If you’re looking for something good to listen to, you have tons of services, both free and paid (and both) to choose from. With Grooveshark now sadly departed, it’s time to take a fresh look at the world of streaming music, and see who comes out on top. This week, we’re looking at five of the best, based on your nominations.
Earlier in the week we asked you which streaming music services were the best, whether they were old or new, and which ones you thought were the best. With Grooveshark gone, we needed someone to replace our previous two-time poll winner, and you turned up tons of great nominations. Here they are, in no particular order:
Google Play Music
Google Play Music has been around for a while, but you might not know it by how often Google updates, improves, and adds more features to the service. It launched in beta back in 2011 as essentially a cloud-based music player so you could take your entire music collection with you wherever you went. Then it gave us scan-and-match in 2012 so you got high-quality versions of the crappy mp3s you downloaded years ago, introduced the subscription-based Google Play Music All Access in 2013, rolled YouTube into the mix with YouTube Music Key last year, and even just recently added curated playlists, instant mixes, and more. All in all, you can’t say that Google is neglecting the service, and its 30 million song catalog, all streaming in 320kbps MP3 format, keeps its listeners happy. As a combination music player and store, you can upload your own collection (up to 50,000 songs), have it matched so you get better versions of the songs you own, and then have the option to fill in the blanks in your collection with songs and albums from the Google Play Music store. Even if you don’t want to buy, you can just sit back and listen to automatically generated playlists (using technology from Songza, who we’ll get to later, and who Google acquired in 2014), internet radio, unlimited streaming of any song in the catalog (with a subscription to All Access) and more based on the music you already own and enjoy. Streaming is on-demand with offline access for your favorite tunes so you can keep listening on a plane or anywhere you’re without internet access. Now, with the inclusion of Music Key and YouTube-based music and playlists, Google Music is expanding its sphere to include those people who use YouTube as a primary music discovery and playback service too. The service is available in 58 countries, with a 30-day free trial for All Access, after which it’s $10/month. Even if you don’t sign up for All Access, Google Music is a great cloud-based music storage service and player.
Those of you who nominated Google Play Music praised both the free and paid versions of the service for helping you both store and expand your music collections and access them on all of your devices. Many of you also praised how well their browser player works, even in environments where other streaming music services are blocked, and the fact that Google Play Music makes it so easy to monitor a folder full of tunes that you can just drag and drop new music to and have it instantly uploaded so you can listen to it on your phone is a nice bonus. In fact, ease of use for the money and the breadth of the music selection were some of the features that won over so many of you, and the fact that many of you also use it as an archive and online storage for all of your songs makes it even better than many of the other options. Some of you prefer Google Play Music now especially since Google’s purchase of Songza means a lot of those old mood-based and curated playlists managed to make their way into Play Music, and others are excited for what YouTube Music Key offers, since subscribers to either get all of the features of both for the same price. You can read more love (and some criticism) in the (very lengthy) nomination thread here.
Spotify
When Spotify came to the US back in 2011, it ended an era of tons of us using VPNs and other tricks to get access abroad. Even so, Spotify is so well-established, not just in the US but in the other 60 countries where the service has over 60 million users. The service has come a long way in that time too—in addition to regular updates and redesigns, Spotify also now makes it easy to listen to all of your music offline, gives you a break on the cost of multiple household accounts (and student accounts!), and more. Spotify boasts a catalog of over 20 million songs that you can browse by artist, genre, album, or just search for a specific track, tons of complete albums to listen to in both its free and paid versions, the option to make and share playlists for every mood, event, or whim you may have, scrobbling to Last.fm, and internet radio based on artist, genre, or mood that lets you sit back and do other things while Spotify finds songs you’ll like. Spotify also has its own app ecosystem that other streaming services use to pull music from it (and give you access to your own music), and lets you roll in music on your phone or computer to listen to in the same interface. In fact, there are a ton of Spotify features under the hood you may not have tried, and they’re worth a look. Spotify’s free version gives you a ton of these features, but upgrading to premium strips out the ads, gives you access to the mobile apps, allows you to download music and listen offline, higher quality audio streams (320kbps Vorbis files versus the 160kbps Vorbis format that free users get, although the apps can play local mp3 and AAC files as well), and more. Premium is $10/month, and you can sign up for a 3-month trial for $1.
