It’s remarkable how the music industry has transformed over the last decade. After dumping CDs behind, we went through a period of downloading music from iTunes and then as other music stores popped up (Amazon, Sony, etc.), the entire music industry started moving towards streaming music as a service either as a subscription model or one powered by ads with limited capacity.
Pandora, Rdio, Google Music, Sony Music Unlimited and even iTunes Radio are all top favorite music services that bring you unlimited music direct from the cloud. I admit, I was late to the streaming music movement. I liked having music stored locally in my iPhone. It’s handy to have music local because sometimes you’re in the places where there is no Wi-Fi (I don’t have the data capacity to steam music over LTE); i.e. the subway. After getting hooked to Pandora, I’ve since moved on to Spotify.
While Spotify launched in 2008, it wasn’t until 2011 when it became available in the U.S. There are two tiers to Spotify: free and premium. With free, you get access to millions of streaming songs from an unending number of artists, but you’ll hear ads every couple of songs and you can only skip a max of six songs within an hour. Upgrade to premium for $9.99 a month and you’ll get ad-free music streaming to any device, as well as the ability to download songs for offline listening. Premium also nets you higher fidelity music, which may or may not be important to you. (It is if you’re an audiophile.)
What I love about Spotify is that I can access it from any device (on several platforms): smartphone, tablet or computer. I’m one of those people who doesn’t really keep up with the latest music, so a quick listen through a playlist like the Top 100 pop songs is a good place to get caught up. I haven’t taken the plunge for the premium version yet, though. I honestly don’t mind the ads, but it annoys me to no end when I can’t skip as much as I want within an hour.
If you’re looking for a versatile service that will help you discover new music and artists or just want some funky new music to play at your house party, Spotify is a clear frontrunner.
Price: Free
Source: iTunes / Google Play / Windows Phone / BlackBerry
