Spotify launches -- but no free music yet

After so many spurts and stutters, free European music- on-demand service Spotify finally launched today, but the free music is extremely hard to come by.

Visitors to Spotify's site see a box to request an invite for the free, ad-supported music. If you're willing to pay $4.99 or $9.99 a month for the music, no problem -- the links will take you right there and you can sign up.

So how to get an invite when so many folks apparently covet them? Well, Lifehacker has some tips and tricks -- mostly by saying that you reside in England when you in fact do not. Many Spotify fans on Facebook Thursday morning offered invite trades, and lamented the fact that Spotify launched without an iPad app. But Spotify isn't alone without an iPad app. Rival subscription services MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody and Napster don't have one either. (All have iPhone apps, however.)

Sweden-based Spotify has 10 million subscribers in Europe.

Spotify's YouTube "Hello America," video, below.