Those of you who nominated Spotify praised it for being one of the first, and almost ubiquitous, “search for a song and play it immediately” services that also let you keep that song and listen to it whenever you wanted. You loved making and sharing playlists that you could then update and tweak with the help of the people you shared it with, and the option to add friends to Spotify to share music and see what other people were listening to. Others of you say that Spotify is a bit of the gold standard—the streaming service that others are measured against—and that you happily pay for your premium account for the improved audio quality and, of course, the lack of ads. Many of you said you preferred Spotify’s approach to genre or artist-based radio, and some of you praised their promotions and discounts for students and families, which can lead to a much-needed price break on a monthly service. You can read more in this nomination thread, or this one, or this one here.
Pandora
While many people prefer streaming music services that include internet radio along with the option to search and play anything, or the ability to store their own music catalogs, Pandora keeps things simple (and, by contrast, affordable) by sticking to what it does best, and has done well since it launched in 2000: Streaming, interest and genre-based internet radio. Pandora’s model is simple—you create internet radio stations based on genres, artists, or songs, and sit back and thumb up or down the songs you hear to further refine the station. Pandora is the custodian of the Music Genome Project, a massive collection of artists and styles and how they relate to one another, and that technology is integrated into the Pandora service. Even though it’s never been your favorite overall music service, it has been our favorite internet radio service, and not too long ago we compiled a ton of great Pandora stations to listen to while you work. Pandora’s not sitting still, either. Their new Pandora Premieres station streams albums weeks before they’re available to purchase, and after some controversy about their pricing, showed they’re listening to their community even if they do want to make more money. The service comes in free and premium (in the form of Pandora One) flavors, with over 250 million users in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Free users get ad-supported radio stations that stream at 64k AAC+ on the web, and Pandora One users get a boost, with 192kbps streaming on the web. Pandora streams at 128 kpbs on in-home stereo devices, and mobile users all get streams that vary in quality depending on signal, but no more than 64K AAC+. Pandora One users get more skips per hour and ad-free listening. The premium service will set you back $5/month or $55/year, with your choice of monthly or annual billing.
Those of you who nominated Pandora said you often use it in conjunction with another streaming service, because you really appreciate the way Pandora handles the music for you, without you having to lift a finger. Many of you reported the usual issues that Pandora’s always had—repetition in songs and often boring stations, but others pointed out that once you’ve tuned a station you like, hearing some of the same things over again means you’re hearing songs you actually like, which can’t be a bad thing. Others pointed out that you use Pandora One in situations where you like streaming but don’t want to use a ton of data, like streaming on the go in the car (that’s my personal use case) or when you’re abroad, or sipping office Wi-Fi. Others pointed out that Pandora does multi-genre stations right, especially when other services don’t, and that it’s ideal when you want to push a button and have music to listen to, not spend time setting up playlists or searching for music. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
Amazon Prime Music
Amazon Prime Music may be one of the newest contenders in the roundup, having only launched last year, and only boasting about a million songs in its lineup. Even so, Prime Music is adding more music all the time, and is completely free if you have an Amazon Prime account (which you probably do anyway.) Prime Music puts all of that music on all of your devices, both iOS and Android, thanks to the Amazon MP3 app, and can play your local music files as well. As long as you’re online and logged in to Amazon, you can download and play any of the songs in the Prime Music catalog, keep them for offline listening, or stream them directly from the web. You can also leverage Amazon Cloud Player to store your own music in the cloud as well as shop for and buy new music all at the same time. While Amazon’s discrete services are all intertwined by discretely named, the whole collection combines to give you a service that’s a lot like Google Play Music, where you can upload your own tunes and listen to them on the go, buy new music to add to your collection or download for listening on your computer or offline, and free music that comes with having a premium (a la, Amazon Prime) account that you can listen to anywhere, anytime. Amazon Prime Music also recently introduced features like human-curated playlists based on specific artists, genres, or moods in the form of Prime Playlists, and Prime Stations that give you internet radio with unlimited skips and the option to tune them to suit your tastes. Listening is ad-free, and included with your Prime membership. It’s also worth noting that Prime Music streams and downloads are all variable bitrate (averaging 256kbps) MP3 format, without DRM (although all files have metadata that’s identifiable to your Amazon account).
