Spotify has finally come to Canada, and I was beyond excited to get the invitation to test it out this morning. Yes, it has taken this long for Spotify to reach the Great North, but the wait was worth it. Fellow Canadian residents, here’s what you have to look forward to.

Downloading and Signing-Up

Really, there’s not much to add here. Simply go to the Spotify page (once the service has been made public), wait for the app to download, and sign in. You can connect using Facebook, or you can sign in with a username and password. Once that’s done, you can start to play around with the app.

First Impressions

If you do connect your Spotify account with Facebook, note that there’s a “show what I listen to on Facebook” option. Turn that option off if you don’t want your friends to know about your love for Nickelback. If you don’t care, flip that option on. After that, simply hit the “Get Started” button, and submerse yourself into Spotify goodness.

Browse

On the main screen (“Browse), you can choose to view the “Viral 50,” top lists, different genres, new releases, and even a news option, which I find really interesting if you want to learn about what’s happening on the music scene (when I logged in, news about Spotify in Canada was on the front page). The genre category is fun too, since you can choose things like workout music, date music, and other pre-made mixes.

Radio

There are a whole lot of different radio stations on Spotify that you can follow and tune into when you want to listen to something unique, or you want to follow a particular genre. You can tune into classical radio, different DJs, 70s, 80s – pretty much everything.

Follow

Here’s where you can stalk your friends, or find someone really interesting-looking from another city to follow (under “tastemakers”). If you did connect your Spotify account to your Facebook account, you will see all of your Facebook friends that use the service under the “follow” tab.

Other Categories

You’ll also find things like “top lists,” “messages,” “queue,” “devices,” and “app finder” – most of those are pretty self-explanatory.

Connecting to iPhone or Android

Just open up the Spotify app on your iPhone or Android phone once you’re connected to the same WiFi as your computer, and access your tunes.

Availability In Canada

Being able to read bios is a great addition to Spotify. It’s also really easy to discover new music, and to see what your friends are listening to. I can live without the ads, but Spotify is offering a free 30-day trial of the Premium service, so you can see what life without ads is like. So, when can you sign up for Spotify if you live in Canada?

The service will be available to all very soon – no specific launch date was listed, but I’m guessing in few weeks all of Canada will have access to Spotify. As Canadian residents, we aren’t completely devoid of other streaming music services (we do have Rdio and others), but the Spotify buzz has been building for a long time, and now I can stop being jealous of my American pals.