that? We’ll pick up the tab for your flights, accommodation and tickets.

Spotify listeners are also be treated to an exclusive version of the new album with track-by-track audio commentary from David.

To enter the competition, just click over to David’s personal Spotify page. There’s also exclusive video footage to enjoy, as well as his impressive discography. Good luck!

Check out our latest video from Big Chill Festival! We had a heart-to-heart with the legendary Sharon Jones from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Devoted to reviving soul and funk music, Sharon shared with us some great insights on the genre as a whole, and spotlighted some up and coming artists that are catching her attention!

Head to our Spotify Live channel for other awesome Big Chill interviews and Studio Sessions!

Bombay Bicycle Club release their third album, ‘A Different Kind of Fix’ this Monday and Spotify subscribers can hear it first before anyone else.

Following the teenage indie kicks of their debut to the sparse timeless folk of last summer’s top ten album, ‘Flaws’. The quartet open a new and beguiling chapter with, ‘A Different Kind of Fix’, one that cements their place at the very forefront of British bands in 2011.

Recorded in Hamburg, London and Atlanta, ‘A Different Kind of Fix’ captures the sound of a band effortlessly progressing and innovating at a startling rate. Guitars are firmly plugged back in for album number three, but added to the mix with potent results are synths, sampled loops, layered vocals from all four band members and washes of reverb throughout.

If you are a Spotify Premium you can also listen to a special deluxe edition of the album featuring a beautiful session of acoustic tracks. Check it out here.

We’re delighted to let you know that Spotify is now available for SoundHound’s apps on iPhone, iPod touch and Android in Europe.

Just tap the new “Play Now in Spotify” feature to go direct from Soundhound to our Spotify Mobile apps where Spotify Premium subscribers can immediately listen to the full track and explore more music from the tagged artist.

One of SoundHound’s feature that we just love is that you can hum or sing a song into your phone and they’ll identify it for you. So get your best singing voice ready and download SoundHound now.

Starting today Spotify will give you the latest and hottest music news right here on our blog. New releases, exclusive playlists and more will be posted every week - watch this space!

This week’s news include:

• Following on from her multi-million selling, multi-award winning, global smash of a debut album Lungs, Florence returns with the new single What The Water Gave Me, available to listen on Spotify now. Also, stay tuned for more information about the forthcoming, as yet untitled album.
• Earlier this month our friends over at [PIAS] had their distribution warehouse burnt down in the London riots. PIAS is home to some of the world’s leading independent artists and labels so be sure to give their great indie artists a listen - check them out here!

We also have three great artists who are all nominated for the Mercury Music awards.

• King Creosote and John Hopkins with an Spotify exclusive track “Aurora Boring Alias” here!
• Anna Calvi with some exclusive live tracks here.
• Also check out this personal Katy B playlist where she lists some of her playlists and what she’s listening to right now. You’ll find it here!

Here at Spotify we believe that sharing is a fundamental aspect of enjoying and discovering music. With this in mind, we’ve developed collaborative playlists to help you spread the love. This means that not only are you able to share playlists with others, you can also open them up to collective compiling and editing!

How to Collaborate

In order to turn on collaboration for a playlist, right-click (or Ctrl-click on the Mac) the list and select the “Collaborative Playlist” option. Next, copy the HTTP link or Spotify URI of the playlist and send it to a friend.

When your friend clicks on the link, it opens in Spotify and your collaborative playlist is added. Now you can both make changes, which will appear on both of your screens instantly. Collaborative playlists appear with a green icon and text, and sync automatically between the different users managing that playlist.

Sharing the Playlist

You can share the playlist with any number of people. Anyone who gets the link will be able to alter your playlist, as well as pass the link onto others. There is currently no way to give only specific users the right to alter a collaborative playlist, other than by controlling the access to the link. The link is the key to the playlist. You can, however, turn off the ‘collaborativity’ of the playlist the same way you turned it on. Everyone who has got the link will still be able to view and play the list but only you will be able to alter it.

We have a small, yet important, update to our Android app available for download in our Preview section now.

This update adds language support for French and Spanish. Head over to the preview page and follow the installation instructions. Once we’ve tested this preview a little bit more we’ll release it for all users in the Android Marketplace.

New Releases – August 2011

Each and every month we’re creating a playlist dedicated to the very latest Spotify releases. Updated weekly – or any other time we discover tracks we think you’ll like – this is the best place to check out the best new music around. Currently ready and waiting for you on this month’s edition are tracks from Blink 182, Ed Sheeran, Among Brothers, Yuck; a killer Serban Ghenea remix of Björk’s Cosmogony and the new, incredible Balearic-indebted release from Paul Weller.

The Soundtrack to July 2011

The beginning of the month is always a particularly exciting time here at SMP Towers, as our favourite monthly mixtapes make their way from your brains to our hompage. The granddaddy of all of our regular playlists is The Soundtrack to…, by Phil Wilce. The best of a brilliant collection of new music, as far as we’re concerned, comes in the shape of Maverick Sabre, The Horrors, The Chemical Brothers, Toddla T, Sbtrkt and Tom Vek.

August 2011 - Acid Jazz Hispano

The Acid Jazz Hispano series seems to get better and better each month, turning in the coolest cuts of funky, jazzy, soulful, housey, hip-hop beats. This month is no exception. Featured here: Mark Ronson feat. Kasabian, Los Amigos Invisibles, Prince, Roy Ayers… need we go on? We will anyway: Gladys Knight & The Pips, Marvin Gaye, Alabama 3, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Joe Smooth, Amy Winehouse and tons more. If you only listen to one playlist today – don’t, listen to loads! – make it this one.

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Just over a week has passed since the Big Chill Festival and we hope you all had a great time – we sure did! In case you missed the festival or if your memory of it is slightly blurry we’ve compiled videos with some of the great artists who performed to jolt your memory…

One of the bands that popped in were Crystal Fighters who were nice enough to sing their song “Follow”.

Ghostpoet also stopped by to sing us “Survive it” - great stuff!

Also, check out interviews with the bands below. Enjoy!

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