After months of waiting, online music service Spotify will finally launch in the U.S. on Thursday, the company announced tonight.
The service will be available in the morning by invitation and subscription.
"Spotify is a new way to listen to and manage your music, discover new tracks and share songs and playlists with friends – music whenever you want it, wherever you are," the company said in a statement.
Few other details about pricing and plans were provided; Spotify promised more information at 8am Eastern tomorrow morning.
Earlier this month, Spotify put a banner on Spotify.com that said the music service would be coming to the U.S. soon and encouraged users to sign up to receive more details. That banner still graces the Web site; no updates have been made.
Rumors about a U.S. Spotify launch have been making the rounds for months, but deals with U.S. labels have reportedly been the sticking point. Recently, however, Spotify has inked deals with Universal, Sony, and others, according to reports.
Spotify launched in October 2008 and reached 1 million users by March 2009. By April, the site had signed on 1 million paid subscribers.
Until tomorrow, however, Spotify is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands, which last year earned it the distinction of the best music service you can't have.
The popularity of the service, however, prompted it to cut back on some of its free listening time recently. Starting May 1, Spotify limited users to 10 hours per month after the 20-hour per month, six-month free trial ended. Additionally, users were only able to play each track five times. The company's Unlimited and Premium services were not affected.
Spotify gave PCMag an inside look at the service last year and we were eager for it to launch stateside. For more, check out PCMag's full review and the slideshow below.
Update: Spotify launched in the U.S. this morning with an invite-only free version and two paid options.