Those of you who nominated it specifically praised it for being great largely because it works with your existing music collection, gives you tons of free music to listen to since you’re already Prime subscribers, and of course the fact that you also get free digital versions of any music you’ve already purchased at Amazon (in CD, vinyl, or mp3 format) automatically added to your account. Many of you love the custom stations and free internet radio offered with Prime Music, and while most of you aren’t in love with the UI, there are some things to love about it. You can read more in the nomination thread here.
plug.dj
Plug.dj is a curious additioin to the lineup, partially because it’s not technically a streaming service (as in, it doesn’t maintain its own catalog of music to listen to or mobile apps to let you take your music on the go), but rather a huge community of music fans and listeners who love to share and listen to music (including some of us here at Lifehacker.) The service has been around for a while, but really came into its own when Turntable.fm shut down, leaving it a popular copycat of the original service that was suddenly more popular, more feature-rich, and more well liked than the one that closed its doors. Plug.dj supports searching the site’s database of shared music from users, YouTube videos, and other web-based music sources to build playlists, and of course, to play for a crowd in a “room” where users take turns DJing for everyone listening to the stream. Users in the room then vote the songs up or down to show their approval (or lack thereof) and influence the flow of the room in general. Even if you start a room all by yourself just to listen to your favorite songs both from your own computer and from around the web, it’s a great way to pass the time, and if you’d prefer to sit back and listen to someone else DJ, or a collection of rotating songs in a fun and active community environment, you can do that too. The service encourages you to participate though, with virtual costumes and stickers for your avatar. The service has come a long long way from being a Turntable clone though—there are tons of communities and rooms to join, an on-site “currency” you can use to buy costumes and avatars, and a premium account that’s $3/month or $30/year that unlocks all avatars and badges, special status as a paying member (that others can see in chat), and more. This, in addition to real money purchases you can make (usually costumes and avatars), help keep the service afloat. Additionally, plug.dj has always been open to international users, and available to anyone who wants to sign up.
Of course, we have to point out that plug.dj encouraged its users to nominate (and support its nomination in droves) it for the top five here, but putting aside the fact that it’s not a music service in the same vein as the others here, even if they hadn’t, it probably would have gotten the support to make the top five. Even though it’s definitely different, it’s a great way to sit back and listen to music at the push of a button, change rooms or different types of music based on your mood or what you want to hear, or get involved and start searching for tunes and building playlists if you want to. Plus, it’s just fun to use. The community is massive, and it’s not uncommon that you can hop on the site in the middle of the night and find a room packed with people all rocking out to some great music. Popular DJs and other promoters often stop by and host DJ rooms on the site, and the social aspect doesn’t just draw people in, it keeps them connected to the site. Don’t take my word for it though, you can read the absolutely massive nomination thread here to learn more.
Now that you’ve seen the top five, it’s time to put them to a vote to determine the Lifehacker community favorite:
Honorable Mentions
This week’s honorable mentions go out to Rdio, which many of you pointed out has the best, most attractive and fun to use interface out of any service you’ve tried, including many of the ones above. Both the mobile apps and the desktop tools work well, get you right to your music, and gives you radio customized to your own tastes, musicians that you already like, and a massive music collection for free (or for $10/month, if you want added features like ad-free streaming, playlists, and full album listening.) Rdio also offers discounted membership for families, students, or even web-only listeners that can save you a few bucks on a generally underrated streaming service that deserves more attention. You can read more praise in its nomination thread here.
Another honorable mention this week goes out to Songza, which arguably was the web’s first “search for whatever you want to hear and play it” services, even if back in those days it didn’t let you hold on to the song you wanted to hear to listen to it again. The service since evolved into an amazing source for human-crafted playlists and radio stations, and was one of the first to offer mood-based stations and playlists that gave you something to listen to based on how you’re feeling. Again, another highly underrated service—but not so underrated that it escaped Google’s notice, who acquired it last year and integrated many of its most popular features into Google Play Music. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn’t included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don’t just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn’t get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [email protected]!
Title photo by Jonathan Grado.