The normally-great Slate has recently published a piece on what writer Farhad Manjoo is claiming to be the bestest music-streaming service in the entire world ever. In Manjoo’s hymn of praise to Spotify, he claims that you’d quit all that illegal BitTorrent downloading if only you used this desktop application, as opposed to clunky MySpace music and its ilk.

While Manjoo believes this is clearly the best thing since Pandora and Napster (the free kind, not the has-been subscription service it eventually become), there’s a catch. The UK program is not available in the U.S.

Rather than explore other domestic alternatives (is Imeem really that bad?), Manjoo “sneaked in through a proxy server” to test Spotify. And it was great! He even was able to listen to “Man In The Mirror” by Michael Jackson! Also, Manjoo would like us to know he can see the Pacific Ocean from his window, which doesn’t at all make him sound like a douche.